"A country that depends almost entirely on the international community for the salaries of its soldiers and policemen, for most of its investments and partly on it for its current civil expenditure, cannot be really independent, " Bernard Bajolet, former French ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a recent farewell speech in Kabul, before leaving to become his country's intelligence chief.

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Earlier, Heywood was involved in painful civil service change - such as Treasury budget-cutting and job losses in a major 1990s expenditure review.

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There is little room for manoeuvre on the expenditure side, what with mandatory interest payments, transfers to the regions and salaries for civil servants.

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