C. Northcote Parkinson formulated the law that bears his name. He documented the phenomenon (PDF) of more and more bureaucrats supporting fewer and fewer ships and sailors back in 1955:
The accompanying table is derived from Admiralty statistics for 1914 and 1928. The criticism voiced at the time centered on the comparison between the sharp fall in numbers of those available for fighting and the sharp rise in those available only for administration, the creation, it was said, of “a magnificent Navy on land.” But that comparison is not to the present purpose. What we have to note is that the 2,000 Admiralty officials of 1914 had become the 3,569 of 1928; and that this growth was unrelated to any possible increase in their work. The Navy during that period had diminished, in point of fact, by a third in men and two-thirds in ships. Nor, from 1922 onwards, was its strength even expected to increase, for its total of ships (unlike its total of officials) was limited by the Washington Naval Agreement of that year. Yet in these circumstances we had a 78.45 percent increase in Admiralty officials over a period of fourteen years; an average increase of 5.6 percent a year on the earlier total. In fact, as we shall see, the rate of increase was not as regular as that. All we have to consider, at this stage, is the percentage rise over a given period.
His law is still operative, as shown recently in healthy bonus payments to bureaucrats in the British Ministry of Defence at the same time that the troops are under a pay freeze and reduction in force:
One senior civil servant was awarded an £85,831 bonus on top of their six-figure salary — at the same time as members of the armed forces have been subject to a two-year pay freeze and 20,000 are to be made redundant.
The bonuses have been paid since April last year and have seen more than 55,000 officials awarded extra payments for their performance — out of a payroll of 83,000.
The ministry expects to pay more in bonuses in the current financial year than the last, even thought it is attempting to drastically reduce the number of civil servants as part of cuts to Government expenditure.
