[Chriky]

I've worked in both, I find bureaucracy is roughly proportional to the seriousness of the work. Serious work - Law, Healthcare, Finance etc are very bureaucratic regardless of whether it's the private or public sector.

Public sector can sometimes seem worse because there's less money sloshing round and people demand it isn't wasted, which effects a lot of bean counting.

[bonesss]

There's also something to the notion that we want our regulatory bodies and government agencies to be slightly 'conservative', to avoid waste and avoid short-term folly. Our public institutions should live for generations, and have transparency and ethical demands placed upon them by the citizenry.

We could collectively decide to eliminate a lot of red tape in government, no problem. It's just the effect of unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable governments that make us want that red tape in the first place. Todays Justification Paperwork is yesterdays front-page scandal...