yes but one more thing....
..... i couldnt give a flying f**k who builds, designs or even dreams these things up what really pisses me off is that a company comes to the MOD and says,
"hay look look at this wonderful new toy i have"
and the MOD says hell yeah, we'll take some of those but we need it to do x y and z as well"
They say, "no bother bob it will probably take 5 years and cost around £500 million"
10 years later and and £1 billions over budget
"are you nearly there yet? been quite awhile now?"
"ah- nope, we had another technical difficulty, we'll need to charge you a few more million"
OR
MOD says we want new toy that does this..."who can do this, whos the cheapest and how long?"
business man says, yup, 5 years £500 million
another chap comes out with, aye wee man, ill have it done for a couple of pints and a pack of fags, done next year mate.
MOD - jobs yours mate, have a smoke on me whilst you get started
10 years later and £1 billion
MOD "are you nearly there yet? been quite awhile now?"
"ah- nope, we had a technical difficulty, we'll need to charge you a few more million"
Now obviously its a lot more complicated but essentially that is what is happening, if a company says they are going to do something for a price then they should do it for that price or they should have kept there mouths shut if they couldnt do it. we should be fining any company that keeps shafting us like that. If a contract is won based on a bid then its there fault for bidding too low, of course there will be small changes in price but any other company out there producting anything will be held acountable if they dont do what they said they would.