By Stefan Peter
In the future, Berliners will have to wait a maximum of 14 days for an appointment at the citizens’ office. This is what the new Senate promises. However, similar announcements under the red-red-green coalition regularly failed.
Anyone who wants to apply for an ID card or passport or register an apartment or business needs a lot of patience in the capital: an appointment at the Citizens’ Registration Office is usually difficult to get, and the State of Berlin’s service portal often just says: fully booked! And all this many weeks in advance!
These untenable conditions should be a thing of the past by the end of the year at the latest. Martina Klement (42), the new State Secretary for Digital Affairs, promises: “The interim goal is 14 days, if possible faster!”
How can this be achieved? A new citizens’ office with 20 employees has just been opened on Klosterstrasse (Mitte), and next year there will be two more citizens’ offices in Spandau and Mitte, each with twelve employees. Treptow-Köpenick and Pankow will not follow until 2025.
“The whole of Berlin benefits from it,” says Klement. Because everyone can use a citizens’ office in another district.
In total, the Senate is creating 100 additional positions in the citizens’ offices. A “springer pool” is also planned to better absorb peak loads in individual offices. A “recruitment service” is intended to help districts find staff, as many employees will soon be retiring.
Problem: Not every appointment booked is kept. So that employees don’t have to wait unnecessarily for visitors who never come, we are working on a “check-in” for the offices. What else Klement is planning: “We should try appointment-free days!”
However, one thing could jeopardize the promise of a faster deadline: “It would be a challenge if we had a complete repeat election.” The Federal Constitutional Court is currently deliberating on this.
Last year, 1.9 million appointments were made at the citizens’ offices (a quarter of them for registration and re-registration of apartments), but 2.4 million processes were processed. Means: Many districts assign appointments outside of the booking portal.