**The author provides an in-depth analysis of red tape. It’s a great read for anyone that wants to get a better understanding of bureaucracy and how it works. **
The book starts out with an overview of the main reasons why red tape is subject to such loathing. The big culprits include duplicative requirements, contradictory requirements, inertia (requirements remaining in force long after conditions that spawned them have disappeared), and failing programs that don’t do what they were intended to do.
**He then goes on to discuss the main causes of red tape. Government employees are the usual scapegoat for red tape, but he argues that this is misguided and the demand for red tape comes from us "Every restraint and requirement originates in somebody’s demand for it." He also argues it often plays an important role to alleviate distress, forestall systemic disruptions, and promote representative democracy. **
**Finally, he discusses how to improve red tape. He argues the usual sweeping solutions of Shrinking the Government, devolving federal power, concentrating authority, and manipulating pecuniary incentives are ineffective. There is no panacea. Instead, targeted interventions are better than grand visions. **
Foreward by [[Philip K. Howard]]
[[Mark’s Notes]]: This is an interesting forward – a solid and fair critique rather than a fawning review. Refreshing!
[[Herbert Kaufman]] was one of the twentieth century’s keenest observers of the inner workings of [[government]].
Red Tape, published in 1977, observes a very different [[government culture]], one that had been transformed by the [[1960s]] rights revolution. Instead of giving officials a measure of autonomy to meet public goals, under the new model [[autonomy]] was to be purged.
this new model of [[government]], dedicated to purging official [[discretion]], unleashed a tidal wave of [[red tape]].
It is preferable to spend $20 to avoid $1 of theft. And so he concludes that “red tape turns out to be at the core of our institutions rather than an excrescence on them.”
To Kaufman, bureaucracy was the necessary antidote to having venal, biased officials who try to impose their way. Today, [[bureaucracy]] is the default value for officials who don’t seem motivated to impose anything, including decisions made for the [[public good]]. Instead of asking “How do I get the job done?,” officials are trained to ask “What do the rules require?” #rules
The book also presents, albeit in undertones, an argument for bureaucratic superiority. Yes, it’s too bad that [[red tape]] is a pain, but that’s the only way to achieve a minimal standard of [[consistency]], [[virtue]], and [[fairness]] in [[government]].
Kaufman rightly points out that [[public employees]] are the [[scapegoats]]. He sees them blamed, inconsistently, as either “clever, self-serving” manipulators of power or “dull [and] slothful” drudges when the truth, he concludes, is that they are the worst victims of [[bureaucracy]].
The common denominator is that [[bureaucracy]] ends up foiling anyone who is trying to do what’s right—whether through the manipulative official using bureaucracy to gain power, the slothful civil servant using bureaucracy to avoid responsibility, or the ubiquitous powerlessness of people (including well-meaning officials) trapped in [[red tape]].
Kaufman notes that the real source of [[red tape]] is us. A major incentive for red tape, Kaufman observes, is mistrust: “Had we more trust in one another and in our public officers and employees, we would not feel impelled to limit [[discretion]] by means of lengthy, detailed directives.” #[[trust]]
Personal [[responsibility]] with [[transparency]], not [[red tape]], is the best way to keep someone from abusing his or her position.
human responsibility model—like the “guided discretion” model of The Forest Ranger—officials are judged not by their mindless compliance or other objective [[metrics]] but by a broader view of their [[effectiveness]].
[[Mark’s Notes]]: This is the philosophy of [[Linton Sellen]], who taught an excellent leadership course you attended.
Law need not be a bureaucratic jungle if people can be held accountable all the way up the chain of authority. #accountability
The paralysis of modern government is the inevitable product of a governing philosophy dedicated to avoiding human [[responsibility]].
In order to reimagine how the U.S. government can meet its many responsibilities in the modern world, any striver for good government must come to grips with Kaufman’s defense of the current operating system.
Chapter 1: Object of Loathing #[[reasons to hate red tape]]
One person’s “[[red tape]]” may be another’s treasured safeguard. (pg. 1)
When people rail against red tape, they mean that they are subjected to too many constraints, that many of the constraints seem pointless, and that agencies seem to take forever to act.
