A 2015 citizen report card on birth-registration services in Lao Cai Province, northern Vietnam, found that 39 percent of users said they had to wait on each visit to a Commune People's Committee. Among recorded waits, 16–30 minutes was most common at 48 percent; 23 percent were under 15 minutes, 21 percent lasted 31–60 minutes and about 8 percent exceeded an hour.
The survey also asked why. Sixty-five percent cited the order of registered applicants, 18 percent another first-arrival sequence, 10 percent an official attending a meeting, 6 percent other causes and 2 percent the official's absence. Waiting therefore combined an orderly queue intended to process users fairly with delays created by administrative availability.
Birth registration establishes a child's legal identity. What makes this record unusual is that it divides the vague experience of “waiting at an office” into durations and causes. Sixteen minutes spent respecting an applicant sequence and sixteen minutes spent waiting for an official to return have different meanings for public-service quality.