And some governments – notably the US and Japan – have trouble participating in multi-year commitments that represent a fiscal contingency.
Higgins added: "We have contingency plans in place to ensure we don't have difficulties paying people".
A separate contingency plan, codenamed Operation Halberd, to use troops in the event of a dock strike, had also been drawn up.
The 1984 cabinet papers, released to the National Archives, show that Thatcher asked for contingency plans to be drawn up to use troops to move coal stocks, despite official government policy ruling out the use of service personnel.
A poll undertaken by IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) – a community of e-retailers including Amazon, Tesco and other big names – suggested that 60% of them have full contingency measures in place to safeguard delivery of packets and parcels.
Yet fiction loses its special power if it seeks to instruct or clarify, rather than losing itself in ambiguity or what the philosopher Richard Rorty called contingency and irony.
Set a rate that covers professional help, ample coffee and tea, a decent lunch or dinner, plus a contingency.
Ellis had not planned for this contingency, and the torrents Oink served went dark.
"We were not, however, involved in operational planning or contingency planning," he said.
Monday's report said there was a succession of equipment failures which stalled progress, with insufficient contingency in the project plan to ensure the work would finish in time for services to run on 27 December.
It also said there were mutual failings in the communications between Network Rail and Govia Thameslink Railway, which manages Finsbury Park station, around the implementation of the contingency plan.
