I have watched something very similar going on at two other large, quasi-governmental three-letter-named national organisations (one begins with N, one with B). The process is exactly as described - plus, as I expect happens with the RAF, the exasperated users who actually have to do the work end up buying at their own expense and maintaining through informal support networks unofficial systems that actually work. Usually in the face of people doing their best to outlaw such things: "data security" is a good excuse to actively prosecute anyone who tries to find a work-around.
In one case with which I am particularly familiar, the combination of getting an incompetent outside agency to completely replace existing systems, sacking all those with actual expertise in running the organisation's IT, and passing all support over to incompetent helplines and on-site consultants who can't see that they're not working with a bog standard enterprise with bog standard needs, has led to regular and spectacular failures and near-open warfare in the trenches.
If everyone across the country who had to spend their lives picking up the pieces from this sort of malarky actually got together and realised how widespread this is, something might actually happen...
R