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"It's at the middle management level, where you find the gatekeepers and the people who support doing things properly, not just keeping the schedule going."

“The middle management layer is the most critical layer in any organisation,” says the professor of management.

He also said in the statement that he agreed with former sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates's description of Post Office middle management as "thugs in suits".

In meetings with middle management, she finds ways to keep the attention of management for longer, sometimes by interjecting when we’re speaking with unrelated but attention-grabbing points.

Jayne Howard said: "They've wasted money all over the place, on frivolous things or things that don't need doing, or middle management people that don't need to be there and so there's not enough left in the pot for the things that do need doing. And the answer is always to put it on the people on the bottom of the chain, charge us more for everything."