Bureaucracy
26/06/06 07:49
| BusinessI have just been compiling an application for a grant for a community project. It is unbelievable that we need to jump through so many hoops nowadays.
OK, I understand it for large financial grants, but we also see such barriers when we try to sign up to anything. I heard recently of a 16 year old child who tried to open a bank account. He was told that the only way he could open a current account was to bring a pay slip in - no possible as a child! So as an alternative, details of his previous bank account - this was his first account, etc, etc. Have you ever tried changing a bank account? I did that about two years ago - and it was not a pleasant experience!
So back to the application I am doing at the moment. I suppose it is far more complex thanks to the fact that I am completing it for 4 sports clubs as a single entity. We do, however, have to complete forms using the same information packaged in a number of different ways. This is all time consuming and liable to lead to confusing, especially if I am not careful enough with the transcribing.
But this is not limited to banks and public funding bodies! In business, I have often had to complete business cases, feasibility studies, risk assessments and white papers for product development that repeat information, one-to-one, or summarised, refocused, etc.
Why is it that no one stands up to this tidal wave of paperwork. We are told that a typical arrest in the 1950 took a policeman off the streets for approximately 30-40 minutes, whist today's paperwork will keep them off the street for anything up to 6 hours! Teachers are also spending more and more time on paperwork, as opposed preparing lessons and marking work. No wonder these two professions are struggling to recruit and retain people.
So whatever happened to the paperless office? Surely, form filling should be automated now, we also have voice recognition software that has improved considerably. In his book - Business at the Speed of Thought - Bill Gates states that he removed many layers of bureaucratic paperwork from Microsoft, simply by asking for each paper report, and questioning why it was needed. Why is it that he can do this, and no one else can challenge the bureaucrats? Just think of the wasted time, trees and nerves caused by this practice!
I live in France for a time, and I know that for anything official, the French State is the most bureaucratic (though I believe the Italian system also takes some beating!), whether it be for a rental property, car registration, or to start working. Having said that, the French identity card seems to cut a number of corners, and yet there is a reluctance to accept ID cards in the UK - possibly because of the cost more than the loss of 'privacy'. Unfortunately, applications for these ID cards will presumably involve even more bureaucracy. So long as we only have to complete the forms once, and not provide the same information in addition to producing the ID card - we all have precious little time to waste on this.