How Berlin could work – Politics

Cindy Beiersdorf is proud of her office. That’s amazing, because the citizen service she runs isn’t based in Munich, Hamburg or Stuttgart. It is in Berlin. So there, where the airport is called BER and polling stations are open a little longer. Beiersdorf and its 15 employees take care of the basic administrative work in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. Identity cards, passports, registration certificates. Between 5500 and 7000 such appointments are processed here every month. “People do what they can within their means,” says Beiersdorf.

In an internal survey, the Steglitz-Zehlendorf-based company gave them 96 percent satisfaction. The office is currently at the top in Berlin. And that despite the fact that you still have to wait two months to get an appointment here. The Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) issued the slogan that this must be possible for every citizen within 14 days. “We all want that here too,” says Beiersdorf. “I can understand people’s frustration.”

The 14-day rule is something like the revenant of the Berlin administration. For around two decades, the city has been making repeated attempts to meet this deadline. It stands for the dream of a functioning capital with 131,000 employees. However, the reality is quite different. Former mayor Klaus Wowereit recently put it this way: The Berlin administration is “worsely positioned than any district savings bank.”

The reason for Wowereit’s Suada was the federal elections last September, in which just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. The Federal Returning Officer speaks of a “complete systematic failure of the election organization”. It was just one disgrace among many. At least beyond the city limits, Berlin has the reputation of being completely overwhelmed on a regular basis.

The tough day-to-day work of the authorities wears people down

But it’s not the great excitement like the never-ending story of the capital’s airport BER or the inability to properly accommodate the many refugees in 2015 that make people weary. It is the sometimes tough everyday official work. If someone is warned because they did not re-register in time, but there are no appointments for it either; if the schools do not get ventilation devices even in the second pandemic winter, only because the Senate administration and districts cannot agree; when it takes years to establish a bus lane, simply because multiple authorities are involved.

The man who is supposed to change all this is called Ralf Kleindiek. He sits in a large office in the Old Townhouse and holds the title of CDO, a Chief Digital Officer. The Governing Mayor appointed him immediately after taking office in December. Better organizing the administration is one of Franziska Giffey’s major goals.

Kleindiek, 56, was once State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs and most recently at the Boston Consulting Group. When he told friends about his new job, they asked him if he was megalomaniac, mentally ill or just brave. “Hopefully the latter,” he replied. “And a bit of the other.” It was the attraction “that it must be possible to do it somehow. Also in Berlin.”

The core of the problem is a hundred-year-old system error in the city: in 1920, when Greater Berlin was founded and the surrounding cities and communities were incorporated, this was only possible with the promise of the greatest possible autonomy. A situation that still applies today. Each of the twelve districts has the dimensions of a big city and also the self-confidence. The idiosyncratic district mayors have so far evaded all attempts by the Senate to govern.

Since 1959, a separate law has regulated how the Senate administration and districts should work together. However, Kleindiek has learned that the self-evident sentence “If several administrative offices are responsible, they work together quickly and successfully” does not apply. In fact, “everything is gradually being processed”. It can take a long time for the planning application to be approved. years for example. In addition, there is a culture of incompetence, says Kleindiek. “Shifting responsibility is really a sore point.”

The former Governing Mayor Michael Müller and his Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel, demonstrated how this works immediately after the election debacle: first the two political leaders went into hiding for days, then they denied any responsibility. It’s no wonder that some clerks hardly act differently.

Kleindiek wants to redistribute the tasks between Senate administrations and districts, but above all they want to clearly describe them. “If someone then performs very differently, the reasons are discussed,” he warns. During the pandemic and now, when dealing with the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine, the Senate and districts have shown what they can do. “The administration worked well during the crisis. Now we have to manage it on a daily basis.”

The only question is why Kleindiek should succeed, which has not been the case in previous years. The coalition agreement of the last Senate already said: “The coalition will ensure that the city functions.” Then came election day. Because the administrative confusion is supported by another Berlin peculiarity: the city councilors, in the districts responsible for health or economy, for example, are appointed by the parties. They are rarely trained in administration, but enjoy maximum independence. In other words, when something goes well in Berlin, it rarely has structural reasons. It mainly depends on the commitment of those involved.

Detlef Gottschalck calls this “administrative disorder”. Gottschalck was head of the Senate Chancellery in Hamburg under CDU Mayor Christoph Ahlhaus. In Berlin, he worked on administrative reform for the last Senate and is still working on the subject at the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, funded by several companies. “There’s no lack of analysis. There’s actually no lack of recipes either. Above all, there’s a lack of implementation,” he says. But this time “hope is high: The start is already more convincing. The motivation is also higher.”

Cindy Beiersdorf and her employees are not lacking in commitment either. Since spring, the Citizens’ Registration Office in Steglitz-Zehlendorf has been open three hours longer per week. Even the security guards who are still here from Corona times help out, says Beiersdorf. For example with translations. And even if a citizen comes without an appointment, one would try to help him. “No one is simply sent away here.”

Now Cindy Beiersdorf and Ralf Kleindiek just have to get together. Then things could even go quite well in Berlin.