We don't even have the luxury of in-house advice any more. Now we just pay through the nose for QinetiQ to make a half-arsed study that recommends a barely-useful minimum level of clearance and concludes that a more useful release would need further study, at a cost of £excessive. Yes, a lot of new kit can be complex. But one would imagine that, occasionally, with the simple stuff, they would be able to recommend a full release at the first time of asking. Never seen it myself; it's beyond a joke.
If a competitor could assemble a team with expertise in a particular area, and undercut QinetiQ in both cost and time, there would be muchos money to be made... providing they could persuade DE&S to contract them. Seems to me that DE&S has become accustomed to the "reassuringly expensive" advice they get from QinetiQ; anything cheaper must be coming from a cowboy outfit. It needs shaking up, big time.