red tape

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an idiom describing excessive, rigid, and time-consuming bureaucratic formalities, rules, and procedures that impede the efficient completion of a task, the delivery of a service, or the making of a decision; the phrase originates from the historical practice of tying official legal and governmental documents in red or pink ribbon — tape — which had to be untied and retied to access and file documents, creating a literal physical barrier representing bureaucratic delay; red tape is used critically to characterise administrative systems in which procedural compliance becomes an end in itself rather than a means to achieving the substantive purposes of public policy, and in which form takes precedence over substance; the reduction of red tape — deregulation, administrative simplification, and digitisation of public services — is a recurring theme in public management reform

Examples

• Small businesses complained that environmental permits were buried in so much red tape that compliance cost more than the fines for non-compliance.
• The government announced a programme to cut red tape for exporters by replacing twenty separate licences with a single digital authorisation.