Certificates in eleven days instead of three months, and a file that can be found.
Land and certificate issuanceThree officesAbout 900 applications a month
The situation
What we found
Certificates took roughly three months. No single person could say why, because no step had a target and no step was timed.
Physical files moved between officers by hand. A file that could not be found was assumed to be with somebody, and applicants were told to come back.
Applicants travelled to the office to ask for a status update, which added footfall that the counters then had to absorb.
Revenue was collected in person, reconciled weekly, and disputes about whether a payment had been made took days to settle.
Pareto: three causes, three quarters of the problem
Every cause of delay in one service, counted and sorted. Seventeen causes were identified. Three of them account for most of the damage.
Incomplete application forms31% of delays
Waiting for a single approver26% of delays
Payment not yet confirmed18% of delays
Above this line: 75% of the delay, from three causes
Record mismatch between systems8% of delays
Applicant did not attend6% of delays
Document verification queries5% of delays
Everything else, eleven causes6% of delays
This is the cheapest analysis in consulting and the most frequently skipped. Without it, improvement effort spreads evenly across seventeen causes — and the three that matter get a seventeenth of the attention.
Illustrative
Root cause
Before designing anything, find out what is actually wrong.
Three months of delay, taken apart two ways: first by counting every cause, then by drilling down through the largest one until we reached something that could actually be changed.
Five Whys: keep asking until you reach something you can change
A real complaint, taken down to its root. Most organisations stop at the first or second answer — which is why the same problem returns every year.
1
The problem
Certificates are issued three weeks late, and applicants keep coming back to ask.
Stated as a complaint
2
Why? — the files sit in a tray waiting for signature
The approving officer signs in batches, twice a week.
First answer
Stop here and you get“Tell the officer to sign more often.” The delay returns within a month.
3
Why? — because only one officer is authorised
The delegation instrument names one person, and has not been revised since 2019.
Second answer
4
Why? — because nobody owns the instrument
Revising it is somebody’s job in principle and nobody’s in practice.
Third answer
5
Why? — because the process was never written down
It exists in the heads of four people, so there is nothing to review, and no obvious owner.
Fourth answer
6
Why? — because no one is accountable for the end-to-end service
Each department owns a step. Nobody owns the journey the applicant actually experiences.
Root causeChange this
The fix is governance, not effortName an owner for the whole service, write the process down, revise the delegation. The signature delay disappears as a side effect.
The first answer produces an instruction. The fifth produces a fix.
Illustrative
The workflow
The same service as a workflow, exceptions and all.
The certificate workflow, once every file could be found
The change that mattered was not digitising the form. It was tagging the file.
1
Application submitted and paid for in one visit
The form cannot be submitted incomplete, and payment is confirmed at the point of submission rather than reconciled a week later.
ApplicantA1PayAutomatic
If a required document is missingThe applicant is told at the counter, not three weeks later by letter.
2
The physical file is created and tagged
A UHF tag is fixed to the file jacket. From here on the file announces where it is.
Registry officerUHF file tag
3
The file moves between officers
Doorway portals at each office record the file passing through. Nobody logs anything by hand.
Case officersDoorway reader portalsAutomatic
If a file exceeds its target at any deskIt appears on an exceptions list with a name against it, the same day — rather than surfacing when the applicant complains.
4
Approval is signed by any of three authorised officers
The delegation instrument was revised. This one change removed the largest single delay.
Authorised officersApproval workflow
5
The applicant is told, at every stage
An SMS at submission, at approval and at readiness. Counter footfall fell sharply, which shortened the queue for everyone else.
No staff involvementNotificationsAutomatic
6
Collection, verified by photograph
The person collecting is checked against the photograph captured at submission.
Registry officerPhoto validation
Illustrative scenario
The work
What we put in
What we put in, and in what order
Two of the six stages cost nothing at all, and between them removed most of the delay.
1
Stage one
Time the process before changing it
Every step timed for four weeks. This alone changed the conversation, because the delay was not where management believed it was.
2
Stage two
Rewrite the form
The most common cause of delay was applications accepted incomplete. The form now refuses to be submitted that way.
31% of delay removed at no cost
3
Stage three
Revise the delegation instrument
One officer could approve. Three now can, with the same controls. A governance change, not a technology one.
26% of delay removed at no cost
4
Stage four
Tag the files
UHF tags on file jackets and reader portals at office doors, so a file’s location is a fact rather than a memory.
5
Stage five
Collect and confirm payment at submission
A1Pay confirms payment immediately and posts it against the application.
6
Stage six
Tell the applicant what is happening
Notifications at three points. The cheapest customer-service improvement available to any public office.
Illustrative scenario
The result
What changed
Six months later
Same staff, same offices, same statutory requirements.
Time to issue a certificateAbout 3 months
Applications accepted incompleteRoughly a third
Officers authorised to approve1
Time to locate a specific fileSometimes never
Applicants attending purely to ask for statusMost of the queue
Nobody could explain the three months, because nobody had measured it.
Time to issue a certificate11 days
Applications accepted incompleteNone — the form refuses
Officers authorised to approve3
Time to locate a specific fileSeconds
Applicants attending purely to ask for statusAlmost none
Two of the four biggest gains cost nothing but a decision.
Illustrative scenario
The technology
What each piece is actually for
The technology, in plain words
Note how little of it there is. The framework work came first, and shrank the technology bill.
UHF file tagsA tag on the file jacket, read from several metres away. The file reports its own location instead of relying on somebody remembering.Registry and case files
Doorway reader portalsReaders at each office door recording files moving in and out, with no one scanning anything.Every office door
A1PayPayment taken and confirmed at the point of submission, posted against the application automatically.Revenue collection
Photo validationThe photograph captured at submission is checked at collection, so a certificate is handed to the right person.Collection counter
NotificationsThree messages: received, approved, ready. This removed most of the walk-in traffic on its own.Throughout
Illustrative scenario
About this case study.
Public Sector is a fictional organisation. The situation, the figures and the outcomes are
illustrative — they show how BTS Consulting approaches a problem of this shape and
what the technology involved actually does. They are not a record of a delivered project,
and nothing here should be read as a client result.
More case studies
The same approach, different sector
A state university
Higher Education
A university where every department held its own version of the student, and nobody could say where the laboratory equipment was.
Tell us where performance is being slowed, hidden or lost. We will help you define the problem, identify the priority actions and build a practical path forward.
