Do people really not back up their files regularly?
No they don't.
Especially in public services where users call the IT for everything because they don't know or they don't like to do anything related to computers even though is a very stupid thing. So the most part of the day IT do lesser important tasks than it has to do. As an example ' local printer has a stuck piece of paper ' and so on
That depends on the public service
The one that I once was hired by as a "contractor" of sorts had strict policies in this regard. They had some enterprise level document management system in place (something like Lotus Domino at the time) and also had a guy specifically appointed to manage that system. I guess it was one of his duties to back up all documents that entered the system. Indeed, small hospitals and minor public services are as irresponsible in this regard as it could ever get