[ventus45]

Quite likely Mr "P".

Standard routine in the public service Late April to Early May, - is preparation of a "snapshot" of the "state of play" in the Department / Agency / Branch / Section, in readiness for nailing down all the KPI's etc ready for drafting the yearly report.

From long experience in the system, I can tell you that the worst thing (for you) that you can give the bosses, is an "unknown" status or expected completion date, and worse yet, uncommitted funds, let alone unexpended funds. Finance is everything.

If you didn't spend this year's budget in full, you will likely get a cut next year.

Your bosses do NOT like that one little bit !

They also don't like a lot of uncompleted projects / tasks either, because they then appear to be inefficient managers.

So, the pressure is on - at this time of year - to "tidy up the ledger" as it were, from the bottom up, both financially and operationally.

Sometimes things do unavoidably "slip to the right" into the next financial year, most often for valid reasons, but sometimes not. In either case, an "updated status report" is hastily generated to cover your arse, with a new "expected completion date or expenditure date, as applicable.

Now having a few "tasks / jobs / projects" behind the curve and slipping to the right is one thing, almost normal, expected even, but to have a whole heap of them, especially if they are "high profile" in someone's eyes (higher up the food chain, external stakeholders, or worst, Ministerial, is quite another matter. In short, "the panic" is on !!

So, how many were "recently updated" Mr P, and were they "high profile" or "low profile" investigations ?

If the later, it is "just" the stats for the KPI's, and no one really cares.
But if the former, someone may need some KY, to ease the pain from incoming pineapple !!