You are totally right. I was involved in a local council thing once. They had some plans promised, but had to cancel because the budget wasn’t there and costs were much higher than expected. I was outraged, as were a lot of people. So a local dude and myself volunteered to go over the budget and the cost, see where the fat could be cut and what could be changed to still make the plans happen. So we got together with the council accountants, went over all the numbers and were shocked at the state of things. We got a working space and access to anything we needed, with a very kind council worked who helped us every time we were there. We went over everything for two weeks and were sure we’d come out to be heroes in the end.

Spoiler alert: we weren’t. You’d be amazed at what even simple things actually cost, once you account for everything. And the amount of rules, regulations and compliance public work comes with. That eats up a lot of overhead. The council workers did a good job of cutting costs where possible and had creative stuff to make a lot happen with very little money. Our own proposals came out more expensive with a worse result when we calculated it. We even found some unaccounted costs in the original council plans. So we did not in fact save the days as heroes, but had to admit to hundreds of people we failed and the original plan was more expensive than we thought.

Anything government does is expensive and takes a lot of time. Everyone I’ve ever met in government who wasn’t a politician does their damned best to make everything faster and cheaper. It really put me in my place and I’ve come away with a lot of respect for people I once disliked.