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The whole problem is the 'democratic' functions that are supposed to undergird the entire edifice of accountability are inadequate to the task of punishing misbehavior.
Nobody holds the bureaucrats accountable for screwups that harm the public because nobody holds the mangers accountable because nobody holds the appointed officials accountable because no nobody holds the elected officials who appointed them accountable and the system itself has become designed around diffusing 'responsibility' for screwups in such a way that no one layer has to ever admit blame and accept consequences.
There's very little evidence that screwups actually result in feedback which keeps the responsible party from ever screwing up again, and likewise puts others on notice that their own screwups won't be tolerated.
I assure you that in the IC some significant screw ups, eg 9/11, Iraq WMDs, and Snowden, did lead to significant changes in my previous job. Some of them were good, even.
You can argue those changes were insufficient, bad, or counterproductive, but they happened, and they were substantial at least in the sense that they caused real changes in day-to-day operations.
I fully agree about diffused responsibility and that demonstrated incompetence is not sufficiently punished, which is a major reason I switched careers. But outright malfeasance is typically dealt with.
Leaders who are associated with screw ups tend to have their career progress cut off, but that’s an organizational politics situation.
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