A different take from mine on utility shutoffs

Correspondent Phil Wolf makes a good point as always:

Applying workflow tools to the machinations of city offices whose workers hide paperwork and take the day off will only streamline today's inadequate procedures. To protect the public from fire-setting delinquents, it is necessary to evict them before, not after, cutting off the utilities. This can be done even without the aid of 20th-century office automation.

Phil explained his point further in another email:

Eviction is expensive, so requiring it to precede utility shutoff would delay the latter rather than hasten it. My "cold cold heart", as you call it, would probably have saved the toddler. Your data-processing solution, by contrast, might simply have made his demise less labor-intensive.
__________
Of course, this brings up all kinds of social equity (and what the Brits call "social exclusion") issues ranging from affordable housing to parenting to workforce development...