Death and bureaucracy

When my Ciocia Jadzia died in September, she was buried within four days. When my father's cousin died the following week, she was buried within five days. Both at the Bródno cemetery in Warsaw. So why is it my mother's funeral will not take place until nearly three weeks after her death?

My mother died in Ealing Hospital less than 24 hours after admission; this means that a coroner's report is needed before the death certificate can be issued. The coroner cannot issue the report without recourse to the doctor present at the scene. Now, my mother died at the weekend; the coroner works Mondays to Fridays. The doctor works a long weekend shift, returning to work the following Thursday night. So the earliest time the doctor could talk to the coroner was on Friday morning.

And indeed, on Friday morning, we duly received the information that all was in order; a post-mortem was not required, and we could arrange to collect the death certificate from the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages at Ealing Town Hall on Monday. So we made an appointment, and then contacted the funeral director. Now, funeral directors can formally do nothing without a death certificate, but the one we are using (A. Galla of Pope's Lane, South Ealing) was sufficiently ahead of the game to make provisional bookings for the church and the crematorium.

We were lucky that church and the crematorium were both available on a Friday (a popular day for funerals) which was ideal from the point of view of family travel logistics. So Friday 20th November it is - Polish church, Ealing, cremation at Mortlake, then back to the Polish church for the wake. The earliest date we could have possibly arranged the funeral for was Tuesday 17th, which is still two and half weeks after my mother's death.

Today at Ealing Town Hall, it took an hour to sort everything out, because the system was down. But once working properly, I was amazed at the efficiency of the British State. The Registrar's office was busy, with seven other people in at the same time to register births, deaths or marriages. What documents were required by the Registrar? None. I brought along my mother's old passport, just to ensure correct spelling of her name, but it was not essential.

Once equipped with a handful of death certificates, my father and I popped into the Cooperative Bank to close my mother's current account. All sorted out in a few minutes. Across the road, the visit to Santander Bank was not a success - the queues were so long we were asked to come back later.

An online government service called Tell Us Once allows next-of-kin to enter all the details of a deceased person - just once - thenceforth informing every relevant public sector body. National Insurance, National Savings, National Health Service, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the Department of Work and Pensions, the local authority, the electoral register (and where relevant - though not in my mother's case - the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and the Passport Office).

Just ONE form filled in ON LINE. This is thanks the the wonders of Gov.uk, which seamlessly links all government departments into one, joined-up, citizen-friendly, cost-effective, time-saving system. Here, all the additional information I needed was my mother's National Insurance number.

So while the wait for the funeral is longer in the UK, the amount of time sorting things out is much shorter. No visits with official documents to various offices, just spend literally four minutes online and that is that. At times like this, having a well-organised state supporting you (rather than being a time-consuming burden).

This time four years ago:
Bad news for Jeziorki rat-runners

This time eight years ago:
From Łady to Falenty

Poland's progress: international rankings season

It's that time of year again when nations are scrutinised and ranked according to parameters which determine where global business should locate its activities. Last week, the World Bank published its Doing Business ranking, in which Poland advanced once again (from 45th to 38th in terms of ease of doing business). And EF, a language training company, published its English Proficiency Index, which placed Poland as sixth best (!) in the non-native English-speaking world in terms of its population's mastery of the de facto global language. Poland is among the fastest-improving countries in the world when it comes to knowing English.

Today, Transparency International published its Corruption Perception Index, looking at how corruption is perceived across 175 countries around the world. For the ninth year in a row, Poland did better than the year before, albeit the pace of improvement has slowed down.

This is a clear wake-up call to Ms Kopacz's government not to take its eye off the ball. Although Poland is not slipping, the pace of improvement is far slower than in the first two years of the Tusk administration, when the leaps away from Millerite corruption were most noticeable. Whether you tend to be left-leaning or right-leaning (or, like me, seek balance), corruption is something we can all agree on needs to be extirpated with extreme prejudice.

Look at the graph below which puts Poland into the context of other former communist states. Poland has clearly distanced itself not only from the Balkans and the post-Soviet space, but also from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. Only Estonia, a country that's more Scandinavian than Slavic ranks ahead of Poland. The distance between the UK and Poland (17 points and 21 positions) is smaller than between Poland and Romania (18 points and 34 positions). And this year Ukraine advanced (marginally) from its dire 2013 ranking, while Russia slipped back. Note the effect that EU membership has had on these countries. And note also the general connection between low corruption and high standards of living.

