Recommendation 2

The Department has demonstrated a worrying lack of curiosity about the human impact of HMPO’s poor service or who its customers were. HMPO is unable to say how many people were forced to cancel their travel plans because of their passports being delayed, and has not done any work to find out what this number is. It similarly cannot know the number of people who were unable to attend family emergencies or take up employment and does not link passport applications from, for example, a family group. The handling of communication with customers who had applications in progress was also poor. In some cases customers had to call repeatedly and were hung up on when they did get through. The Department received 11,400 letters from MPs regarding constituents’ passport applications as many customers gave up trying to contact HMPO directly. HMPO does not routinely pay compensation for delays because it instructs customers not to book travel without a valid passport. While it did offer refunds for customers whose applications were delayed despite paying for HMPO’s express service, it was unable to say how much it had paid out in total. HMPO recognised that customers who complained were passed between too many staff in different parts of HMPO, and is establishing a new ‘resolution hub’ to improve this and resolve cases first-time. However, it does not expect this to be ready in time for the anticipated 2023 surge in demand. Recommendation 2: The Department should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out how it will place a greater emphasis on the experience of HMPO’s customers in the future. HMPO should also collect better data on who is applying for a passport, to provide information to improve its overall service. 6 Investigation into the UK Passport Office