All services to be available at 25 government offices thanks to new scheme

The 'One-stop-shop' scheme is expected to be made up of 25 government offices across Malta and Gozo whereby persons can go to the one closest to them and apply for any government service.

This should replace the tedious exercise of having to go to centralised locations such as Valletta for such processes, a presentation on government's plans to simplify administrative processes revealed.

Furthermore, if persons, for instance, file an application with government they would also be able to monitor the application's progress online.
The plans were presented during the first of a series of round-table conferences to be held by the Commission for Simplification and Reduction of Bureaucracy.

Entitled 'Efficiency in government's work', the meeting was attended by Parliamentary Secretary for Simplification, Michael Falzon, government whip, Carmelo Abela, the Commissioner for Simplification and Bureaucracy himself, Anthony Agius Decelis, as well as a number of representatives from the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD).

In a short intervention, Falzon said that having entered politics after 35 years working in a bank - where things were carried out properly and efficiently - the civil sector had come as somewhat of a shock to him. "Today the government is a business. Everything needs to be accounted for and regulated," he said.

Falzon added that rules should not be made to ensure that no one "falls through the net", but to safeguard the majority. "We need to have the guts to tell people who come to us with impossible proposals a very straight-and-plain no," he said. "If things cannot be done, people should be told straight away. This should be our starting point for reducing bureaucracy."

On his part, Abela said that it was clear that there was an "urgent need" for reducing bureaucratic restrictions, pointing out that it was now time to speak about how to do this.

"It is in everyone's interest that there is less bureaucracy in our country and the institutions which form part of it," Abela said.

"Less restrictions means that the country can become more competitive, as public service employees will be given clearer guidelines with which to work, the general public can enjoy a better and more efficient public service, and lots of excess money will be saved."

Meanwhile, Decelis said that government firmly believed in a style of politics whereby various stakeholders participated and contributed towards decision-making. "We believe in a bottom-up approach," Decelis said. "We made an electoral promise to reduce bureaucracy by 25% and we should be working as one team to reach this goal."

The Commissioner said that government, whilst committed in fulfilling its pledges, will continue to base its work on research, communication and dialogue with social partners, whilst continuing to work in conjunction with both the public and private sector.