POBJOY,
I have some knowledge of the organisation, and its HQ, to which you refer (27 years in the RAF and then two years as a subbie to said organisation in and around 2008).
I highly doubt this is all down to the incompetence of individuals. Rather I suspect it is "structural" in nature. Public sector bodies, whoever they are, wherever they are, just don't do well at this sort of thing - its the nature of the beast. The military writ large have been ****ing up procurement for ever. Just recently circa 3.5 billion of tax payers wonga flushed down the lavvie for the MRA4, and that's just the tip of pretty monster iceberg.
Nor is it just the military...I live near Edinburgh a city that could not put up a building or lay a couple of miles of tram tracks without lawsuits, humongous delays and massive (10X FFS!) budget overuns.
It is what it is buddy. That's the nature of the country we live in. Blaming people is the easy (and not very nice) option.