Any expatriate who has lived in Tenerife for more than five minutes has had the head-banging experience of trying to get official paperwork sorted out in order to qualify for one or other public service.
Just as one item seems to be sorted and everything looks fine a Spanish spanner gets thrown in the works and off you are on a wild paper chase again. Hours if not days are wasted on this bureaucratic ring-around-the-rosie both by the hapless expats and by the officers of the state who sit behind their desks looking either secretly amused or totally exasperated by the foreigners’ total inability to get their acts together..
It’s all very well to tut at those whose command of Spanish leaves a bit to be desired and I doubt if anybody believes that the UK’s current policy of providing support in every language from Africaans to Vulcan is in any way sane but surely a little more assistance for the large numbers of expatriate settlers in Tenerife (and Spain) wouldn’t go awry?
Well, hold the phone! The always interesting Tenerife Matters blog reports that the Tenerife Cabildo now provide English and German support in Citizens Service Bureaux Offices (CSC – Centro de Servicios al Ciudadano) in both the north and the south of the island. The specially trained officers will advise about services available to expat residents and handle many of the standard applications that have until now been such a nightmare to complete.
Absolutely brilliant and not before time. Check locations and times and read the article here : Cabildo One Stop Shop for Foreign Residents in which the writer comments that this will be a welcome move for those who struggle with Spanish bureaucracy. That would be everybodythen – including the Spanish bureaucrats.
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nice to see expats here