Great piece, Don. I realize that civil service and public administration is supposed to be non-political, but given that a major attack line on the right is "government is the problem", you make a case that improving delivery of government services is political just as attacking government services is political.
People who believe that government has a role to play in making people's lives better should start looking for these kinds of opportunities — and need to be creative. Full disclosure: I'm currently stuck on a kitchen/bathroom renovation because the city of Chicago (formerly known as "the city that works") has a huge backlog of inspections. The excuse: we don't have the budget to hire the inspectors.
But a creative solution would be to: (a) establish a minimum response time on inspection requests (to a citizen five working days would seem reasonable); and (b) allow citizens to hire and pay out-of-pocked for approved companies to perform inspections subject to city oversight. Would this be challenging? Sure, but it is a solvable challenge. Might it be subject to abuse? Sure, but then address the potential abuses. Don't just throw up you hands and say "there's nothing we can do without more money".
What destroys citizens confidence in government is the failure of government to help citizens get on with their lives.
Great piece, Don. I realize that civil service and public administration is supposed to be non-political, but given that a major attack line on the right is "government is the problem", you make a case that improving delivery of government services is political just as attacking government services is political.
People who believe that government has a role to play in making people's lives better should start looking for these kinds of opportunities — and need to be creative. Full disclosure: I'm currently stuck on a kitchen/bathroom renovation because the city of Chicago (formerly known as "the city that works") has a huge backlog of inspections. The excuse: we don't have the budget to hire the inspectors.
But a creative solution would be to: (a) establish a minimum response time on inspection requests (to a citizen five working days would seem reasonable); and (b) allow citizens to hire and pay out-of-pocked for approved companies to perform inspections subject to city oversight. Would this be challenging? Sure, but it is a solvable challenge. Might it be subject to abuse? Sure, but then address the potential abuses. Don't just throw up you hands and say "there's nothing we can do without more money".
What destroys citizens confidence in government is the failure of government to help citizens get on with their lives.