Speaking as a middle-manager in the government, I can say that I outright hate that rule. In my division have an okay computer system for what we are doing, but there are parts of the system that are inefficient and require the users to do a lot of manual effort. I have an arms-length list of things that I want to do that would make the system more efficient and reduce the number of necessary users (and with the roll-over we've been having, we *NEED* to be more efficient).
However, the boss won't let us hire anyone because "we don't know if the Conservatives will cut our budget next year". So we've got more than enough budget now to pay someone this year that will likely be spent on chairs, new computers, painting the boardroom... money that SHOULD be spent on making the government more efficient will end up being spent on frivilous garbage. I really don't understand why we can't *save* the money in case there is a cut next year rather than being "forced" to spend it in areas that we don't need it.
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