Duplicative and Contradictory Requirements #[[duplicative requirements]] #[[contradictory requirements]]
Even when they acknowledge the usefulness and relevance of specific requirements and prohibitions, people are incensed at having to do the same thing many times for different agencies when it appears to them that once would be enough if the government were more efficient. (pg. 8) #[[duplicative requirements]]
Still more irritating from the point of view of the conscientiously law-abiding person, in government as well as in private life, are government requirements drawn in such a way that to obey one seems to lead to violations of the other. #[[contradictory requirements]]
For example, legislation protecting the right to privacy may conflict with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Freedom of Information Act.
These conflicting guidelines shift the difficulties of reconciliation from the promulgators of official policy to the individual private citizen or public employee without much guidance and with the possibility of punishment no matter what course is chosen. #[[To Ankify]]
Inertia. Once requirements and practices are instituted, they tend to remain in force long after the conditions that spawned them have disappeared. (pg. 10) #inertia #[[To Ankify]]
a single embarrassing incident may inspire practices that go on and on at great cost and minimal benefit. As a former director of the Bureau of the Budget put it, The public servant soon learns that successes rarely rate a headline, but governmental blunders are front page news. This recognition encourages the development of procedures designed less to achieve successes than to avoid blunders. Let it be discovered that the Army is buying widgets from private suppliers while the Navy is disposing of excess widgets at a lower price; the reporter will win a Pulitzer prize and the Army and Navy will establish procedures for liaison, review, and clearance which will prevent a recurrence and which will also introduce new delays and higher costs into the process of buying or selling anything. It may cost a hundred times more to prevent the occurrence of occasional widget episodes, but no one will complain. #media #[[risk aversion]] #government #incentives #inefficiency
The search for outmoded practices takes government time and money, yet old, unchanging procedures, once learned, are easily followed, and utterly obsolete ones are usually ignored by everyone. So the burden of correcting them may be greater than that of letting them linger.
Programs that fail. Nothing, however, is as likely to render requirements pointless, in the opinion of some of those who must comply with them and of neutral observers, as constraints that obviously do not produce the results proclaimed as justifications for them. Restrictions and burdens imposed for announced ends that are never attained are probably the hardest to bear. (pg. 11)
regulated interests often benefited more from [[regulation]] than [[consumers]] did. The interests were relieved of [[competition]], yet the controls on them allegedly did not shore up quality or hold down prices in return for this security. #[[special interests]]
regulatory officials acquire the same perspectives and values as the interests they regulate. #[[special interests]]
in the contest to exert influence on the regulators, [[consumers]] are ordinarily outclassed by the well-organized, well-heeled, well-informed, well-connected, continuously functioning, experienced producers. #[[special interests]]
Furthermore, the incentive structure motivates the powerful more effectively than the weak; a regulatory decision meaning millions to a firm often costs individual consumers less than the cost of protesting it, so it would be irrational for individual consumers to fight even though the loss hurts them deeply. Adding to dissatisfaction is the ability of regulated interests to pass along to consumers their costs of exerting pressure and of fighting consumer suits. Under these conditions, ask the critics, how effective can regulation be? #[[special interests]] #incentives
Indeed, regulatory bodies have even been called agents of the regulated rather than their masters. That is why regulated interests, once the bitterest foes of regulation, are now among the most ardent defenders of their regulatory agencies, and why some industries have actively sought to be placed under regulation. #[[special interests]] #incentives #[[unintended consequences]]
When violators are able to penetrate the defenses yet honest people who would never think of defrauding the government or abusing their authority must go through all the rigamarole set up to thwart scoundrels, it is understandable that the honest people grow resentful. #[[honesty]] #[[resentment]]
To people with this outlook, catching the handful of crooks does not prove that all the troublesome constraints designed to avert dishonesty justify all the machinery; rather, it proves that the machinery is not worth the hardships it inflicts on the innocent.
