However the evidence remains that there seems to be a lack of communication which does suggest an indifference towards the holdpool coming from somewhere.
No argument with that and it shouldn't be like that.
I don't know how the comms side of the DEP recruitment process is/was established. Given ACs attitude to spending a penny on anything deemed none essential I wonder if the job of communicating with the hold pool has simply slipped through the cracks during some establishment change that happened this year.