To The Guardian
The Right hates regulation and red tape, but this ideological hostility only seems to extend to relieving big business and the private sector. By contrast, the last three decades have seen the public sector crushed under regulatory burdens and tied up in red tape, often in a bizarre attempt at making schools, hospitals, the police, social services and universities more efficient, business-like and accountable. Talk to most doctors, nurses, police officers, probation officers, social workers and university lecturers, and one of their biggest complaints will be the relentless increase in bureaucracy imposed by Conservative (and New Labour) governments since the 1980s.
Instead of focusing on their core activities and providing a good professional service, many front-line public sector workers are compelled to devote much of their time and energy to countless strategies, statutory frameworks, regulations, codes of practice, quality assurance procedures, government targets, action plans, form-filling, box-ticking, monitoring exercises, and preparations for the next external inspection.
A major reason for public sector workers quitting their profession, taking early retirement or suffering from stress-related illnesses is the sheer volume of bureaucracy that Conservatives (and New Labour) have imposed during the last 35 years. This bureaucracy, almost as much as under-funding, is destroying the public sector, impeding efficiency and innovation, and driving front-line staff to despair.
Pete Dorey, Bath, Somerset

Everywhere in the Western world right wing politicians focus on shrivelling public sectors.  A relative of mine, a successful head teacher, chosen to be parachuted into failing schools and put them right, retired early because the red tape was overwhelming the management of schools.  This is a barely concealed effort to make public education so unworkable that variants of private education-for-profit can be substituted.  There is nothing wrong with public education that cannot be corrected by allowing teachers to teach conscientiously and, in doing so, allowing them to  live on liveable salaries.  The turnover of disillusioned teachers cannot be good for children, and nor can the low pay.  Without education our future is grim.