The Scapegoats (pg. 19) #[[government employees]] #scapegoats
Two contradictory, negative portrayals of government employees: #[[To Ankify]]
It is conceivable that officials intent on aggrandizing their own power and protecting their own jobs would, unconsciously if not deliberately, contrive a blizzard of incomprehensible paper, a procedural maze, and a mass of technicalities that only someone completely familiar with these provisions could hope to find his way through. Then, insiders could not be easily replaced, even after changes in political leadership. Their decisions could be challenged by outsiders only with difficulty, for full-time specialists are not easily defeated by victims or insurgents who make their living at other pursuits and cannot devote themselves exclusively to operating the system.
Conversely, it is equally plausible that official stupidity and laziness might be responsible for the crazy quilt of provisions and procedures in government. Dull, slothful public servants would have to be furnished with specific, minutely detailed rules for every conceivable situation because, lacking intelligence or initiative, they could not be trusted to devise sensible responses on their own.
Obviously, the two portrayals of officialdom are mutually contradictory. Nobody can be both diabolically clever and dull-witted at the same time, nor can those who invent and execute complicated strategies also be too indolent to put themselves out on any account.
it is as hard to swallow the notion that knaves and fools are the dominant elements among thousands of government officers and employees
the level of their mental gifts and their characters is by no means below that of the general populace. Neither the conspiracy theory nor the incompetence theory seems to me a persuasive explanation for the abundance of government requirements and prohibitions or for the unhappy and unwanted effects of these constraints.
[[Mark’s Notes]]: It’s true that a single individual cannot simultaneously have these two characteristics. But his argument here doesn’t fully address these stereotypical criticisms of government employees. His argument doesn’t address the idea that government is still ruled by knaves or fools. In other words, there could still be a prevalence of these two separate types of people.
**On the negative impact of **[[red tape]] on [[government employees]]:
Indeed, government personnel are greatly disserved by [[red tape]]. They would like to get on with their missions as they see them, to pursue their program goals energetically, efficiently, speedily. They chafe at the obstacles placed in their way, the restraints imposed on them, the boundaries they must observe, the procedures they must follow. **Nobody is more critical of red tape than they. To them, it is ironic that they should be blamed for it. **Unquestionably, they are tightly constrained. Their discretion is legally limited by statutes, regulations of sister agencies, judicial decisions, executive orders, and departmental directives. It is also politically limited by the need to accommodate powerful political figures and influential interest groups, by the practical independence of nominal subordinates, by the demands of clienteles, and by the risks of adverse publicity in the communications media. So they are often prevented from moving forcefully and promptly when they would like to and compelled to yield to pressures when they would prefer to stand firm, even though this may mean an injustice is done or suffering is not relieved. They are also forced to allocate precious time and money to the endless demands for reports and information
In short, the costs, inconveniences, and burdens of government constraints oppress government workers as much as anybody. In fact, perhaps more. Understandably, they see themselves as experts in their fields, yet many of the constraints on them are the work of people they regard as uninformed amateurs. Career diplomats who must answer to legislators with no experience in foreign affairs, urban specialists who must defer to interests from back-country farm regions, and professional military officers challenged at every turn by civilians with slight knowledge of military strategy and tactics, for example, grind their teeth in frustration. #[[To Ankify]]
If people outside government think they are victims of irrelevant obligations and prohibitions, they should see what those inside have to put up with—at all levels, too.
Leaders are equally frustrated. Political superiors find administrative agencies less responsive to them than they would like because the agencies are bound by generations of accumulated obligations and restraints. #politicians
Public officers and employees get the blame for red tape (pg. 22)
It would not surprise me, however, if they are merely [[scapegoats]] in a literal sense—bearers of the blame for others. We may accuse them because, intuitively, we want to divert the guilt from the real cause: ourselves. #[[To Ankify]]
Chapter 2: Of Our Own Making #[[reasons for red tape]]
Every restraint and requirement originates in somebody’s demand for it. (pg. 25) #[[To Ankify]]
there are so many of us, and such a diversity of interests among us, that modest individual demands result in great stacks of official paper and bewildering procedural mazes.
Alleviating distress (pg. 29)
much of the great volume of governmental requirements and prohibitions that we encounter on all sides owes its existence to the government’s endeavors to keep some people from being hurt by other people.
