The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Nimrod Review
10A.105 In the light of the above, there can be little doubt that Martyn Mahy and QinetiQ were expecting to conduct
their own “review” of the completed NSC in due course, and to check and comment upon the substance and
detail of what they found. The fact that there were no formal instructions to do so qua ISA was unfortunate;
but QinetiQ’s status as ‘independent advisor’ in relation the NSC was clearly regarded as sufficient at the
time.
BAE Systems’ price for Phase 2
59 10A.106 The WBS gave rise to a price estimate of £228,859.75 inclusive of profit. There was some complaint from
the IPT that this was too high. BAE Systems’ Commercial Department assured the IPT that BAE Systems was
not “trying it on” and that the estimate had been based on the Statement of Work which had been jointly
developed by Richard Oldfield and Frank Walsh and that since the NSC was a “high risk” project, it attracted
the appropriate risk factor. (It is difficult to see, however, that searching archived reports might be said to
be “high risk”.) On 23 January 2004, the commercial branch of the Nimrod IPT authorised BAE Systems to
carry out the Phase 2 work for a price of £212,048.40. A six month period was allowed, with a start date of
4 February 2004 and a finish date of 30 July 2004.
BAE Systems’ own evidence
10A.107 The Review has had to piece together the story of Phase 2 of the production of the NSC from the personal
archives and notebooks of BAE Systems’ personnel that came to light very late in the day. A number of
contemporaneous personal notebooks of BAE Systems’ personnel were produced, together with dozens
of volumes of minutes of internal BAE Systems meetings, correspondence and other contemporaneous
documents.
Witness K [BAE Systems]’s Notebooks
10A.108 These contemporaneous documents and records proved illuminating. Of particular importance were the
manuscript notebooks of Witness K [BAE Systems], an engineer in Mech Systems, whose line manager was
Eric Prince (BAE Systems’ Flight Systems and Avionics Manager). These provided a detailed and meticulous
record of events as they unfolded, as well as a remarkably candid commentary of his unvarnished views at
the time. On the surface, there was no reason to suppose that this project was not progressing relatively
smoothly, with no major problems and with all those involved on the BAE Systems side confident in how they
were going about it and confident as regards completing it on time and according to budget. The reality,
however, was very different. Almost from the outset, the project was beset by delays, doubts and divisions.
Early problems
10A.109 There were a number of problems which manifested themselves right from the outset regarding BAE Systems’
handling of Phase 2. First, a lack of clear direction by BAE Systems’ management team as to how, in practice,
the hazard mitigation process was to be carried out and the precise methodology to be employed. The
project management was poor from the start. Second, the man-hour estimates for the mitigation exercise
were inadequate. It transpired that the original estimates given by the specialist departments had been for
document searches only, and did not include time spent on analysing them. Third, the initial document
searches revealed little by way of developmental reports in the archives which could be used for the purposes
of hazard mitigating evidence. This was contrary to what had been envisaged and expected. Fourth, there
were manpower resources problems, particularly with the Electrical Systems. Fifth, a difference of opinion
as to approach, coupled with a clash of personalities, quickly led to significant tensions developing between
two key members of the BAE Systems’ team (Chris Lowe and Witness K [BAE Systems]). These tensions
were allowed to fester and cause an element of paralysis of the project for some months. These problems
persisted. I analyse these issues further in Chapter 11.
59 See Order Pricing dated 9 December 2003.
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