How a person drowding in rules can flag them…

…with granular level detail.

Regardless of their party, in the US Congress, senators and congressional representatives employ constituency services personnel whose job is to cut through red tape. In addition to the specific issue, this is a way in which the elected officials can monitor the performance of the public servants who are supposed to be serving the people without the filter of the vested interest of those public service senior management.

In New Zealand, the public service has become opaque, erecting information walls to make this difficult. The various departments, ministries and agencies do not want their activities to be seen so they use standing orders, privacy claims and confidentiality to mask private agendas, incompetence and pecuniary interest.

When they make regulations, how it will impact the regulated person is not part of their concern. They do not connect the regulations they make with the problems facing the nation – such as the affordable housing crisis, or the drop in literacy. The checks and balances that would expose these failings are blocked by the rules.

Techniology makes constituency services easier to run than back in the days of letters and postal delivery.

It requires an online web site in which a set of questions help focus the complaint, and the issue is then fleshed out to not only see the specific concern, but the larger impact. This should be run by the political party or the office of the MP. For list MP’s, the CS should have a nationwide focus. For elected MP’s, their constituency.

It is recommended the party establish a group of peer review volunteers who rank the quality of the complaint. In part this is to filter out the usual cranks who become chronic complainers.

Then, within the party office, examine the complaints to determine which ones can become the triggger for a petition, and also which ones can be consolidated into a press release and news story.