Firefox and Chrome are free. Sounds like your organisation is wasting money on software that costs money to buy (yes I know all software has costs to support and run).

Yes indeed. I am advised by our Chief Information Officer that a pilot of Firefox is underway and will presumably be rolled out if it can be shown that it won't break any of our

arcane grandfathered obscure apps used by two people

of which we have many.

Plus, some people working in buildings not too far from Parliament might be stuck on IE8 and, heaven help them, XP, although not from choice.

IE8, I wish! My building's pretty damn close to Parliament, and I think we have IE6. At least every other site I open tells me my browser is outdated and that I should upgrade... Well, clearly there will be no money for the next 10 years to buy software updates to bring us in line with the real world..