Berlin’s Digital State Secretary Ralf Kleindiek assumes that in the course of the coming year everyone in the capital will finally be able to get an appointment at the Citizens’ Registration Office within 14 days. “My firm goal is for this to be the case by the end of 2023 at the latest,” said the politician, who as Chief Digital Officer is responsible for the digitization and modernization of the administration, the German Press Agency. “Then it has to work reliably and stably.”
According to Kleindiek, around 30 percent of all appointment requests can currently be dealt with within 14 days. “We know from surveys that 60 percent of all those who go to the Citizens’ Registration Office with their concerns would like to have an appointment within 14 days. So we’re halfway there at the moment.”
Kleindiek pointed out that various measures to improve the situation had been introduced under his leadership in the Senate. A big problem is that a fifth of those who have booked an appointment do not show up for this without informing them in advance. Those affected have often made several appointments in different offices and only appear at one of them.
“We have to work on that, and that’s what we’re doing,” said the State Secretary. Reminder e-mails would now be sent two days before the appointment, provided that citizens have given their e-mail address. The cancellation function is also pointed out here.
This had recently been improved when the appointment confirmation was sent. For this purpose, a corresponding button was positioned more clearly in the automatically sent confirmation email after an appointment was made.
A broader concept will also be developed by the end of January 2023. “We are planning five new citizen’s offices,” announced Kleindiek. “The Senate will provide 100 additional employees for the district offices.”
Third point: “We will try out a pool of volunteers with initially 20 to 30 employees.” “It’s a city-wide experiment,” says Kleindiek. For the first time, tests are being carried out to balance large loads in an office across districts.
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In general, the State Secretary underlined his goal of promoting the digitization of administration so that citizens can carry out more and more services online. “Every digitization accelerates the process, makes it easier and faster for the citizens and also relieves the employees in their specific work in the offices.”
