Report to the People
On the Move....
I am sure you'll have heard the saying that moving house is the second most stressful event we experience in our lives.
This is calculated, apparently, on a "stress index" of incidents most of us face at some point. It ranges from the death of a loved one (100) down through physical torture (97), watching a Party Political Broadcast (about the same), to running out of tomato sauce. (1)
I'm not sure where moving office ranks in this index, but if my recent experience is anything to go by, it should be fairly high up.
During the General Election, the Labour candidate, David Cairns, and I promised that if he was successfully elected we would set up a joint office - a one-stop Parliamentary advice shop.
However, after what seems like the whole summer spent on the phone to utilities companies' call centres, lawyers, engineers, surveyors and every other tradesman and supplier in the book, I wish there was a one-stop shop for office relocations. (Of course, I know perfectly well that, as soon as the move is complete, someone will tell me that such a company exists and has opened a branch 5 minutes from my front door.)
It will, though, be well worth it.
I often praise organisations for becoming more accessible and making it easier for their customers to get what they need to do done with the minimum of hassle. Putting everything under one roof is, I find, one of the most effective ways of doing this.
Whether in Government, agencies such as Scottish Enterprise, or business, such streamlining not only makes the best use of resources, but vastly improves the quality of service offered.
And it's no different for providers of political services.
It should be as easy as possible for constituents - the consumers of political services - to raise either an individual case, or more general policy issues, with the appropriate elected representative quickly and easily.
Indeed, as I mentioned in this column last month when talking about the new one-stop ombudsman, if you have been failed by a bureaucracy, the last thing you want is to be shunted from door to door when you try to complain.
So, despite the stresses and strains of relocation, the Greenock and Inverclyde Parliamentary Advice Office should soon be open for business, making it even easier for you to have your say.
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