Red tape

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For other uses, see Red Tape (disambiguation).

Red tape (or sometimes paperwork) is a derisive term for excessive regulations or rigid conformity to formal rules that are considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually applied to government, but can also be applied to other organizations like corporations.

Red tape generally includes the filling out of unnecessary paperwork, obtaining of unnecessary licenses, having multiple people or committees approve a decision, and various low-level rules that make conducting affairs slower and/or more difficult.

1 Origins
2 Red tape reduction
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Origins

The origins of the term are obscure, but it alludes to the 17th and 18th century English practice of binding documents and official papers with red tape and were popularized in the writings of Thomas Carlyle protesting against official inertia with expressions like "Little other than a red tape Talking-machine, and unhappy Bag of Parliamentary Eloquence." To this day most barristers' briefs are tied in a pink coloured ribbon known as Red Tape.

Traditionally, Vatican official documents were also bound in red cloth tape.

Another origin tale circulated is that all American Civil War veterans' records were bound in red tape, and the difficulty in accessing them led to the current use of the term, but there is evidence that the term was in use in its modern sense sometime before this.

Although grief over red tape is often seen as a right-wing conviction, Karl Marx wrote about the phenomenon of changing from one person in control of a complete task, to having multiple people each with specialties in specific tasks. He saw this occurring as society shifts from a Seigneurial system to a capitalist system. Although Marx drew different conclusions about this trend, it is often this abstraction among workers that is the source of red tape. This interpretation would explain why it is often perceived that the presence of red tape is increasing.

[edit] Red tape reduction

Because of this perception of increasing bureaucracy, the "cutting of red tape" is a popular electoral and policy promise.

Globally, governments have passed legislation and made procedural changes which claim to reduce red tape.

A good example is the August 2006 Australian Government's response to the report of its Business Red Tape Taskforce. The report made recommendations across a wide range of sectors, including health and aged care, labour market regulation, consumer regulation, environmental and building regulation, financial, tax and superannuation regulation, and trade. It also made a number of important recommendations to address the underlying causes of over-regulation.

The Australian Government adopted six principles of good regulatory process set out in the report. The principles are:

establishing a case for action;
examining alternatives to regulation;
adopting the option that generates the greatest net benefit to the community;
providing effective guidance to relevant regulators and affected stakeholders;
reviewing regularly to ensure the regulation remains relevant and effective; and
consulting effectively with stakeholders at all stages of the regulatory cycle.

The Australian Government's Office of Regulation Review will be strengthened and reoriented, becoming the Office of Best Practice Regulation.

In Canada, a Federal Parliamentary Committee recommended a Red Tape Reducation Commission. the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party government created a permanent Red Tape Commission that must review all new regulations.

In the United States, a number of legislatures have pondered or passed Red Tape Reduction Acts including California and Missouri. The New York Governor's Office of Regulation Reform is a good example of US State Government response to concerns about red tape.

Some object to government campaigns against red tape seeing them as covert programs of pro-corporate deregulation. Institutions like the British Trade Union Congress and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives consider red tape as being rules that protect the environment, watch over the worker safety and health, and prevent corruption.