Polaris Cost
“by 10/68 the program had cost some £350Mn., only 5% (>) the estimated sum”, Vickers’ Chairman: “the best defence bargain the Br. taxpayer ever had.” Grove,Vanguard to Trident,Bodley Head,1987,P.243. The Nassau Connection,HMSO, 1994 asserts good management. Such claims were unverifiable because of security;the datum lacked any benchmark. Unused contingency funds yielded the savings: these boats were estimated by bloat: R.Moore,RN & Nuclear Weapons,H’wood,2001,P17, quoting RN's SPO: “I hadn’t the faintest idea (of hull build) so I took projected cost of Valiant (SSN) and doubled it.”
Nobody had any notion about these things in 1957-60. Separate budgets for each activity, never drawn together. UK did not introduce a feeble attempt at Project Costing until 1964.