Tempest has been given an "amber/red" rating by the IPA with the warning that more funding is required or their could be a delay in the aircraft entering service.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
I've put this comment elsewhere regarding both FSS and Tempest. Thought it would bear repeating.
TLDR - Don't rely too heavily on UK Government Programme RAG statuses as reported in the press...
I do wish the trade press (and the press in general) would actually get a real understanding of IPA RAG statuses (IPA=Infrastructure and Projects Authority, RAG=Red Amber Green). Yes there is a clear definition of what each level means (Red, Red/Amber, Amber, Amber/Green and Green) in writing, but the actual RAG status assigned to GMPP (Government Major Project Portfolio) programmes is given in a rather opaque manner. Reviewers are brought in to an IPA review (either at a defined Gateway, or at the request of the SRO, Senior Responsible Officer, for a semi-private Project Assurance Review, also known as PAR) and assign a RAG status and issue a report, which includes an assessment and recommendations. They are exceptionally conservative with this, after all no one will ever criticise them for a programme that they assign a Red RAG to that goes on to be successful…giving a Green to a programme that fails is an issue however….these assigned RAG statuses permeate all reporting. When you report quarterly to the IPA, or annually for the Transparency Return, which is publically published, you’re mad if you try and stray too far from an IPA RAG status that has been assessed recently. This has the effect of there always being a lag in the system of the actual RAG status, particularly in long running programmes that might not have really frequent reviews.
Speaking from experience I recently completed a GMPP programme, we were rated Red for 4 years, before making a brief foray into Amber/Red. By any reading of the definition, as its published, after 4 years of 'Red' status we should have failed or have been stopped. We were given a Green rating only at the final Gateway, the Gateway that happens after you've actually finished,….as we had successfully delivered a ‘novel and contentious’ programme early, dramatically under budget, with rave reviews from industry/users and with provable cash benefits over twice as great as the business case stated (and we were told for years that it was overly ambitious)….
Basically… treat RAG statuses with a degree of caution….Red and Red/Amber do not always mean exactly what the definition says…other variables are factored in with a great big dollop of reviewers caution and bias.