Land Registry take four months to find best way to open post

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Land Registry civil servants take four months to find best way to open mail http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -mail.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Civil servants from the Land Registry were overwhelmed with correspondence from members of the public they spent more than four months reviewing how they open their post.


It is an everyday task undertaken by millions of people every day with little or no difficulty, save for the odd paper cut.

But civil servants at one government department viewed the dilemma of opening the post as so serious, they ordered a taxpayer-funded inquiry to establish the best way to open envelopes.

Senior officials from the Land Registry, which overseas the ownership of land in Britain, commissioned the “post opening review” amid concerns about problems and delays caused from growing volumes of post.

On Thursday night, the department was accused of wasting public money on a futile exercise after it emerged that no changes had in fact been implemented following the four month inquiry.

According to leaked documents, staff at the department’s Till Hill office in Coventry, West Mids., were authorised to spend up to £5000 on a task many felt was reasonably self-explanatory.

Internal memos claimed staff told senior management that hiring more employees to help open the mail was the best way to tackle problem at the site, which handles nearly 1300 registry applications everyday.

But the “post opening review” was given the green light regardless, and over the next four months team members embarked on a series of tests to solve the predicament of letter opening.

Among their tasks including testing manual letter openers, conducting a survey and studying the ergonomics of the post opening area.

Leaked documents show that when the project was first launched in April last year the main questions asked were whether post should be opened in teams, whether it should be opened earlier and whether staff would be willing to work earlier.

During the early stages of the review, other Land Registry offices were even contacted to find out how they open the post.

Officials from the Coventry office liaised with colleagues in the Stevenage Land Registry team, in Kent, as they attempted to obtain their electronic openers before they were scrapped.

As there were no manual letter openers at Stevenage, however, the team authorised staff to purchase one, to check the quality, billing the taxpayer £4.19 for the item.

In total, two were bought and tested but the review concluded that neither were deemed suitable.

But at the conclusion of the project, managers eventually admitted the original solution was best and that hiring more staff would solve their problem.

On Thursday night, Unions reacted angrily to what they described as a waste of time and money.

Michael Kavanagh, Public & Commercial Services union group president for the Land Registry, said no changes had been implemented following the review.

He said: "Everybody knew this review was taking place. Those who get in earliest in the morning start opening the mail.

"We couldn't really understand why the review was conducted as the way we opened the post seemed to be the most efficient.

"There has been no fundamental change as a result of the review. We have flexible working hours so those that get in first still open the mail."

A Land Registry spokesman defended the “part-time” review, insisting that while there was never a formal budget, "it formed part of the day to day workload of the staff involved".

"The review was part of our normal business approach to ensure that all our processes work efficiently to provide the best possible service to our customers,” she said.

"It reflected the organisational changes within the Coventry office in moving from casework teams based on location to dedicated customer teams handling applications from specific Land Registry customers.

"The purpose of the post opening review was to ensure that the post opening process, the first step in receiving casework applications into the business, fully supported and facilitated this organisational change."

According to its website, the Land Registry, is a non-ministerial government department and executive agency which reports to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[kingofmcr]

errrrr with fingers or a pointed blunt mini sword maybe ..that will be a £500.000 consultation fee please

[Lounge Lizard]

"Those who get in earliest in the morning start opening the mail." - well, it probably helps them pass the time before the first tea break.

[TeeferTiger]

"Those who get in earliest in the morning start opening the mail." - well, it probably helps them pass the time before the first tea break.

They've now decided to take on extra staff... there are a few posties recently who've lost jobs for opening mail, they sound like perfect candidates

[teesdale]

Sounds a bit like world class mail, except instead of £50000000 over 6 years its only £5000 over 4 months.