How to sort good bureaucracy from bad

Bureaucracy can include new announcements, edicts, regulations, rules, standing orders, protocol, gatekeepers (individuals and departments), committees, requests for statistics, forms to be completed. It also includes work structures such as requirements for checking work quality and completion, the role of targets, the monitoring of productivity, the design of IT solutions, and taken-for-granted norms such as X decisions need to be referred to Y.

There are examples of both good and bad bureaucracy. It can be essential and positive. It may be self/locally generated to meet a perceived need. But much ‘bad’ bureaucracy results from a hierarchical/power relationship, often between the centre (e.g. head office, government) and the periphery/local/front line. Sometimes the ‘parental’ role (how it best adds value) has not been discussed, thought-through and agreed; instead it may happen by default and may be self-serving. Bureaucracy may be a source of abuse inflicted upon the organisation (often from within), and it may itself be abused and become a convenient scapegoat for those seeking to defer taking responsibility.

Besides spawning and imposing bureaucracy on others (e.g. local councils), the ‘parent’ (say a government department) may claim to have bureaucracy imposed on it (e.g. responding to new legislation). It will necessarily have its own internal bureaucracy. It may even create more bureaucracy for itself and be distracted and weighed down by it.

Take, for example, the Commission for Human Rights and Equality’s processes for dealing with legal claims against it by its own staff. Or the regulator Ofcom’s using an internal leadership competency framework out of a wish to clarify internal standards for those seeking promotion opportunities rather than for obtaining leadership from managers to meet business needs. Or Birmingham City Council having a gatekeeping/clearing unit that processes, prioritises and then decides whether to authorise requests from line departments that want to obtain advice from the HR department (they are not allowed to make direct contact). Such ‘machinery’ takes the focus/time/budget away from the customer-focused purpose of why such bodies were set up. An imbalance between the external and the internal is part of the bureaucratic mindset.

In instances like these there are usually good reasons why the systems, procedures, stuctures and protocols were first set up; i.e. a solution for some problem at some time past. But the need may have gone away, or the solution may be worse than the original problem, or it may simply be too expensive.

A cull may be in order. The table below offers some criteria by which each example of bureaucracy may be assessed. Is it good or is it bad?