Couple of pertinent responses here, and I'd like to risk boring the a**e of other readers to respond.
I absolutely agree that 'strategic' decisions taken by RAF VSOs on budget cuts have had a very bad effect on UK Military Airworthiness. I also know that there have been occasions when senior civil servants have issued what can only be construed as illegal orders. These are serious matters.
But I think this case shows a disturbing lack of 'grip' at a relatively low level of engineering rank. Once the VSOs had decided to procure a fleet of aircraft (I believe out of RAF in-year 'underspend' - particularly galling as my own support budgets for Sea Harrier had been raided the previous year to prop up support for RAF engines) then the business of maintaining airworthiness would, quite properly, fall to the engineers at the Command, stations and units involved.
From what I can conclude from the limited evidence available, there seems to have been a severe lack of attention to detail and a reluctance to execute the basic, straightforward, easy routines that would have kept this fleet airworthy.
Yes, one can draw a line from the actions of VSOs in the 80s to these problems in the 90s and the 00s. For my part, I prefer to keep the focus on those who had the job to do and, apparently, just didn't do it. If there is ever to be a proper enquiry into this one, I honestly don't think it's worth starting with ACM Alcock's support budget cuts ten years earlier. As I've suggested, the thing to get the investigative juices should be this simple question:
'Was the RAF flying schoolchildren around in potentially non-airworthy aircraft?'
If the answer to that is 'yes', let's, for the sake of all that's holy, find out why. Start with the F700s and the correspondence and keep digging.
Best regards as ever to all those who uphold the ethics of engineering
Engines