Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is an vital part of modern government.  

Weber's theory of bureaucracy.

There are some problems with bureaucracy - mainly that it is not democratically elected.  Related to this is the issue of accountability.  In this country, the civil service is not directly accountable to the electorate, but to ministers (who, in turn, are accountable to the electorate).  Civil servants are, to all purposes, anonymous.  If a civil servant makes a mistake, it is the minister who must take responsibility for it.  This is not wholly negative, as the administration (as opposed to the policy decisions) of government should be neutral.  But it helps sharpen the picture of the civil service as a faceless, rather sinister organisation, which takes tax-payers money and fritters it away on red-tape.  Efficiency is another problem with the civil service.  Being a vast and disparate organisation, it will inevitably lose some money somewhere - but this is a point that taxpayers are not especially sympathetic to.  And yet, were the civil service totally efficient, taxpayers would, no doubt, complain about that (think about the tax we wouldn't be able to avoid!).  While the civil service remains a non-democratic body administering all the nasty bits of government, it will always come under some sort of criticism.

The ultimate bureaucrat is Sir Humphrey Appelby, Permanent Under-Secretary to the Minister for Administrative Affairs, and subsequently Cabinet Secretary.  He was invented by Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn for the BBC comedy Yes Minister.  'Humpy' was a charicature, but one which struck a chord with many politicians (and civil servants).  Yes Minister is essential viewing for any student of politics; start, perhaps, with:

Yes Minister: The Compassionate Society