The situation below illustrates even more starkly that the Digital Poland programme exists only on paper and in the imagination of those in power. It should also be added that during this period it is worth drawing on reserves of goodwill towards male and female officials, who do not have the appropriate tools to serve everyone as they should during the pandemic—namely, solely digitally.
A reader wrote to us:
Please inform people about the situation of a married couple whose housing allowance is about to expire. She is in an advanced, high-risk pregnancy and is staying at home with a small child, while he goes to work. Unfortunately, according to the information we received from an official at the Municipal Social Welfare Centre, they have to come to the centre in person between 7:00 and 10:00 and collect an application form. The husband has to obtain a certificate of earnings, then go to the property manager for further documents, and then to Tauron for an invoice, because a document from the e-customer service office, that is, an electronic invoice, is not accepted. The man has to return to MOPS with all the attachments. I ask how this complies with all the restrictions on contact during the epidemic. Could MOPS not make this easier so that people would not have to come to the office in person?
MOPS's response:
If a person wants to submit an application for a housing allowance by post, they may do so. All forms are available on the MOPS website. The problem is that if the application is incomplete, we have to supplement it somehow in order to issue a decision. Within the office, we can obtain some certificates electronically, for example from ZUS, and we do so whenever possible. However, we are unable to send requests for certificates of earnings to every workplace. We can submit such a request, but this entails a longer waiting period. Some companies are required to issue certificates within seven or twelve days, but we have no influence over when the employer issues and sends one to us. Now, unfortunately, everything depends on whether the workplace is operating during the pandemic. Sometimes everything depends on where the office is located. The company may be near Bolesławiec or in Bolesławiec, while its office is far away. Within the scope of our powers, we provide information about what is needed to submit an application, but we have no influence over whether we can gather all the documents needed for the application ourselves.