Thornbird:
This all leads one to conclude that either the public service is completely and utterly incompetent, or corrupt or both.
Not corrupt and incompetent, merely powerless and fearful.
The public service used to be able to offer "frank and fearless advice" to Ministers, safe in the knowledge that they couldn't be fired for anything short. of criminal misconduct, and that the PS Mandarins would protect their own from the wrath of a thwarted Minister or tycoon. Those days are over.
Staff are mostly on fixed term contracts and businesses practice "matrix marketing" where they target each decision maker from the Minister down to humble project leaders. With an intimate knowledge of each of the decision makers in a decision tree, it is not hard to threaten, bully, intimidate, blackmail, bribe, browbeat and cajole to get the result one wants if you have the money. Public interest be damned.
I have had a taste of matrix marketing applied to me and I can assure you it is extremely destabilising and unpleasant to be the target when you stand between a company and a bucket of public money. If you don't understand what I am talking about, I would be happy to explain exactly how its done.