IT system barriers a component in passport delays

Brian Jackson – inventory.adobe.com

Barriers within the UK’s passport office IT system ended in delays in candidates receiving their paperwork throughout a fresh duration of high set up a question to

Karl Flinders,
Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Printed: 09 Dec 2022 9:30

HM Passport Place of job (HMPO) needed to remain hundreds of digital passport functions the usage of its paper-essentially based system this 300 and sixty five days, contributing to delays for hundreds and hundreds of folks.

A Nationwide Audit Place of job (NAO) file found that “barriers in processing functions digitally” intended 134,000 digital functions needed to be carried out the usage of the “less atmosphere friendly paper-essentially based system”.

HMPO’s digital system would not enable functions to be prioritised or linked, akin to for siblings whose functions depend on the identical supporting documentation. “In such cases, HMPO moved functions to the handbook system,” acknowledged the file.

The NAO acknowledged HMPO processed file numbers of passport functions when set up a question to increased after Covid-19-connected shuttle restrictions bear been lifted. From January to September 2022, HMPO processed 6.9 million passport functions, an prolong of 21% when put next with the identical duration in 2019. However the NAO reported that 360,000 folks had their shuttle plans disrupted due to delays in receiving their paperwork.

“HMPO’s plans relied on its novel digital system, however this had no longer been designed to take care of the number of functions anticipated throughout the surge,” the file acknowledged. “The pandemic had delayed HMPO’s completion of the digital system, and it also can no longer yet take care of all kinds of passport functions.”

HMPO had anticipated its digital system would need to take care of up to 60,000 functions, which exceeded its ability.

Other components that precipitated delays, no longer connected to IT, included recruitment challenges and unsuccessful efforts to lift watch over set up a question to.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, acknowledged: “HM Passport Place of job processed a file number of functions amid phenomenal set up a question to. But barriers in its systems, coupled with difficulties in conserving up with larger-than-average numbers of purchasers, contributed to delays for hundreds and hundreds of folks, creating fright for these with shuttle plans and hampering folks’s ability to expose their identification. HMPO ought to now be taught the classes from this 300 and sixty five days and prepare for identical ranges of set up a question to that are anticipated in 2023.”