Usually, our days are driven by the Bona Vacantia Division and the new list which they publish daily. Some days, they publish the daily list with no new cases at the head of the spreadsheet. However, every weekday, a new file is there to be downloaded. Until last Wednesday. No list on 10 August. Nor on 11 August and not even on 12 August. The Government website cited “All Bona Vacantia’s IT systems will be unavailable … We can’t receive or send emails, but telephones are working.” You cannot be serious!? A Government department with no IT systems for three working days?!
Apparently, everything is back to normal today and we have received emails from case officers but, still no new BV list. I am convinced that it is now 15 August but the page still says that the list was last published 9 August. Grrr…. One small positive: we have some grace to catch up on administrative tasks. Did I say positive?
Over the years of running FWL, there have been several occasions when waves of panic have washed over us regarding IT matters. In 2014, in preparation for a trip to Canada, the ‘only-just-over-a-year-old-laptop’ decided to overheat and crash. Constantly. Keeping online for two weeks was certainly a challenge and the machine was ditched on the return to England. Thankfully, all data was retained by our wonderful IT Guru. The new Dell laptop in place and a fabulous daily backup system set up, all was nailed down securely. Well, until we realised that the hard drive was fried and the backup hadn’t worked for months. Throughout all the issues though, we have had amazing support and, although blood pressures have risen, our support system has never let us down.
Maybe we should recommend Everything IT to the Bona Vacantia Division as clearly, their support systems are not as robust as ours….. Just let us know if you want their number, BVD …. in fact, just call Bath 434343 and ask for Mark!
