No need to duck, you are spot on. These are the exact reasons it takes so long.
Of course for public servants there are all the rostered days off, public holidays, head-ache and stress leave, parental leave, annual recreation leave for every person involved in the analysis of the incident/accident. Getting all interested parties together must be a nightmare of administration. Then of course there are the lawyers involved and the cycle starts again...
I remember when I was in DCA the faintly ridiculous situation where one public servant on the second floor needed to talk with a colleague on the third floor. So he wrote a Minute on a file asking when it would be convenient to pay a visit to his mate on the next floor. That Minute remained in his OUT tray for two days until the filing clerk did his rounds and took the files to the main file registry room. A day or so later that file duly arrived at the third floor office only to find that occupant was on sick leave for a few days including a long week-end of course. Curses! Foiled again.
A few days later the third floor guy read the Minute requesting the meeting and replied to his second floor mate that any time would be suitable for the meeting. That took another two days to reach the floor below. The second floor bloke then replied again with a few words saying "Thanks - I'll ring you first and we can talk about this project I wanted to discuss with you".
I kid you not - I saw the bloody files personally. Of course with inter-room emails (yes that happens when people will email the bloke on the next desk) things happen faster - or do they?