Ryanair with attitude
I could never understand how anyone else could do it cheaper than the RAF in house, after all if air tankers can secure the tankerage at a good price contract AND make money on it, why can't the UK PLC do it cheaper as they are not reliant on the profit.. Look at air tankers, ok they may well have built the infrastructure up at Brize etc, but you are paying for it, and then some to form their profit margins.
Cost of maintenance, if air tanker etc bring in contractors to their or should that be your facilities and make money, why can the RAF not do similar....
You have the guys, they have the skills, this is something the RAF do not seem to recognise, a lot of those folks brought in by Civi contractors to work on RAF aircraft doing repairs etc are ex RAF who are simply freed from the stigma and limitations placed upon them during their service, and doing jobs that the RAF deemed to complex etc for them to carry out.
The VCTen rewire, that was done by Hunting, why the RAF couldn't have done that in house cheaper is beyond me, a lot of ex RAF contractors were used along with Hunting staff, the only thing I can think is simply the rank structure.. Civi street has unLicensed, Licensed supervisory engineers, management and senior management structures, 4 or 5 possible steps with a separate tech records dealing with those aspects. Put that across to the services you could ditch several rank levels totally. Chief tech, Sgt, corporal could merge with simple pay increments on qualifications, the same goes for LAC, SAC, SAC Tech, and Flight Sgt, WO..... Officer grades more so.
When you look at some structures Civi wise and the coverage it involves, they take in most RAF ranks
Some civilian qualifications could cover UnLicensed, Licensed, Supervisory, Chief Engineer, and what was a Nominated Engineer in which one would inspect and recommend Certificates of Airworthiness which the CAA endorse based on the inspections of both the aircraft, repairs and all of the Airworthiness issues, Airworthiness Directives, Service Bulletiens , Service Letters etc.. That in effect is about the whole of the RAF ranks structure rolled into one. And can be held and carried out by a single individual covering hundreds of different aircraft types and engines.