Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules
that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making.
It is usually applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations.
One definition is the "collection or sequence of forms and procedures required to gain bureaucratic
approval for something, especially when oppressively complex and time-consuming".
Another definition is the "bureaucratic practice of hair splitting or foot dragging, blamed
by its practitioners on the system that forces them to follow prescribed procedures to the
letter".
Red tape generally includes filling out paperwork, obtaining licenses, having multiple people
or committees approve a decision and various low-level rules that make conducting one's
affairs slower, more difficult, or both.
Red tape can also include "filing and certification requirements, reporting, investigation, inspection
and enforcement practices, and procedures".
Origins
The origin of the term is somewhat obscure, but it is first noted in historical records
in the 16th century, when Henry VIII besieged Pope Clement VII with around eighty or so
petitions for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
A photo of the petitions from Cardinal Wolsey and others, now stored in the Vatican archives,
can be seen on page 160 of "Saints and Sinners, a history of The Popes", by Eamon Duffy.
The documents can be viewed rolled and stacked in their original condition, each one sealed
and bound with the obligatory red tape, as was the custom.
It appears likely that it was the Spanish administration of Charles V in the early 16th
century, who started to use the red tape in an effort to modernise the administration
that was running his vast empire.
The red tape was used to bind the important administrative dossiers that had to be discussed
by the Council of State, and separate them from the issues that were treated in an ordinary
administrative way, which were bound by an ordinary rope.
Most of the red tapes arriving to the Council of State were manufactured in the city of
's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, because most of the important dossiers came from the
Low Countries and Germany.
The Spanish name for red tape "balduque" took the name from the Spanish translation of the
city of 's-Hertogenbosch which is "Bolduque".
Although they were not governing such a vast territory as Charles V, this practice of using
red tape to separate the important dossiers that had to be discussed, was quickly copied
by the other modern European monarchs to speed up their administrative machines.
In this age of civil servants using computers and information technology, a legacy from
the administration of the Spanish Empire can still be observed where some parts of the
higher levels of the Spanish administration continue the tradition of using red tape to
bind important dossiers that need to be discussed and to keep them bound in red tape when the
dossier is closed.
This is, for example, the case for the Spanish Council of State, the supreme consultative
council of the Spanish Government.
In contrast, the lower Spanish courts use ordinary ropes to bundle documents as their
cases are not supposed to be heard at higher levels.
The Spanish Government plans to phase out the use of paper and abandon the practice
of using ordinary ropes.
The tradition continued through to the 17th and 18th century.
Although Charles Dickens is believed to have used the phrase before Thomas Carlyle, the
English practice of binding documents and official papers with red tape was popularized
in Carlyle's writings, 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 defence barristers' briefs, and those from private clients, are tied in
a pink-coloured ribbon known as "pink tape" or "legal tape".
Government briefs, including those of the prosecution counsel, are usually bound with
white tape, introduced as an economy measure to save the expense of dyeing the tape red.
Traditionally, official Vatican documents were also bound in red cloth tape.
All American Civil War veterans' records were bound in red tape, and the difficulty in accessing
them led to the modern American use of the term, but there is evidence that the term
was in use in its modern sense sometime before this.
Red tape reduction The "cutting of red tape" - meaning a reduction
of bureaucratic obstacles to action - is a popular electoral and policy promise..
Red tape is commonly accepted to be a barrier to business, particularly small business.
In Canada, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has done extensive research into
the impact of red tape on small businesses.
The European Commission has a competition that offers an award for the "Best Idea for
Red Tape Reduction".
The competition is "aimed at identifying innovative suggestions for reducing unnecessary bureaucracy
stemming from European law".
In 2008, the European Commission held a conference entitled 'Cutting Red Tape for Europe'.
The goal of the conference was "reducing red tape and overbearing bureaucracy," in order
to help "business people and entrepreneurs improve competitiveness".
See also Sir Humphrey Appleby
Busy work Instruction creep
Micromanagement Paperwork Reduction Act
Purple crocodile References
^ "red tape: Definition from".
Answers.com.
Retrieved 2012-10-09.
^ "What is red tape?
definition and meaning".
Businessdictionary.com.
Retrieved 2012-10-09.
^ "Red Tape Reduction Initiative | Business".
Gov.nl.ca.
Retrieved 2012-10-09.
^ p.1152, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 17th Edition; Revised by J Ayto, 2005
^ "Red Tape, North and South, in the Civil War".
Civilwarhome.com.
Retrieved 2012-10-09.
^ "cfib.ca".
cfib.ca.
Retrieved 2014-01-23.
^ "Canada’s Red Tape Report".
Cfib-fcei.ca.
Retrieved 2014-01-23.
^ [1] ^ "de beste bron van informatie over cuttingredtape.
Deze website is te koop!".
cuttingredtape.eu.
Retrieved 2012-10-09.
Books Barry Bozeman Bureaucracy and Red Tape Prentice-Hall
Publishing.
OECD 'Cutting red tape; national strategies for administrative simplification' OECD Editions,
Paris.
External links Red Tape Reduction Commission
Instruction creep Shortage of skilled workers knocks red tape
off top of business constraints league table - Grant Thornton IBR
Red Tape Rising: Obama's Torrent of New Regulation -- Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.