The government has also responded to pleas for assistance from people buffeted not so much by their fellows as by forces over which they have no control.
The moment a government program for a specified group gets started, legislation and administrative directives and court battles proliferate. It is essential to define who is in the group and who is not. The amounts of benefits and the criteria for determining who in the group is eligible for which amount must be established.
Another way in which the federal government strives to prevent pain and hardship from afflicting people is by heading off systemic breakdowns.
the suffering from systemic breakdowns evidently is so much less acceptable than the controls and procedures set up to prevent them that we prefer the certain constraints and annoyances to the possibility of even temporary disruption.
Representativeness and its Consequences (pg. 34) #[[representativeness]]
Americans assert a need to be protected from the government as well as by it, and they recognize a need to protect it from those who would despoil it.
Unfortunately, like so many other unexceptionable objectives, this one too brings procedural complications, substantive constraints, paperwork, and additional agencies in its wake.
Preservation of [[due process]], for instance, obliges officials to give people affected by governmental actions a fair chance to get their views on official decisions registered so that their interests are not overlooked or arbitrarily overridden by those in power.
At least some of the slowness, awkwardness, and intricacy of federal administration can be traced to the protection of the rights of people who work for the government. A society less concerned about the rights of individuals in government and out might well be governed with a much smaller volume of paper and much simpler and faster administrative procedures than are typical of governance in this country. Americans have adopted a different mix.
Government procedures were therefore designed to avert these doleful possibilities by facilitating [[interest group]] participation in official decisions to a greater extent than would be dictated by concern for [[fairness]] alone. This makes it harder to reach policy decisions. But giving every interested party a voice in official decisions increases the likelihood that no feasible option will be overlooked, that no important consequence of any feasible option will be forgotten or unperceived, that conflicts and contradictions will be brought to light and resolved, and that the policies ultimately emerging from such broadly reviewed deliberations will enjoy a higher degree of voluntary compliance on the part of the public than policies fashioned in ignorance of public attitudes and expectations.
Old or new, the methods of interest-group representation generate more directives and controls, more steps in the forging of governmental policies, more bargaining before decisions are reached, and more postdecision litigation than would otherwise develop. Fairness, comprehensiveness, and community acceptance of policy decisions obviously rate higher than administrative simplicity and speed.
[[Mark’s Notes]]: the word "obviously" seems incorrect here. Is it really true that in no circumstances we would prefer simplicity and speed?
One method is compulsory clearance of pending decisions with every relevant organizational unit whose jurisdiction touches on the matters under consideration;
Another method is to require studies and written reports on various “impacts” of proposed policies; [[environmental impact]] statements are now mandatory prerequisites for official action affecting the environment, inflation impact statements must accompany draft legislation, rules, and regulations proposed by executive branch agencies, and similar statements about the consequences of pending measures for the public’s paperwork burdens, for the costs of doing business, and for family life have been proposed.60 Still another method is to place separate organizations under a common command with authority to compel coordination.61 All these devices are internal counterparts of external-group representation and are defended with the same arguments: fewer vital considerations are neglected, less opposition and evasion are engendered.
Similarly, we try to do whatever is necessary to keep the government from turning into an instrumentality of private profit for those in its employ or those with private fortunes at their disposal. (pg. 41)
The temptations facing the government work force are varied and enormous.
Public officers and employees are also tempted by opportunities to sell their official discretion and information.
They have also been tempted by the opportunities to extort payments.
[[Mark’s Notes]]: These arguments seem to point in favour of less government not more
But our attitude toward public property is typified by the comments of a famous economist ordinarily inclined to reject costs that exceed benefits in dollar terms: “The Office of Management and Budget should spend $20 to prevent the theft of $1 of public funds.” Not only are public property and public discretion held to have a special moral status; they occupy a special political position because abusing them eats away at the foundations of representative government. So we are willing to put up with a lot to safeguard their integrity. Is the ratio really that high though (spend $20 to save $1) – that seems so irrational. At the margin, should it be more or less?
