The problem with independent bureaucracies running things

It’s possible that modern slavery is indeed increasing. We tend to think that’s a result of the expansion of what slavery is meant to mean but perhaps that’s just us. There is though this problem of using independent bureaucracies to run all of these different things. Commissioners for this and that, commissions for the other and so on. Even such things as Natural England and the like.

Say that you had a touch of the cynic in you. What would you expect a report from a bureaucracy to say about the issue that bureaucracy is meant to be dealing with?:

The report stressed the need for more resources,

Well, yes, we would expect that.

….they urged the UK to adopt a number of further measures….Her report warned that without urgent action criminal networks would become more cunning, less visible and harder to disrupt. “Slavery and the most harrowing forms of exploitation are becoming more widespread in this country and evolving faster than we can respond,” Lyons said…..Lyons called on ministers to increase funding….Slavery in the UK is at record levels and is expected to worsen over the next decade,

We’d expect all that too. But not because we are cynics. But rather because we’ve read the one true guide to bureaucracy, Parkinson’s Law. The aim of a bureaucracy, as an organisation, is to continue to exist and to grow - to increase its budget. That’s it, that’s just what happens with this life form. Therefore every report from a bureaucracy is going to be well… yes... very difficult problem… growing all the time… give us more money.

Which is the actual problem with running matters through such independent bureaucracies. They will always, but always, big up the problem and so justify more budget for more lanyards.

We would be less cynical - sorry, realist - about this if we had even the one example of a bureaucracy declaring that the job’s done, it’s a good ‘un, we’re off ‘ome. We can’t think of any one at all - that one about closing the patent office because everything had already been invented is, we fear, apocryphal.

Tim Worstall