not reasonably practicable to implement
One problem becomes obvious. The blurring of what is and isn't practicable caused by arbitrary, and quite draconian, cuts to safety related funding. "Practicable" gets overtaken with "don't do it" and "waste of money". Same applies to manning safety/risk related posts. In the Nimrod Review, much was made by Haddon-Cave of the performance of the Safety Manager, who was parachuted into a job he was untrained for, without any superiors who had the slightest clue. That is not their fault; it was, and remains, an organisational fault. But what Haddon-Cave omitted to say or comment on was the (to MoD staff) astonishing fact that the DLO Nimrod IPT had actually been allocated a Safety Manager in the first place. In this period (early 00s) our 2 Star in DPA (Chinook, Nimrod, etc) flatly refused to allocate safety or risk related posts. There was no pretence. Not required. Waste of time and money. Functionally unsafe aircraft can be delivered - just sign to say they're ok.
In this case, even though I've never had dealings with Martin Baker, I find it impossible to conceive of them not fulfilling their contractual obligations. But, while the MoD may have been a customer, how quickly and to what extent does that obligation recede if you're no longer under proper contract? How long do you wait without income before making staff redundant? If or when a contract appears, how long does it take to recruit and retrain staff, and do you still retain corporate memory? Where are the MoD staff whose job it is to monitor and manage this situation? The MoD(PE) section who did this (on avionics) was disbanded in June 1993, after 3 consecutive years of 28% cuts. Within 12 months major contractors, with a better cash flow than Martin Baker, were laying off staff and warning MoD of huge start-up costs should it ever want more work done. Some beancounter would hoover up gongs and awards for reducing in-year expenditure, while everyone else was preparing for a huge bow-wave and financial black hole. My concern today is that Martin Baker don't retain sufficient knowledge to defend themselves.