Drowning in Muda

I had my anticipated fruitless conversation about an enhanced disclosure with the person to whom I’d been referred in Essex County Council. She had no idea why I had been told to speak with her as she can not help me at this stage.

As I thought, in order to make progress with my application for an enhanced disclosure, I need a registered body number from a local charity, or umbrella body, such as my local Voluntary Services Council. But, of course, it was my perplexed VSC that told me that they couldn’t help me with this and to go elsewhere and talk to Essex County Council.

As an individual, I can not apply for an enhanced disclosure, I have to apply through a company or a body such as a charity. It doesn’t seem as if any of my local charities thought that it was worth the administrative hassle or expense of setting themselves up as an appropriately registered body. Which is why the government’s website claims that you should be able to apply through your local VSC...

There is a lot discussion in the news about these background checks and their usefulness or not. But I do know that obtaining a disclosure should not be such a frustrating process. I want to get on with booking my workshops, not waste what is now seven weeks, even trying to begin the process of applying for my enhanced disclosure.

David McBride has done a lot to popularise Lean Engineering and the concept of muda. He writes that “[p]rocesses either add value or waste to the production of a good or service”: this process is nowhere near adding value for me, it is drowning me in muda and sapping my energy in dealing with it.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project