Reading your lines about, what in my job, is called service level agreements, just shows how common the practice is of manipulating the system, to get SLA's within time and budget
If you want to see an art form made out of SLA manipulation just look at the London Underground.
Pretty much only drivers going on strike or power going off will cause them to admit a "severe delay" .... everything else just gets brushed off as a "minor delay" ... but most of the time they figure out how to massage the SLAs so they can call it "good service" ....