Hello from Hamburg,
Thank you for the many responses to the September issue of the Generation Z newsletter, which came in via email, LinkedIn, and even by mail. The brandeins newsletters are designed to spark lively debate among readers. That’s why I’m including a link to my LinkedIn feed here. Please feel free to share your opinions on this platform and make them visible to everyone.
The rapid changes in society brought about by migration highlight the strain on our public administration. When dealing with a war refugee, we see both a willingness to help and a sense of helplessness. The solution is clear, but the path ahead is rocky.
Don’t worry: This isn’t going to be a rant against bureaucracy. That would be too simplistic. It makes me think more about how government agencies are struggling with the current uncertainties and are proving to be overwhelmed. I’ve been witnessing the challenges faced by government agencies for months through the example of Anna, a young mother who arrived in Germany in April from Bucha, Ukraine—25 kilometers northwest of Kyiv—with her lively one-year-old son, Martin, and lived with our family for three months before moving into her own apartment.
I’ve had many positive experiences with dedicated case workers and unbureaucratic solutions: the payment of social benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act immediately upon arrival, in cash and without extensive application formalities; a welcome message translated into Ukrainian and worded in a way that wasn’t at all bureaucratic; sympathy and helpfulness from staff at the job center, who patiently explain incomprehensible forms. However, we were also a joy to those we interacted with: “It’s so good that you speak German.” I just spent an hour with a Ukrainian woman spelling out an email address so that during our next meeting we can use Google Translate to address her concerns. It’s not her fault that she doesn’t speak German or English, but it’s just a hassle.”
There were also some curious situations, such as the conversation with that case worker who poured his heart out to me, explaining that he feels torn between his upbringing as a conscientious objector in the 1980s and the fact that he now supports arms deliveries to Ukraine, and that he is deeply concerned about social cohesion in Germany in light of rising inflation and energy prices.
I come across many oddities. Seven-page forms with questions for Anna such as: “Do you own your home?” or “What income do you earn from investments?” For a war refugee, these are rather absurd questions—much like the requirement that the child’s husband and father, who is currently at war, submit a declaration of paternity and provide details of his income situation. Another burden was a European regulation intended to transfer the handling of war refugees’ cases from the asylum office to the social services department. During the transition period, which lasted several months, the question remained unresolved as to who had to take the first step in registering with the health insurance provider: the health insurance provider or the social services office. When asked about this back-and-forth, the case worker on the other end of the line chuckled hysterically: “Yeah, that’s just how German bureaucracy works.”
It’s understandable that standard forms cannot be quickly adapted to a new target group that can take nothing but their lives and a stroller with them as they flee. And it’s understandable that new legal situations and regulations create a vacuum. But one thing remains clear: German bureaucracy is rife with dysfunctionalities that everyone involved struggles to navigate as best they can. It’s absurd that three family members, centered around Anna and her little one, have to spend one to two days a week for months on end dealing with applications and paperwork for parental allowance, child benefit, social benefits, residency status, and so on. And it’s preposterous that Anna and little Martin are now the proud holders of nine numbers that correspond to various legal provisions and are prerequisites for further applications: two client numbers at the Jobcenter, one for the “benefit community,” one tax number, one pension number, and one each for social security and health insurance, as well as one tax ID and two “fictitious certification” numbers. The latter is yet another term coined by lawmakers that no one understands unless they’ve completed a basic degree in law.
Anna looks at this jumble with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. Not only because she doesn’t understand any of it, but also because, even amid a state of war in her home country, dealing with government agencies is largely digitized: with a customer account and a customer number via an app that allows her to handle official requirements on a personalized basis. Anna had no idea what snail mail was and is astonished by the flood of paper that seems to have come from another era. The fact that, incidentally, all incoming paper applications from the job center are sent to a central office to be “digitized” there is the icing on the cake in Absurdistan.
The solution to the dysfunctional administrative system certainly does not lie in the civil servants’ union’s recent demand that the government hire more people because of the widely felt signs of overload. That would be merely tinkering with the symptoms, which would only prolong the dysfunction. The solution does not lie at all in an approach driven by the legislature and its departments, but rather in the digitization of reasonably intelligent processes designed with the customer in mind. It is a truism that digitization fails less because of technology than because of an inability to think and act holistically. Anyone who wants to change this must commit to a transformation project whose scale can rival that of the Catholic Church. But there’s no getting around it. We have to tackle it.
Warm regards
Markus Baumanns
