A Basic Primer on Naval Shipbuilding /

But perhaps the largest contributor to the weaknesses in initial budgets was the deterioration of the capability to generate high-end cost estimates for defence platforms. [...] This was a capability that was somewhat sacrificed in the 1990s as part of the 23 per cent reductions in all government departments to address the national institutional deficit created in the 1970s and 1980s. [...] In defence contracting, the selection of a prime is preferred to be from the capable (agile, knowledgeable and experienced) private sector, and it is usually left to the private sector to self- organize in this regard. [...] This is because the contract will be focused first on the AOPS, the third ship of the class now in construction. [...] In such cases, any contract put in place will be challenged from day one, as the client attempts to enforce the agreed trading deal and the supplier works to exploit loopholes and government behaviours and to subsequently reopen the contract to cover their costs and increase profits.