The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

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11.86
Chapter 11 – Nimrod Safety Case: Analysis and Criticisms
I reject Richard Oldfield’s belated and faint suggestion in interview that he did present his manuscript figures at
the meeting. There is no evidence that at any stage in the meeting the figures were disclosed to the Nimrod IPT
or QinetiQ by him or anyone else at BAE Systems. If they had been, I have no doubt that they would have been
recorded in Witness K [BAE Systems]’s notebook and the subject of comment.
I am satisfied on the evidence that at no stage during any of these presentations did any of the BAE Systems
representatives inform the Nimrod IPT and QinetiQ as to how much ‘extant’ mitigation had in fact been found, or
draw attention to the large percentage of the 105 hazards which it had, in fact, left “Open” and/or “Unclassified”
and the quantity of work remaining. On the contrary, the impression given was that the task was complete and
the Nimrod could be ‘deemed ALARP’, subject to minor recommendations. The picture presented to the Nimrod
IPT and QinetiQ by BAE Systems at the Customer Acceptance Conference was, therefore, materially inaccurate,
incomplete and misleading.
Glaring and inexcusable omission
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In my view, the failure to tell the customer the precise figures was a glaring and inexcusable omission. As
pointed out in interview, the single most important thing which a customer at a task ‘hand over’ meeting such
as this would want to know, and was fully entitled to be told, was precisely how many hazards the company
carrying out the task had managed successfully to ‘classify and close’, and how many remained to be ‘managed’
and the potential level of risk that these remaining hazards carried. In my view, it was the clear duty of the
company to give the customer the full facts and figures as to precisely how much hazard mitigation work had
been completed and how much remained to be done. It is not good enough to flash draft tables up on the
screen and suggest (as Witness C [BAE Systems] did to the Review) that “the information to enable them [the
customer] to come up with that identical calculation was provided to them”, i.e. a suggestion that the customer
ought to have worked out the figures for itself. It was the duty of those at BAE Systems presenting “the results”
of their NSC Phase 2 work to do so fully, openly and frankly. They did not do so.
Uncomfortable bystanders kept ‘schtum’
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‘Pools win’
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There was compelling evidence by some of the other, more junior, BAE Systems representatives present at the
meeting, namely Witness K [BAE Systems], Witness T [BAE Systems], Witness C [BAE Systems] and Witness P
[BAE Systems], that they felt like “uncomfortable bystanders” at the meeting, but did not feel it was their place
to speak out with their BAE Systems management superiors present and in charge of conducting the meeting.
They therefore kept “schtum”. They were nonetheless clearly concerned about the time that they had been
allotted to complete the task, the quality of work and the fact that it was not finished. The hope was that the
‘customer’ would not ask any awkward questions. Luckily for BAE Systems, no-one did.
In my view, the senior BAE Systems management personnel present, Chris Lowe, Richard Oldfield and Eric
Prince, were intent on securing the sign-off of the NSC task within the deadline and harvesting the prestige,
and further business, that they hoped would follow from the successful completion of the project. This was
to be a “pools win” for BAE Systems. This is why they sought to give the misleading impression to the Nimrod
IPT and QinetiQ representatives present that PDS Task 06-3409 had now been completed: mitigation evidence
had been ‘sourced’ by BAE Systems for most of the 105 hazards and entered into CASSANDRA; the areas
where mitigating evidence was not ‘extant’ and risks remained ‘unclassified’ were relatively minor and, in any
event, covered by appropriate BAE Systems’ recommendations; the six BAE Systems ‘deliverable’ reports had
effectively been completed and merely needed final approval and signatures; and both the Nimrod types could
be considered “acceptably safe to operate and maintain”. Therefore, the aims and objectives of the NSC project
and the “Top Level Goal” had successfully been demonstrated as achieved. Accordingly, the IPT could safely
‘sign-off’ PDS Task 06-3409 and make final payment.
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