Right to Timely Government Service
PROPOSED / DRAFT — RIGHT TO TIMELY GOVERNMENT SERVICE
Government gives citizens deadlines; government should have deadlines too.
Agencies should publish reasonable processing standards for permits, licenses, benefits, records requests, appeals, reimbursements, applications, inspections, and other government services or decisions. Standards should identify what constitutes a complete submission and when the processing period begins.
When an agency fails to act within its published period, the affected person should receive notice, a reason for the delay, a revised decision date, and access to an escalation or supervisory-review process. Repeated failures should be measured and publicly reported.
Deadlines must allow reasonable exceptions for emergencies, fraud investigations, incomplete submissions, unusually complex matters, and circumstances outside the agency’s control, but exceptions should not become an excuse for indefinite delay.
If government requires you to meet a deadline, government should be accountable to one too.
THE 30/30/30 STANDARD
Unless a policy requires a shorter period to prevent imminent harm, protect life or safety, preserve evidence, or deliver an emergency service, every covered government decision uses the following maximum schedule:
Initial decision: The responsible body must issue a complete written decision within 30 calendar days after receiving a complete submission or formally opening the matter.
Independent appeal: A reviewer who did not issue the first decision must decide a timely appeal within the next 30 calendar days.
Complaint or independent review: The responsible oversight body must decide the complaint or independent review within the following 30 calendar days.
On day 91, administrative remedies are exhausted and the affected person may sue without further delay. Immediate judicial relief remains available when waiting would create irreparable harm or threaten life, safety, liberty, essential property, or constitutional rights.
Each written decision must state the evidence, reasons, correction process, deadline, and appeal rights. Government may not restart the clock by transferring, reclassifying, or reassigning the matter, requesting information it already has, or repeatedly requesting immaterial information.
CONSEQUENCES FOR FAILURE
A missed deadline opens the next stage automatically and may support an order compelling action, reversal of an unlawful decision, injunctive relief, a fee refund, damages or attorney fees where authorized, and public corrective action. Ordinary delay or a good-faith error is not automatically a crime.
Knowing falsification, evidence destruction, bribery, retaliation, obstruction, deliberate constitutional-rights violations, or intentional delay used to injure or coerce a person may be referred for civil or criminal enforcement after due process.
IMPLEMENTATION & ACCOUNTABILITY
Each covered agency should maintain a public inventory of major services, identify the official responsible for each service, define a complete application, and publish both the target processing time and actual performance.
If a submission is incomplete, the agency should provide a timely written notice identifying the missing information. The agency should not repeatedly restart the clock for immaterial reasons. Where lawful and appropriate, remedies may include supervisory escalation, expedited review, fee refund, administrative appeal, or judicial review. Automatic approval should be used only where failure to act would not endanger public safety, third-party rights, public funds, or another legal obligation.
WHAT WE WILL MEASURE
Public reporting should show application volume, median and longest processing times, percentage completed within the published standard, reasons for delay, appeals, reversals, backlogs, and repeat failures.
Related policies: Changes in Government; Consumer Rights; Government Integrity & Equal Justice.
Status: Proposed / Draft — not yet formally adopted.
Originally published: August 24, 2026.
Last updated: October 3, 2026.
Version: Draft 0.4.