In a strongly worded article Andrew Hough of The Telegraph last week commented on a “tax payer funded” four month review that Land Registry instigated into post opening.
The Telegraph stated “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.”
Andrew Hough went on to explain ”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.”
Apparently “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”
Land Registry gets many things right for a government owned quango that holds so much data but its planning and strategic management has previously been involved in projects that have been less than successful such as the Sellers Information Pack pilot, the chain matrix and the electronic funds transfer system. With a failed post opening project now on its track record we look forward eagerly to the decision on whether it wants to get involved with the centralised provision of LLC1 and CON29 data when it concludes its investigation into that subject.
