Crushed by red tape

To The Guardian

Steven Poole provides an excellent account of the Right’s professed hatred of regulation and red tape, but this ideological hostility only seems to apply to big business and the private sector. By contrast, the last three decades have seen the public sector crushed under regulatory burdens and tied up in red tape, often in a bizarre attempt at making schools, hospitals, the police, social services and universities more efficient, business-like and accountable. Talk to most doctors, nurses, police officers, probation officers, social workers and university lecturers, and one of their biggest complaints will be the relentless increase in bureaucracy imposed by Conservative (and New Labour) governments since the 1980s.

Instead of focusing on their core activities and providing a good professional service, many front-line public sector workers are compelled to devote much of their time and energy to countless strategies, statutory frameworks, regulations, codes of practice, quality assurance procedures, government targets, action plans, form-filling, box-ticking, monitoring exercises, and preparations for the next external inspection.

A major reason for public sector workers quitting their profession, taking early retirement or suffering from stressrelated illnesses is the sheer volume of bureaucracy that Conservatives (and New Labour) have imposed during the last 35 years. This bureaucracy, almost as much as underfunding, is destroying the public sector, impeding efficiency and innovation, and driving front-line staff to despair. Pete Dorey, Bath, Somerset