Budgets have been withdrawn, the Head of Department has called a review of the structure that could result in less staff, not more. There are all sorts of possibilities here. The managers would like to keep their options open. The dreaded internal candidate. A contradiction here.
Some organisations have policies that demand all vacancies be advertised.
But what you don't know is that there is someone who has been seconded to the post for the past 18 months. They want the job, the manager wants them to have the job, but policy demands the post is advertised. A similar state of affairs applies when there is a strong internal candidate. Your chances of success are somewhat diminished here. Your face didn't fit.