Professional services is what they called administration staff in universities these days, don't cha know!

I think in general you only have to do what's on the list of corrections. If they told me to correct things in the viva, but didn't put on them on the corrections list, I didn't do them.

I'm not sure what you mean. If you're asking if you can quote something from Source B you read in Source A, you can, but you should only cite Source B if you have read Source B. Otherwise, you should cite Source A. This is because Source A could be wrong and you won't know unless you have actually read Source B yourself.

Welcome to the real world.

I don't know what to tell you. This crap happens everywhere. Just don't join in.

Maybe this person just made a mistake?

Honestly, I would just leave it. I know this sounds like a big deal to you because it's your viva, but in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a massive issue for the person involved. The Dean will ignore you or best case scenario, apologise. If anything is said to the person who made this error, it will be simply, be more careful next time, and to the person's manager, make sure you have checks in place so this doesn't happen again. It's really not worth your time.

Think you need to be bit more specific. They might not know how to write a personal statement, or cover letter, or proposal, or CV, or they might not know where to find a PhD supervisor, or funding, or many other things.

Any idea anyone? Not my field.

The reply on that other forum is correct. It's extremely rare for the UK to fund non-EU students. You need to search on findaphd.com and look for ones that will fund non-EU students. If they agree to fund you, this is then guaranteed.

I wouldn't say professional company, more like professional spammer.

Just make the changes you want, you are first author, you have last say. I didn't make all the changes that were suggested to me for my papers. Whatever I don't agree with, doesn't get changed.

Going forward, it's going to be tricky. There's no easy way around it. Even if you request full change in supervision, they are still going to be on the papers though right?

Yes that's fine. I've seen lots of people do this.