EU membership has brought huge benefits to Poland, not least in terms of the quality of its public administration, now able to share best practices across the member states, better and clearer (though still a long way off perfection) laws and regulations, and a lack of tolerance to corruption. Gone forever are the days when a well-stuffed envelope can buy you the necessary planning permit from the town hall, or a large banknote can let you off a drunk-driving charge.

Foreign investors are looking for transparency, stability and predictability; when investing with a 20- to 30-year timeframe, a government that grasps, wheedles and wobbles is not going to be a good place to build a factory, warehouse or shopping mall, no matter how cheap the labour or the land.

The quality of a country's institutions is paramount; effective, productive public administrators able to carry out their functions quickly and well is crucial to the citizens' well-being.

So a big thank-you to the World Bank, to the World Economic Forum, to Transparency International and to other institutions, NGOs and think-tanks that take the time to compare countries and rank them. Governments take notice, citizens take notice. Governments that fail to deliver improvements get democratically booted out.

This time last year:
The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2013

Also this time last year:
Poland's rapid advance up the education league table: PISA 2013

This time two years ago:
Life expectancy across the EU: more comparisons

The simple, useful, beauty of Gov.uk

A journalist rang today asking me to take him through the basics of the UK pension system. To get myself up to speed, I clicked on www.gov.uk, which is a shining example of how a government should interface with its citizens. Within minutes I had the answers, the journalist briefed. Behold and see the stunning Google-like clarity of the home page. [Click to enlarge.]

The page is divided up not by individual ministries (or Departments of State as they are known in the UK), but by categories of information that citizens need. What a revolutionary idea! Before you say "this could never happen in Poland", please note that Gov.uk did not appear overnight, but is an extention of the previous UK Government portal. Directgov.uk, launched back in 2004. While - unlike its successor - Directgov.uk never won prizes for design, it did make a start on bringing all government services under one umbrella.

Polish ministries are so disjointed that there's no link between, say, the foreign affairs ministry (MSZ) to the ministry of the economy (MG) or to the Premier's Chancellery. 'Silosowość' (silo mentality) is still all-pervasive, with ministries squabbling among themselves - typically the 'spór kompetencyjny', either 'pozytywny' or 'negatywny' - "No, this is not that ministry's business, it's our ministry's", or else - "it's not our ministry's business - it's that ministry that decides."

To get to Gov.uk, heads had to be bashed together, monstrous egos soothed, obstacles removed from way - but more importantly there needed to be the top-down will to get the job done.

Another example of British online public service excellence is the National Health Service's check your symptom website. Rather than bung up the Accident & Emergency wards of hospitals up and down the land with people worried that they might be suffering from chronic thromatoid phlebosis, you click onto this excellent service. It will talk you through your symptoms in easy-to-understand English ,and diagnose quickly whether you need to take an aspirin and go to bed early or to phone immediately for an ambulance.

NHS Direct is saving the UK Government millions - each month 1.5 million people come here to see whether or not their symptoms are indeed serious. I've used this service here in Poland for family and friends, and it has saved the Polish national health fund (NFZ) several hundred zlotys in unnecessary visits to the doctors being forestalled. (Food poisoning or allergic reaction? The latter. Forget the ambulance.) But just compare the above page with the NFZ's home page:

Oh dear how dreadful. Do not even consider clicking on this page (full of important administrative communiques) if you are feeling unwell. You, the patient, know that you're simply not wanted here.

Poland's e-government initiatives are going nowhere fast. Minister Michał Boni, who was meant to bring about a great revolution in the way government delivers services online, was relinquished of his post as Minister of Administration and Digitalisation in November. Whether his successor Rafał Trzaskowski will manage to drag the Polish government into the 21st Century remains to be seen - I can but wish him all the very best. I'd love to see Polish public services delivered online with the same clarity and usefulness as the UK ones are.

This time last year:
My brother at 50 - and as a child

This time last year:
First snow in the Old Town

This time two years ago:
Blood on the tracks, again

This time three years ago:
Views from Książęca footbridge - winter and summer

This time four years ago:
The Most Poniatowskiego