Inflicting cost-cutting on the new combined Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was always going to be an interesting proposition. Members of the diplomatic corps are expected to be an elite, after all, well-educated, masters of the art of the loaded and the clandestine exchange. They would resist.
They wouldn't use explicit means. Too uncivilised. They'd use protocols and words, their skills trained at endless cocktail parties among others of their ilk from many nations, degrees from our little universities expected to foot it with the best from Harvard and Oxford. Try dealing with people like that.
I know about these things because I've read Duff Cooper's marvellous biography of the wily French statesman, Charles-Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand. The book may be 70-plus years old and Talleyrand dead a lot longer, but I doubt that it's dated.
My vote is with the staff so far. I'd say they won the first round of the game by pointing out that their salaries and allowances compensate for spouses being unable to work when they're on foreign postings, and their children needing to attend suitable schools in countries where there may be very few of them.
Is there envy in the way we're supposed to look at these people, because they can get to live overseas and be paid for it as well? Or is it just that they suffer from not being able to achieve measurable outcomes that a book-keeper can applaud?