"The Guillotine Times"

Sounds like the title of some horror novel? Far from it... But it's disturbing enough to me that it's some official term associated with the ongoing Budget Debate... Not sure why I never came across this term till an email cascaded down from MND was circulated early this morning. Basically, as I understand it, each Ministry is allocated some time to discuss its expenditure during these "Committee of Supply" sessions (that's another senseless term that I cannot figure out, but at least it does not conjure any negative/fear-inducing image) and so during this "guillotine" time, each Ministry's "head" is literally on the chopping board huh... Concurrently, key officers under each Ministry are supposed to standby just in case their inputs are needed to answer questions. Then some say that must really physically be in workstations all the time..?! I mean, understand we need to provide support/inputs in event queries cascade down... but cannot help but wonder why there's need to induce "can lose your head anytime" kinda fear leh...

Dun like the idea that way to get ppl to do things seriously is to instil fear in them, be it via deviously crafted phrases (though I wonder if like COS it's actually some antiquated term passed down from eons ago) or severe punishments for mistakes... So unhealthy if whole system is governed by fear, rather than genuine commitment towards serving the public well.