Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
Weaknesses in HMPO’s understanding of how applications moved through its systems caused frustration and confusion...
Recommendation
Weaknesses in HMPO’s understanding of how applications moved through its systems caused frustration and confusion for customers. HMPO experienced problems with its management information. For example, HMPO has moved 134,000 applications from its digital system to its legacy paper-based system as its digital system was unable to handle the surge in demand or the full range of applications. These applications should have been moved to the front of the queue for processing, but this did not happen. Instead, transferred applications were treated as new cases and the number of weeks it had taken to process someone’s passport application was reset to zero. As a result, HMPO did not know how long the customer had actually been waiting for their passport and customers were incorrectly informed that their applications had only arrived recently. HMPO did not plan for the number of applications that needed to transfer to the paper-based system and staff were not sufficiently trained to handle the differences between the two systems. HMPO admitted that parts of the passport application process did not work as intended, but it took far too long to identify and fix the issues. These problems compounded delays and undermined customers’ confidence in HMPO. Recommendation 3: The Department should, as part as its Treasury Minute response, explain how it will address weaknesses in management information to ensure HMPO has a real-time, end-to-end view that allows it to identify and resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that HM Passport Office has undertaken a thorough assessment of its management information and delivered a number of improvements to its reporting mechanisms, including improvements in the reporting of work across its application systems.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented HM Passport Office has undertaken a thorough assessment of its management information, and in response has delivered a number of improvements to its reporting mechanisms to address weaknesses. Developments include improvements in the reporting of work across its application systems, to provide a robust and accurate view of the age of applications. This has resolved the workflow issue experienced at the beginning of 2022, by ensuring the work transferred from the latest Digital Application Processing system, DAP, will join AMS to be processed in the appropriate date order. More broadly, it has also improved workflow management information and analytics, which has delivered significantly improved oversight of work in progress, and better enabling the proactive management of its queues.