Making bureaucracy pay for delays

Nicholas Albery

British bureaucracy sometimes rivals Third World bureaucracy for delay, rudeness and complacency. The London passport office took six months to renew my passport, including losing my application form after cashing my cheque. It took patience and a phone with automatic repeat dialling for me to be able to get through to them. Their advertised numbers were and no doubt still are almost continuously engaged - for any suffering reader I pass on some of the ex-directory numbers that should connect you to a supervisor: 071 271 8594, 071 271 8505 and 071 271 8599. Phoning seems to work better than letters: they cheerfully admitted to me that it was taking them three weeks even to open mail, let alone deal with it.

'When my passport finally arrived, I sent them an invoice for L15 for my time for the estimated three hours I had spent chasing them up by phone and letter'

When my passport finally arrived, I sent them an invoice for a modest L15 for my time for the estimated three hours I had spent chasing them up by phone and letter, and asked for a further L4-53 for my material costs, including phone bill and stamps. Before the month was up I received a cheque for the full amount as 'reimbursement for the difficulties you incurred in obtaining a passport' and as an 'ex-gratia payment in full and final settlement.'

I advise anyone else who has been made to wait overlong by bureaucracy to charge for their time. The paymasters for these organisations must be made to realise that allowing their services to be run on minimum budgets so that they are then overwhelmed by demand is not acceptable. A change of attitude is also required - and the Citizen's Charter is a step in right direction. As Stuart Conger puts it in 'Social Inventions' (Saskatchewan Newstart), social agencies, like businesses, 'must proclaim the customer king.' The emphasis must be on building the self-image of clients rather than humiliating them, and the orientation must be towards pleasure rather than puritanism. Every government department and social services agency needs a unit solely concerned with trying out new and improved ways of delivering their services to the public.

Nicholas Albery, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel 081 208 2853; fax 081 452 6434).

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