On your second point, FHI had at least ~£10m sitting in the bank in 2020 (see below, from the report). So the fundraising freeze, while unusual, wasn’t terminal. A rephrasing of your question is “What adminstrative and organisational problems at FHI could possibly have prompted the Faculty to take the unusual step of a hiring and fundraising freeze in 2020, and why could it not be resolved over the next two to three years?”
“Open Philanthropy became FHI’s most important funder, making two major grants: £1.6m in 2017, and £13.3m in 2018. Indeed, the donation behind this second grant was at the time the largest in the Faculty of Philosophy’s history (although, owing to limited faculty administrative capacity for hiring and the subsequent hiring freezes it imposed, a large part of this grant would remain unspent)”
On your second point, FHI had at least ~£10m sitting in the bank in 2020 (see below, from the report). So the fundraising freeze, while unusual, wasn’t terminal. A rephrasing of your question is “What adminstrative and organisational problems at FHI could possibly have prompted the Faculty to take the unusual step of a hiring and fundraising freeze in 2020, and why could it not be resolved over the next two to three years?”