UK Passport Office backlog causes chaos

While the British Government is claiming there is no passport backlog, union bosses insist that the Passport Office is in crisis, and photographs taken by a Liverpool passport office worker appear to show tens of thousands of applications waiting to be dealt with.

Emergency measures have been implemented including 250 staff redeployed to frontline tasks in the Passport Office to address the backlog.

They are working extra hours, seven days a week to make sure the applications are dealt with, according to Immigration Minister James Brokenshire.

One MP said thousands of families face having their summer holiday plans ruined because documents were not being prepared quickly enough. Some families who want to make sure their documents are returned in time are paying extra for a faster service – up to £55.50 on top of the £72.50 standard fee.

Three million passports have already been issued this year, with officials processing an average of 18,000 applications a day over the last two months.

Mike Jones, from the PCS Union, said: “There are half a million applications that are waiting within the Passport Office at the moment.”

Paul Pugh, chief executive of the Passport Office, said more than 97 per cent of straightforward applications were being processed within three weeks, with 99 per cent processed within a month.

“We’ve been experiencing exceptional early summer demand for passports, in part due to the improving economy and a rise in holiday bookings,” he said.

The backlog and workload problems at the passport office are causing frustration and anger – not just for people based in the UK, but for Britons living all around the world.

Until a few years ago, British citizens living abroad could simply wander down to their embassy and apply for a passport. It would be issued within a day or two. However the system was changed because passports had become more sophisticated – with biometric technology for security. Embassies didn’t have the equipment to produce the new biometric passports.

This means that for at least six weeks the applicant is unable to leave where they live. In the time it takes to send the new passport to the applicant overseas they are unable to travel because the passport they hold will be flagged as ‘cancelled’ at immigration.

A British bride-to-be, living in Hong Kong, is waiting for her replacement passport after eight weeks. Her wedding, in Bali, is in two weeks.

A Briton living in South Africa who’s taking a group of South African children to the World Cup, had been waiting 15 weeks.