Olympia 463
Remember the civil servants in the PE are there to do the bidding of the service officers.
Misconception here. Civil Servants are there to implement government policy. Very few have serving officers in their immediate line management chain. However, since Requirement Managers' posts were 'militarised', they are seen to procure what serving officers put their name to. If you study most successful programmes, you'll find the CS has quietly tossed the endorsed requirement in the bin and written something sensible and which doesn't defy the laws of physics. That is not to denigrate serving officers. As you say, they get a 2 year post, whereas a CS Requirement Manager (of old) had already spent at least 10 years being trained to do the job.
If a Requirements Manager isn't an engineer, straight away he can't do much of his job and MoD has to employ others to supplement his post. It seldom does. The problems discussed here are essentially engineering related, plus a failure of management oversight. Look at them carefully, and prevention/solution is something CS needed to demonstrate competence at before being promoted into MoD(PE). Today, most CS don't understand the concept of there being at least 5 technical grades below the PE/DE&S minima. At four of them, every single incumbent should know the prevention and cure. In fact, I've known 4th year apprentices who I'd happily delegate this to. It really is THAT basic.