I think there’s a time and place for a relatively small group of staffers with a clear area of work, but a focus on ‘staff’ like it’s some centerpiece of our government is counterproductive to an overall goal of involving people in our government. I have fond memories of struggling to get more than a few responses out of dozens of staffers — and that’s after I literally went around sending individual DMs to every staffer. I don’t think this is a matter of arguing for or against community participation; I have first-hand experience of just how little giving out ‘staffer’ titles left and right actually encourages participation.
Why can’t we promote opportunities for citizens to participate in projects in much the same way we used to promote opportunities for citizens to join ministries? We don’t gain anything from processing more applications and giving out more titles, we benefit from people participating in working on things that interest them… so why not actually advertise those things? That would enable anyone to sign up for the specific projects that interest them, without ministers having to deal with the overhead of managing their own applications and activity requirements and uninterested staffers.