[[Mark’s Notes]]: This is an interesting and somewhat convincing argument. It seems deeply irrational to spend $20 to save $1, but perhaps it is worthwhile considering what corruption can do to the overall legitimacy and trust in the system. [[corruption]] imposes a huge [[externality]] in terms of credibility of government. But why is this more-so the case than private companies? I think the difference is, government is a [[monopoly]]. Customers cannot leave and government cannot go out of business for bad behaviour. So, we use legal safeguards that create [[red tape]].
Much of the often-satirized clumsiness, slowness, and complexity of government procedures is merely the consequence of all these precautions. Things would be simpler and faster if we were not resolved to block abuses that turn public goods to private profit.
Were we a less differentiated society, the blizzard of official paper might be less severe and the labyrinths of official processes less tortuous. Had we more [[trust]] in one another and in our public officers and employees, we would not feel impelled to limit discretion by means of lengthy, minutely detailed directives and prescriptions or to subject public and private actions to check after check. If our polity were less democratic, imperfect though our democracy may be, the government would not respond as readily to the innumerable claims on it for protection and assistance. Diversity, [[distrust]], and [[democracy]] thus cause the profusion of constraints and the unwieldiness of the procedures that afflict us. It is in this sense that we bring it on ourselves. #diversity
[[Mark’s Notes]]: The arguments about trust remind me of the points made in the forward by [[Philip K. Howard]]. Instead of loading up [[red tape]], why not increase [[authority]] and [[trust]] all along the hierarchy, providing more power so [[government employees]] can exercise greater discretion and apply their expertise. At the same time, this increased [[responsibility]] could be accompanied by increased [[accountability]] through things like greater ownership of outcomes, and greater ease of hiring and firing for bad performance (like the [[private sector]]). #[[Personal Ideas]]
Chapter 3: Rewinding the Spools #[[dealing with red tape]]
On the surface, [[red tape]] resembles other noxious by-products we generate in the course of making things and rendering services we are eager to have. More of what we want means more of what we don’t want as well. More automobiles mean more pollutants in the air. More electric power means either more air pollution or more radioactive wastes to dispose of, perhaps both. More food means more runoff of fertilizer into our water. More metals and minerals mean more slag heaps. Increased convenience in packaging means more solid refuse. Similarly, it appears, the more values the government tries to advance, the more red tape it inevitably generates.
In the case of government requirements and restraints, both substantive and procedural, people disagree about what is valued output and what is dismal by-product.
Intractable problems often engender proposals for sweeping solutions. In the case of red tape, the sweeping proposals are of four kinds. #[[To Ankify]]
Shrinking the Government (pg. 51) #[[shrinking government]]
Powerful contrary factors militate against comprehensive governmental shrinkage.
Chief among these is the danger that many of the evils and follies, both intentional and unwitting, against which the constraints scored as [[red tape]] are directed, might resurge if the measures taken to suppress them were lifted.
Another factor counteracting the case for shrinking the government is the substantial [[sunk cost]] in ongoing federal programs and services. When a program or service is instituted, people adjust to it, and their calculations include its operations in their assumptions and reasoning.
[[Mark’s Notes]]: This seems like incorrect usage of the term [[sunk cost]]. I’m not sure if there’s a specific word for this, but he’s basically saying it’s costly to change when a variety of [[special interests]] are invested in a particular arrangement.
**Debarred but aspiring entrants into previously regulated fields would also applaud the removal of entry barriers by deregulation. But many established firms, having acted in good faith according to standards prescribed by government, would be hard hit and would naturally feel they had been misled. **And many neutral observers would have to agree with them.
[[Mark’s Notes]]: Again, this is an argument for avoiding regulations in the first place. Another factor working against the debarred but aspiring entrants is the fact that they tend to not be organized in an identifiable [[special interests]] group, and as a result they are much less coordinated to advocate for themselves effectively.
