Can We Really ‘Tear Down’ Bureaucracy For Efficiency?

URL has been copied successfully!

Large institutions, from government departments to sprawling health systems, are constantly accused of being bloated, slow, and resistant to change. It’s an easy political win to promise to “slash red tape” or “tear down the bureaucracy.”

But does simply cutting layers of management make organisations more efficient? Or does it risk creating chaos while consolidating power at the top?

To answer this, it helps to look at what the military, an institution with centuries of experience managing large, complex operations, has learned about command chains, hierarchy, and efficiency.

The problem with bloated hierarchies

Excessive hierarchy is a well-known organisational problem:

Each management layer slows communication.
Orders or strategies can be distorted as they’re passed down.
Approvals pile up, delaying action.
Managers often prioritise avoiding blame over achieving results.

These issues aren’t just bureaucratic folklore. They were studied rigorously by military organisations, including the US Army, especially during and after World War II.

Research by groups like RAND Corporation showed that overly long command chains reduced battlefield responsiveness. Commanders overloaded with too many reports or approval steps could not adapt quickly to changing conditions¹.

These findings weren’t limited to the military. They influenced management science more broadly: the idea of span of control (how many people a manager can effectively supervise) and the push for flatter organisations in business both stem from the recognition that layers create inefficiency².

Military solutions: Not just cutting layers

But here’s the crucial lesson: militaries didn’t just “cut layers” indiscriminately. They changed how command worked.

One key innovation was mission command (or Auftragstaktik in its Prussian origins):

Leaders set clear, shared goals (“commander’s intent”).
Subordinates are empowered to decide how to achieve them.
Authority and decision-making are pushed downward.
Trust and training replace micromanagement.

This approach flattens effective hierarchy without eliminating necessary structure. Orders become clearer, but flexibility is built in.

Simply slashing middle managers without this shift doesn’t improve efficiency. It risks confusion, conflicting actions, and failures of coordination³.

Trump’s second term: Renewed push to “tear down” US federal agencies

In his second term, President Donald Trump intensified efforts to shrink and restructure the US federal bureaucracy, framing these moves as a renewed battle against entrenched interests and regulatory inertia.

Such messaging also exemplifies classic demagogic tactics, as described in our short satirical story Mein Covfefe: The Art of the Demagogue.

Key actions since January 2025 have included:

Continuation and expansion of hiring freezes across federal agencies, aiming to reduce headcount and limit bureaucratic growth.
Proposals for deeper budget cuts targeting departments viewed as duplicative or inefficient.
Major reorganisation plans to consolidate or merge agencies, with the goal of reducing overlap and streamlining operations.
New executive orders to increase accountability, limit regulatory review steps, and further empower political appointees to override career civil servants.

These moves have reignited debate over the merits and risks of aggressive bureaucratic reform.

Supporters say:

The federal government remains bloated and slow, with many agencies suffering from excessive approval chains and regulatory delays.
Leaner staffing and clearer lines of authority could improve efficiency and responsiveness.
Executive orders are necessary to “cut red tape” and hold bureaucrats accountable for results.

Critics argue:

Many reforms have targeted career experts, reducing institutional memory and technical capacity within agencies.
The ability to more easily replace non-partisan civil servants with political loyalists has raised concerns about agency independence and the politicisation of the civil service.
There is little evidence of a comprehensive plan to replace removed layers with empowered, well-trained local decision-makers or to build the trust and clarity that military models require.

“The Trump administration’s approach has focused heavily on headcount and control, but less on the cultural and strategic shifts that make real efficiency possible,” notes a June 2025 analysis in Public Administration Review⁴.

Instead, critics argue it often looked more like a political power grab to consolidate executive control.

This kind of framing is not unique to the US. In the UK, measures like the new Fraud Bill similarly promise efficiency and accountability while centralising government power and reducing oversight.

The politics of Whitehall: Critique or consolidation?

It is worth noting that many UK politicians on the right have become highly critical of Whitehall, frequently accusing the civil service of undermining the political decision-making of the elected government. This narrative, which intensified during and after the Brexit process, has been used to justify calls for sweeping reforms and even for direct intervention by ministers in civil service appointments.

