The Citizens’ Office should be able to offer more appointments in the future. Photo: Roberto Bulgrin
Appointments at the Esslingen Citizens’ Office, for example for ID card applications, are currently difficult to obtain. The city has announced an increase in staff positions and thus appointments. It also promises further improvements for citizens.
If you need a new passport before your vacation or whose ID card is about to expire, you have to be quick in Esslingen: the appointments at the Citizens’ Office, which you can only book online a week in advance, are quickly taken up. That’s why the city administration is announcing further steps in an effort to improve things. This includes more staff.
Record numbers of visitors
The Citizens’ Office has recently been repeatedly criticized because it was so difficult to get appointments. At the beginning of 2022, the average waiting time was 115 days. In 2023 the situation eased due to various optimizations. However, utilization has increased again. In August, the Junge Union called on the city to resolve the bottlenecks. According to the administration, the number of visitors to the Citizens’ Office will reach record levels in 2024 and more applications for identification documents will be submitted than ever before. In April alone, 6,200 visits were recorded. The city explains this with an increased desire to travel after Corona and the need for a passport for trips to England after Brexit. There are also legal changes that have led to high demand.
More jobs, more salary
The city promises improvement. “We have decided on four new positions for the citizens’ office,” says Mayor Yalcin Bayraktar. This could increase the number of appointments available by almost a third. In order to smooth out the deadline situation, citizens have received a notification by post since September two to three months before their ID card expires. In the longer term, the Citizens’ Office is striving for a balanced availability of long- and short-term appointments.
In order to increase the employer’s attractiveness and to compensate for the additional burden in the citizens’ office, according to the city, its employees will be paid higher in the future, moving up from pay group six for the public service to seven.