The ILA manages some 93% of Israeli public lands, and is in charge of authorizing the transfer of land rights, rezoning land, and providing permits for building changes.
By ZEV STUBThe shmita (sabbatical) year comes once every seven years. The Torah commands us to stop working the land and let it lie fallow, leaving its yield to any man or animal.(photo credit: THEOPHILOS PAPADOPOULOS/FLICKR)
The Israel Land Authority (ILA), the government body in charge of managing the use of land in Israel, does not have a medium- or long-term strategy to implement its mission, according to the state comptroller's report released Tuesday.In addition, the organization does not have an organized plan to provide basic information to service providers and customers, the report said. The ILA did not even discuss the topic of its public service needs in any formal capacity between 2016 and 2020, it added.The ILA manages some 93% of Israeli public lands, and is in charge of authorizing the transfer of land rights, rezoning land, and providing permits for building changes.The ILA has not yet drafted a public service-level agreement explaining its obligations to the public, and has not offered any public information about how long it requires to respond to customer service inquiries, the report said. The organization has not established any system of measuring how fast it responds to inquiries, and did not require service center operators to measure their performance speed or quality.The comptroller found that ILA's website allowed users to complete just six out of 164 forms completely online, and that the organization did not have any plan to improve the information and documents available on the website. The ILA's plans for 2017-2020 did not include any plans for making more of its information accessible to the public.ILA call centers received 163,000 phone inquiries in 2019, of which 35% were inquiries regarding rights approvals and transfer of rights. The organization's phone services are very limited, and do not offer such basic services as collecting payments and issuing rights certificates, the report said. Meanwhile, in-person services are limited geographically, such that many inquiries can only be made physically in the office that serves that particular region.ILA did not conduct examinations into areas that received a large number of public complaints, and did not make any recommendations to improving them, the report noted.The level of service offered by the ILA further declined during the coronavirus pandemic, leading to delays in many cases, the comptroller said.At the time of the audit, ILA's website was more than six years behind on government requirements regarding Internet accessibility for people with disabilities, and is still not in compliance with regulations. In an evaluation carried out by the government's unit for the improvement of government services to the public, the ILA's website scored a 68, while the average score for similar websites was 80, the report said.On a positive note, ILA has developed a personal area on its website where people can get information about land under the authority's control, and offers full online filings for certain individual matters, the report said.
The State Comptroller concluded that ILA's services to the public are in need of development and improvement, and that it must work to correct its deficiencies in order to offer efficient service to the public.The Israel Land Authority (ILA), the government body in charge of managing the use of land in Israel, does not have a medium- or long-term strategy to implement its mission, according to the state comptroller's report released Tuesday.In addition, the organization does not have an organized plan to provide basic information to service providers and customers, the report said. The ILA did not even discuss the topic of its public service needs in any formal capacity between 2016 and 2020, it added.The ILA manages some 93% of Israeli public lands, and is in charge of authorizing the transfer of land rights, rezoning land, and providing permits for building changes.The ILA has not yet drafted a public service-level agreement explaining its obligations to the public, and has not offered any public information about how long it requires to respond to customer service inquiries, the report said. The organization has not established any system of measuring how fast it responds to inquiries, and did not require service center operators to measure their performance speed or quality.The comptroller found that ILA's website allowed users to complete just six out of 164 forms completely online, and that the organization did not have any plan to improve the information and documents available on the website. The ILA's plans for 2017-2020 did not include any plans for making more of its information accessible to the public.ILA call centers received 163,000 phone inquiries in 2019, of which 35% were inquiries regarding rights approvals and transfer of rights. The organization's phone services are very limited, and do not offer such basic services as collecting payments and issuing rights certificates, the report said. Meanwhile, in-person services are limited geographically, such that many inquiries can only be made physically in the office that serves that particular region.ILA did not conduct examinations into areas that received a large number of public complaints, and did not make any recommendations to improving them, the report noted.The level of service offered by the ILA further declined during the coronavirus pandemic, leading to delays in many cases, the comptroller said.At the time of the audit, ILA's website was more than six years behind on government requirements regarding Internet accessibility for people with disabilities, and is still not in compliance with regulations. In an evaluation carried out by the government's unit for the improvement of government services to the public, the ILA's website scored a 68, while the average score for similar websites was 80, the report said.On a positive note, ILA has developed a personal area on its website where people can get information about land under the authority's control, and offers full online filings for certain individual matters, the report said.The State Comptroller concluded that ILA's services to the public are in need of development and improvement, and that it must work to correct its deficiencies in order to offer efficient service to the public.
