The difference is that when a person is involved, you can apply pressure via representative, the press, etc. Bureaucracy has been full of "jobsworths" ("Sorry, guv, more than me jobs worth.") forever.

In reality, the real issue is total underfunding of these services for those who need them. People aren't switching to computers for these things because they think it's better (obviously, the policing one is the exception), they are switching because they don't have a choice to keep up with the workload.