Such anti-establishment rhetoric also feeds into broader populist movements in the UK, as examined in Reform: UK’s Populist Surge.

However, while there may be an element of truth to claims that Whitehall can be slow, risk-averse, and occasionally obstructive, the broader pattern appears to be one of increasing centralisation of power in the executive. Multiple independent reports and parliamentary committees have found that the real problem is not so much bureaucratic sabotage, but rather a persistent “power-hoarding bias” within both Whitehall and central government as a whole.
This tendency to micromanage and concentrate authority at the centre has led to a system that is “overly centralised and opaque,” with local authorities left with little autonomy and communities feeling detached from decision-making.

This reflects a broader critique of government serving narrow interests over the public good, as discussed in Government by the Few, for the Few.

“Over the 20th century, power was steadily stripped away from local government in England, leaving a far more centralised system with limited local autonomy or democratic accountability See for example the ⁵, which outlines the historical trend of centralisation and the loss of local autonomy.

Recent reforms and shake-ups, such as the creation of a de facto “department for the prime minister” and the direct reporting of key civil servants to No. 10, are widely seen by critics as efforts to consolidate power in central government rather than genuinely devolve authority or improve efficiency. This centralising trend has been evident under both Conservative and Labour governments, accelerated by the challenges of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similar patterns can be seen in the use of public-private partnerships, where reforms sold as efficiency often consolidate power or benefit private interests instead of delivering better outcomes.

While political rhetoric often frames Whitehall as a bastion of resistance to change, the evidence suggests that the real risk lies in the erosion of impartiality and the hollowing out of local and professional expertise in favour of executive control. In this light, the current wave of Whitehall criticism may owe as much to political expediency and the desire to concentrate power as it does to genuine concerns about bureaucratic inertia.

Could the UK benefit from strategic flattening?

These lessons are highly relevant to the UK, where major institutions like the NHS and Whitehall face similar criticisms of bloated hierarchy and slow decision-making.

The NHS

The NHS is often criticised for:

Too many management layers between policy-makers and front-line staff.
Regional bodies and trusts duplicating effort.
Slow adaptation to local needs.

Could flattening help? Possibly, but only if paired with reforms that:

Clarify national priorities while giving local clinicians real authority to act.
Reduce approval bottlenecks without losing quality or safety oversight.
Build trust so managers feel confident delegating decisions.

Simply cutting management posts risks removing necessary expertise or oversight, leading to clinical and operational failures⁶.

Whitehall

The UK civil service (Whitehall) is often accused of being siloed and overly cautious.

Potential gains from strategic reform could include:

Reducing duplication between departments.
Setting clearer ministerial goals that allow civil servants to work with more autonomy.
Shortening decision chains to improve responsiveness.

But again, this is not just about headcount cuts. Effective reform requires cultural change: from risk-averse box-ticking to genuine mission focus and trust in professional expertise⁷.

The real lesson: Replace control with clarity and trust

What military experience tells us is that hierarchy is not inherently bad. In fact, some structure is essential in large, complex systems. But too much hierarchy kills adaptability and speed.

The solution is not mindless cutting but thoughtful redesign. That means:

Defining clear goals so everyone knows what success looks like.
Pushing authority downward so decisions are made closer to the action.
Limiting span of control so leaders can actually support their teams.
Investing in trust, training, and shared understanding.

When these principles are followed, organisations can become more efficient, responsive, and resilient.

Conclusion

“Can we really ‘tear down’ bureaucracy for efficiency?” The answer is: yes, but only if we understand what we’re really tearing down, and what we’re putting in its place.

Trump’s approach in the US, especially in his second term, offers a cautionary tale about confusing cuts for strategy. For the UK, the opportunity to reform institutions like the NHS and Whitehall is real, but it demands more than political slogans. It requires clear goals, devolved authority, and above all, trust in the people who do the work.

Without these safeguards, reforms risk accelerating trends of centralisation and undermining democratic checks and balances, as explored in Our Democracy Under Siege.