There are a number of issues. First comes indecision and lack of urgency about anything. Projects run on for ever; no one knows how they are going. Meanwhile, we spend money, time and effort duplicating whatever the project is trying to achieve. Sometimes there are similar projects, running at the same time, uncoordinated and pulling in different directions.
Another malady is change for change’s sake, often packaged and sold as a brand spanking new approach to doing things that will revolutionise work practices. In reality it is nothing of the sort. Bureaucrats and quangocrats get bored easily with doing the same thing over and again. So they make a ‘business case’ for a new way of doing things. After many meetings, train journeys and lunches, the new way is approved and those lower down the order are rescued from ennui for another year by the order to start implementing the new way.
But then a problem arises. The higher ups, having written, discussed and approved the new way of doing things, begin to feel bored just sitting there monitoring the lower downs. Some of them move onto newer pastures, which are ripe for new ‘initiatives.’ Others stay and come up with more new ways of doing things; and so the bureaucratic merry-go-round of initiatives continues. If it ain’t broke, fix it any way!
Then there is the empire building and backyard protecting. Quangocrats forget that they are publicly funded, with a moral duty, if not always a clear legal one, to the taxpayers. If something can be done more efficiently if delivered centrally (e.g. a software package to automate administration), why argue against it? We have to be careful here. Often there is no direct arguing against. Instead, there are vague distinctions made to show how we are different, how the solution being offered centrally will not meet our needs. The sky will fall in if a central solution is imposed.
Crowning all this is the perpetual existential threat, particularly to Quangos. They make easy picking when HM Opposition is shouting waste and bureaucracy. When there is a problem, create a quango to deal with it; when bloated bureaucracy is the problem, chop the quango. Politicians win both ways.
All this arises, I think, because much of the daily work of bureaucrats and quangocrats lacks a convincing raison de etre. Doctors and nurses tend the sick, teachers impart knowledge and firemen extinguish fires. Factory workers make things that are sold. There is dignity and gratification in that. Quangocrats don’t do anything that makes one jot of a difference to people. Some work extremely hard, travel the length and breadth of the country and develop vast networks (always useful when turbulence strikes). But to most people, they make no difference.
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