Remote activities are expendable; those that hit close to home are indispensable. In these circumstances, the inevitable outcome is [[logrolling]]. Groups join in the defense of things to which they are indifferent in order to win allies for the things they are really concerned about. In the end, practically nothing will disappear. The sweeping rollback will break up on the endless variety in the system. #[[To Ankify]]
**In these circumstances, only carefully selected, egregious, generally acknowledged failures among governmental activities stand a chance of elimination. Such modest measures would not significantly reduce the body of federal red tape. But they would doubtless accomplish more than attempts at an all-encompassing contraction of government on all fronts simultaneously. **
Devolving Federal Power (pg. 59) #devolution
according to this school of thought, devolution is desirable not only for the major reason that it constitutes a bulwark against tyranny, but also because it incidentally reduces the conditions referred to as red tape. First, by bringing government decision centers closer to the people supposed to obey government decisions, devolution would increase the probability of local needs and conditions being recognized and taken into account. It would also afford local interests better opportunities to take part in the formation of policies directly affecting them.
Second, things would move faster if few matters had to be referred to the center before they could be resolved. The proverbial timidity of the bureaucrat and the collective evasiveness of bureaucracies would decline because the buck could be less easily passed to distant superiors. Communications channels would not be jammed with inquiries and requests flowing upward and commands and elaborations flowing down.
general concern for uniform application of policy also militates against wholesale devolution. #consistency
Moreover, some policies are unlikely to be effective unless they are managed on a national basis; energy conservation, pollution control, transportation development, and economic planning, for instance, can hardly be effective if they are not broadly conceived and executed.
In any event, people whose demands on government are not met at the state and local levels or at lower levels of the federal hierarchy will not hesitate to try their luck in Washington.
Concentrating Authority (pg. 64) #authority
The greater the dispersal of functions and the diffusion of authority in the governmental process, the stronger are the centripetal tendencies. Fragmentation itself breeds the very things decried as red tape.
Numerous small units mean many boundaries, and every move across jurisdictional lines can mean new procedures to master, new permissions to obtain, new applications to file, new requirements and prohibitions to learn.
Many critics of red tape therefore recommend concentrating power.
The strategy seems to work to some extent, for a time. Seldom for very long, however. Whatever its merits on other grounds, its effect on red tape is slight. The unpleasant symptoms gradually reappear. The misgivings of the government minimalists and the decentralists about the consequences of congestion at the center are apparently not without foundation.
the czars and expediters often add to the overall congestion in the system even if their initial effect is to break specific bottlenecks.
concentrating authority does not banish red tape any more than devolving power does. Sometimes it even adds to the problem.
Manipulating Pecuniary Incentives (pg. 67)
The new approach is to reach for the best of both [[the market]] and the governmental mechanisms, taking advantage of the powerful motivations of the former and the public-interest orientation of the latter.
The alleged beauty of this approach is that it skirts the shoals of red tape and inefficiency that government regulation and operation cannot avoid while attaining the social ends these policies are supposed to accomplish.
It is quite possible that the beneficial effects would be pronounced. There is certainly great promise in employing tax burdens and advantages and the granting or withholding of subsidies to influence behavior because these measures allow each individual and organization to invent compliant responses instead of being locked into prescribed ways of doing things. The spur of [[competition]] and the rewards of [[innovation]] are thus retained.
But it is far from obvious that this method would necessarily reduce red tape. The contention is persuasive only if one assumes that the collection and distribution of money by the government entail less red tape than does regulation or direct government operation and that government financial powers are easier to administer, less burdensome, and more acceptable to the public than regulatory powers or public services. The assumptions are not self-evidently valid.
Taxation has become the chief source of complaints about government-imposed paperwork. #taxes
Similarly, the distribution of subsidies and other forms of assistance is not a smooth-flowing, unanimously lauded, virtually automatic process. #subsidies
There is no reason to expect a smaller output of [[government directives]] from [[tax]] and [[subsidy]] programs than from regulatory or service programs. It is no simple matter to define what is taxable and what is not, what qualifies for aid and what does not, and what the extent of liability or eligibility should be.
It may have other justifications, but rolling back red tape is not likely to be one of its accomplishments.
