Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 15
15
Accepted
HMPO experienced difficulties understanding how applications were moving through its systems due to weaknesses in...
Conclusion
HMPO experienced difficulties understanding how applications were moving through its systems due to weaknesses in its management information. Because HMPO’s digital system was not fully developed, it did not have the capability to process all types of applications, and could not manage the volume of applications HMPO was receiving. As a result, between January 2022 and September 2022, HMPO moved 134,000 applications from its digital system to its legacy, paper-based system.25 These applications should have been moved to the front of the queue for processing, but this did not happen. Instead, the application was treated as a new case and its ‘clock’ (the number of weeks it had taken to process someone’s passport application) would be reset to zero, meaning the length of time it had taken to process the application was recorded incorrectly. We heard that this led to cases where, for example, customers contacted HMPO weeks after they sent in their application and were informed that their application had only arrived the previous day.26
Government Response Summary
HM Passport Office has delivered a number of improvements to its reporting mechanisms to address weaknesses, including improvements in the reporting of work across its application systems and workflow management information and analytics.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 3.2 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. 3.3 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. 3.4 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.