When the RAF brought in something called “NMS” (New Management Strategy), in the mid 1980s, finite financial resources were given to local commanders, rather than being held centrally. Essentially this meant that stations had to manage their own budget. Squadron commanders likewise. Responsibility obviously flows downhill (putting it politely).
Because no extra staff were given to manage budgets (and as far as I recall, no financial training was given to existing personnel) this resulted in a great deal of stress and a large extra workload for local units.
Our Squadron boss was seldom seen again - he seemed to spend most of his time in his office, rather than leading from the front.
I remember having a number of consecutive leave application passes rejected, meaning that I had been allowed only a small fraction of my leave allocation in one year. After an AOC’s visit two of us were called into the Boss’s office to explain why we had not taken leave; questions had obviously been asked by his staff. I reminded the Boss that it was because he had personally turned down my leave applications, or at least his signature was on them. He seemed rather embarrassed but nothing more was said.
I later discovered from a flight lieutenant navigator, who had been given responsibility for vetting certain parts of the unit budget, that leave passes had been turned down because money allocated for leave travel had been overspent! So staff leave was being sacrificed to avoid risking embarrassment over further overspend.
It was that same Boss who announced that the unit would henceforth work an early shift and a late shift, to gain maximum usage of the reducing number of aircraft available. After a couple of weeks we all found ourselves working both shifts.
More reasons why I took my option to leave. But at least it worked out well for said Boss, he later made Air Rank.