No Panacea (pg. 70)
What, then, is to be done? The surest way to get rid of the [[red tape]] associated with the federal government is to shrink the federal government itself, but the prospects of shrinking it to even its size in the early twentieth century are not bright #[[shrinking government]]; the disadvantages would be too great for too many people. [[devolution]] likewise is not free of costs balancing many of its gains, and some of the frustrations of decentralization can match those caused by federal red tape. Concentration of [[authority]], on the other hand, undeniably is often responsible for congestion at the center, layering of administrative levels, and long lines of communication; its disadvantages, too, are discouraging. And even the ingenious proposal for taking advantage of private incentives through [[taxes]] and [[subsidies]] would apparently result in just as much government paper and procedural complexity as the currently prevailing techniques of government intervention in social and economic relations.
Curiously, as constraints on discretion both outside and inside the government accumulate, they sometimes reach a point where their effect is to broaden the very discretion they were supposed to contain. When there are multitudinous categories and definitions, shrewd operators can find somewhere in the stack justification for almost anything they want to do. #[[manipulating regulation]]
But there are ways of keeping red tape under control and endurable. They are not spectacular or glamorous. They work no miracles. Nevertheless, they can provide relief.
Specific, targeted interventions are better than grand visions: Those ways are the normal methods of [[politics]]. The political system responds to pointed demands for specific actions, not to grand visions or all-embracing lamentations. Grand visions and ill-defined complaints, of course, often determine the particulars of demands. But until and unless they are translated into concrete measures that officials can act on, they seldom evoke any governmental response. They may win offers of sympathy, expressions of shared outrage, and even symbolic gestures of solidarity and support. But not tangible benefits. #[[grand vision]] #[[To Ankify]]
railing against all red tape or advancing some panacea that will purportedly dispose of it once and for all avails nothing; an attack on a particular procedure in a particular agency or on a designated tax or application form or on a specified requirement long since out of date is much more likely to get results.
They had specified targets. Their fire was focused. Moreover, they made their views known through professional, articulate, politically sophisticated spokesmen.
Where / who to target your proposals for improvement: Nor is a top-level [[commission]] necessary to correct every instance of [[red tape]]. A change in specifications here, a relaxation of restrictions there, a restraining influence on an over-zealous agency, a prod for a sluggish one, an improvement in a single procedure, or a simplification of a single form may alleviate a great deal of pain for a great many people. An individual legislator or a member of his staff, the members or the staff of legislative or appropriations or budget committees or subcommittees, a journalist eager for a good story, a court, congenial bureaucrats, and competing agencies are among the points at which pressure can be quietly but effectively applied to induce a change. It is done all the time. A good many victories over red tape are won in this fashion.
On the value of the [[ombudsman]]: Yet some students of government have concluded that even these organizations, in all their variety, are inadequate to relieve every person with a grievance against official action or inaction. (pg. 78)
Hence the interest in the [[ombudsman]], the [[Swedish]] institution for pressing citizen complaints against government. #[[To Ankify]]
The [[ombudsman]] is, in essence, the head of a complaint bureau clothed with official power to receive and investigate complaints against administrative action anywhere in the administrative machinery of government. If the ombudsman finds merit in a complaint, the expectation is that the accused agency will normally accede to his finding and redress the grievance as he recommends. If the agency does not, the ombudsman may appeal to higher administrative authority, to the courts, or even to the legislature for corrective action.
Institutional reforms are not immune to the viruses that infect large organizations generally. We may therefore anticipate that the procedures set up to ease the pains of red tape by assisting individuals trapped in the coils will themselves be denounced one day.
Death, Taxes, and Red Tape (pg. 81)
Chipping away at a problem calls for more [[perseverance]] and [[stamina]] than blasting away at it.
From all indications, our descendants will be chipping away at it just as we are. For them, however, the character of the problem may be different. [[automation]], for instance, will contribute to change. Already, information from cash registers can be linked to accounting and inventory-control computers, reducing the flow of paper significantly. #[[government IT]]
Even a fully wired and automated society would not be rid of [[red tape]], though. Safeguards against abuses would be extensive. Methods of appeal from errors or abuses would have to be developed. Most of all, the machines themselves would impose an unyielding set of obligations and prohibitions on their users. #automation #[[government IT]]
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