As surgeons, my colleagues and I felt we were subjected to a lot of regulation and bureaucracy. Fair enough in some ways; we all deserve to know that we are being treated by competent and up to date doctors. So when I left surgery for the world of Welsh Agriculture, I expected the paperwork to reduce.

In fact, it got more; a lot more. Perhaps that isn’t unreasonable; the safety and quality of food for human consumption is likewise very important. But one of the most striking features was the overlap between various regulatory bodies, generating quite a lot of duplication.

It was difficult to work out whether this was a uniquely Welsh experience, or whether the same would have been true for farming elsewhere in the UK. In truth, I suspect a bit of both.

We can argue until the cows come home as to how much government oversight any particular activity requires. But if we want Wales to enjoy a thriving economy, the bureaucracy needs to work efficiently.

Right now, that doesn’t appear to be the case; in fact, things seem to be getting worse. It is just really hard to get anything done, and that is holding rural Wales back, badly. And it is easy to target criticism at both local and Welsh Government, but some public facing private companies aren’t doing that well either.

Just to be clear, there are plenty of great people in the public and private sectors who go above and beyond to deliver services to a really high standard. They deserve our praise. But sadly that is not universal, and when getting things done depends on decisions from multiple agencies, the machine works at the pace of the least efficient.

That matters; think about a nominal investment of a million pounds into a rural business. Hopefully that creates new full time jobs. It certainly maintains jobs in construction and the supply chain. Those jobs generate Income Tax and NI and VAT, all of which fund our public services like the NHS. They allow young people to aspire to own their own homes.

If there are too many hoops to jump through, with each one generating cost and taking time, then it is easy just to give up. Investment goes elsewhere and the jobs are lost.

So why aren’t things working as they need to? It must be due to leadership. That can only come from our elected political representatives, and it is their duty to get a grip on the bureaucracy (non-elected government staff) and to ensure that it is delivering what the people of Wales want and need.

As junior doctors in the Royal Navy, we were taught that leadership requires balancing the needs of the individual, development of the team and delivery of the task.

Hitting the sweet spot between three different interests isn’t always easy. But, have we become too focussed on the individual, and is that in part a legacy of Covid lockdowns?

Lockdown required many people to work from home. But that continues especially in the public sector and large public facing companies like utilities. It can’t be wrong to ask whether working from home really works.

For some individuals doing some tasks the benefits of home working are obvious.

But the short term benefit to an individual’s work/life balance may mean that teams don’t get built and tasks don’t get delivered. That is in no one’s interest, particularly junior members of the team.

Whatever your view, most will agree that we need our bureaucracy to be more efficient.

It’s time for our politicians to fix the machine.