Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Accepted
Despite HMPO’s work to prepare for increased demand for passports, poor performance by contractors exacerbated...
Recommendation
Despite HMPO’s work to prepare for increased demand for passports, poor performance by contractors exacerbated issues for customers. We are concerned that in some cases it was clear that the performance of external contractors was deteriorating as early as March 2022. Sopra Steria, responsible for opening and scanning paper applications and supporting documentation, did not achieve its service levels targets for five months in 2022. Similarly, Teleperformance, responsible for the customer support telephone line, did not meet its targets for four months and caused significant concerns for customers who were unable to get help. HMPO accepted that some of the issues with contractors, especially at the end of the process, were its fault, as it had not adequately prepared them for the expected volumes of work. HMPO recognised that some customers have lost confidence in its handling of passport application and is bringing in a second contractor to handle customer calls alongside Teleperformance. Recommendation 4: The Department should, as part as its Treasury Minute response, set out the steps it has taken to ensure the problems it experienced with its contractors will not happen again.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and states that The Home Office works to continually improve its ability to procure and manage third party suppliers, using lessons learned to further support the robust monitoring of compliance against contract requirements.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The Home Office works to continually improve its ability to procure and manage third party suppliers, using lessons learned to further support the robust monitoring of compliance against contract requirements. For the work of Teleperformance and Sopra Steria, HM Passport Office has worked closely with them to help ensure that the meet the required service level throughout 2023. In the first quarter of 2022, the work of Sopra Steria was affected by a reduction in desk capacity due to social distancing. Additionally, there were some recruitment delays with the onboarding of agency staff. This has subsequently been resolved through joint-working to reduce the time taken to security clear these staff. Sopra Steria has consistently met its key performance measures for back-office processing at HM Passport Office from June 2022 to date. While Teleperformance did not meet the required standard until August 2022, HM Passport Office worked with them constructively to resolve this as quickly as possible. Following the introduction of a number of improvements, Teleperformance have met the required service levels for call answering since August 2022. However, as part of lessons learned from last year, HM Passport Office has added greater resilience to its provision of customer contact services by appointing an additional supplier. Serco, who commenced this work on 22 March 2023, will handle approximately 25% of calls to the Passport Adviceline and provide extra resilience to Teleperformance, with the overall contact centre spend estimated to deliver around £2 million savings over a two-year period.