Officialdom - bah!

I wonder what the designers of the bumph would say if you simply wrote "N/A" against incomprehensible questions, then if challenged tell them it is incomprehensible to the sole-trader so obviously applies only to very large companies with £umpteen-M turnovers and many institutional shareholders.

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When my previously-State owned employer was sold off the new entity gave us employees each a block of shares with an option to buy more. The allegedly-explanatory booklet was obviously written by stock-brokers for stock-brokers, so I gave up on Page One, and ever since simply welcome the modest little nest-egg (tax-paid) my holding returns each year.

Money sums should be simple, but it is too easy and profitable for the very-numerate semi-illiterates who run the money-trade to make finances as complicated as possible, even impossible for we outsiders to understand..

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One of the best rejoinders I have read, to bureaucrats trying to bully anyone with jargon, was from an American whose child brought home a letter copied to all parents. It excitedly described in florid, pseudo-intellectual twaddle, some new educational policy in that school.

The father wrote back, giving his c.v. as a professional linguist fluent in about 3 European languages and with some knowledge of others, but -

"... I have no idea what you are talking about. Have you?"

Maybe take a link out of a guy's book that worked for me some years back, when he was sent a form he would firstly he would send whoever had sent him the form asking loads them loads of questions name, rank, address and phone numbers, age., why did they want the information, would the information be private or sold etc you can see where this is going I do remember it was 5 A4 pages and it was surprising how many he never heard from again

H

A teacher I knew said he was bombarded with questionnaires for no clear purpose from County Hall. Eventually he simply ignored any form of no obvious help or benefit to his work.

He said he threw away number of papers no-one had pestered him to answer - if they'd not done so they can't have been important in the first place.

I have just completed a gov.uk NHS Covid test result. A bit long-winded but very simple. I reckon the NHS (and other Government agencies) could make a mint training commercial software designers to create products that suit all we users having the temerity not to have a PhD in computing!

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An interesting observation, Nigel … but I know from personal experience that much work of this sort is contracted-out to commercial firms.

That said, I did recently spot this interesting document:

**LINK**

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/get-started/

Which perhaps suggests that the Government agencies are more in control than they were.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 06/09/2022 21:06:31

The form asks for one's TIN (Tax Identifier Number) and gives 4 optional answers as to why form -filler hasn't got one. It also refers to a UTR ( Unique Tax Reference) and CRS ( Common Reporting Standard), also FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), FFI (Foreign Financial Institution).

All the abbreviated jargon from the financial trade. Easily cut through because the UK doesn't issue TINs. No need as every resident child reaching 16 years of age is automatically issued with a NINO (National Insurance Number) and HMRC issue their own UTR. There are 3 identical parts to the form so each part can be filled in with personal details of a club's Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer. If they're UK resident and possess no foreign bank accounts, they can use option 'A' from the 4. This is the one that says The Country of Tax Residency does not issue TINs. I expect that the foregoing would floor many attempting to fill in that form.

The rest is easy, Q1 name and operating address of club followed by that of Treasurer's. Q2 is the Entity country of Tax Residency = UK. Part 3 is FATCA Classification, 3a are you incorporated or organised in the United States? No, move to 3c, is the Entity an FFI? No, move to3f, NFFE (Non Financial Foreign Entity), 3f(1v) NPO( Non Profit Organisation.Move to Part 4 CRS Classification, 4a Is the entity anFI? No, move to 4b (V) NPO (Non Profit Organisation), Go to Part 6, Authorised Signature, date, inprint full name, Capacity of signatory.

Job done! But keep a copy as there is the threat of this nonsense annually, to ascertain changes. HTH any Treasurer confronted with the same form.

One can see this is USA in origin and a scatter gun approach to deal with money laundering.

Edited By DMB on 07/09/2022 00:12:21

Just spent 1/2 a day getting passwords put back and sorted. No one here did anything wrong. Nothing can do it to You like a computer.

Michael -

Yes, an interesting site indeed!

I note the clause about user research. When I once complimented the clarity and simplicity of the internal software used by my bank - when I was reviewing my accounts - the lady explained the contractors were told to test it on over 100 staff of different roles in many different branches, and. make constructive suggestions for improvements, before issuing it for service use.

Yet departments still mess it up. Yesterday evening's File On Four exposed an awful situation with the Ministry of Justice foisting on the law-courts a record system already proven full of terrible faults. These include no error-traps to catch missed entries, so preventing important documents being sent as they should be; and even frightening instances of it changing entered information - risking affecting the outcomes of trials and sentencing!

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Mark -

I did not expect to be able to transfer things like web-site registrations and bookmarks to this new PC already using WIN-10; so having to re-make everything was a chore but not a surprise.

When I tried up-rating my previous one from WIN-7 to 10 (which it was capable of handling) it obligingly deleted them all even though on the same computer! I reverted to W7 then spent the next two hours rebuilding the long list - mainly model-engineering related but also things like transport timetables and the doctor's surgery. Luckily the information was also on a printed spread-sheet.