How a permit stamp book actually dates a queue
A building-permit stamp book is not a diary of planning work. It is a cash and receipt record. The date in the margin is the day the counter accepted the fee and assigned a number. If a public notice later says “average wait, 18 days,” the honest question is: 18 days from that stamp, or 18 days from the first planner’s initials?
In most Georgian municipal counters we have sat with, the stamp book and the planner’s tray are two different objects. Files wait in a metal cabinet until a planner is free. The cabinet has no clock. A dashboard that only reads the stamp book will understate the wait that a resident actually feels.
When we draw a permit queue notice, we ask for three dates on each file: stamp date, tray date (if anyone writes it), and decision date. Where the tray date is missing, the chart shows a hatched bar, not a guessed number. Residents can see the hole. Officers can explain it at the next hearing without inventing a figure.
If your department still publishes a single average, try listing the three dates for the last twenty closed files. The spread is usually wider than the average suggests, and the files that sat in the cabinet over a holiday are the ones residents remember.