Someone balancing needs without numbers to back up their costly actions is why higher-order bureaucracies exist. A (governmental) bureau is responsible for a d

Someone balancing needs without numbers to back up their costly actions is why higher-order bureaucracies exist. A (governmental) bureau is responsible for a delegated area of licensing (pre-emptive control), regulatory oversight (ongoing control), and "criminal" investigation (retributive action for violation), as granted by its enabling authority. Bureaucracy is the discipline/science/art of managing a bureau, which isn't producing competitive market-action revenue (profits), so can only control efficiency by containing costs, which itself is an action that doesn't produce market revenue. Oversight of a bureau (ascendant bureaucracy) exists solely to make sure some metric of cost containment and compliance with enabling authority is maintained within each bureau itself. In short, bureaucracy is the regulatory management of regulatory management.