The behavioural factors described above have been apparent to many inside and outside the Department for some time. Gaming, entry-ism, and technical over-reach extend back over many decades of defence procurement under various equipment acquisition models. These causes of plan overheating and unaffordability have been kept in check by periodic cutbacks in current or planned expenditure through strategic defence reviews or in some cases, drop out of major programmes for other reasons.
The elapsed time since the last defence review is long by historical standards (see Chapter 5). This is consistent with an observed level of overheating from behavioural factors which has become extreme. As noted in the analysis of successive EPPs above, the level of annual growth in the forward plan is significantly above the average annual expenditure either historically or prospectively. By definition this means that further delay is inevitable as the peaks are re-profiled to fit the annual expenditure limit. Without significant deletions from the plan, the delivery times of productive output continue to be more and more delayed, as the level of current annual expenditure remains broadly flat.