I've worked on both sides of the government/contractor line and my gut feel says it's a culture that started in government, but I could be wrong, obviously. But since there are policy-makers and politicians who believe that one of the functions of government is to provide jobs, it makes sense that it would start on the government side. There would be little to no incentive to be more efficient since that would result in a loss of jobs. And then some of those inefficient processes and workflows become embedded in the contracts and so it goes.

Government should provide jobs - so they simply pay people to do unproductive jobs rather than removing some of the hurdles to new business starts, lowering costs of compliance etc etc....gosh I love this country