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Related: About this forumProfit in passport chaos? Passport Office makes £13 per application
Nearly £1m spent on overtime each month after closure of overseas passport posts ramps up application numbers.
The Passport Office was accused of "profiting from public hardship" after it was revealed it is making a £13 surplus on every passport it issues.
MPs have been told that it is now having to spend nearly a £1m in a month on overtime as it attempts to deal with the chaos of 490,000 outstanding applications.
Detailed Passport Office figures also confirm that the closure of overseas passport posts has caused a significant increase in applications this year.
They show that overseas applications have risen by 40,000 a month compared with a year ago, while those from applicants in Britain are only 20,000 higher than a year ago.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/20/passport-office-chaos-applications-profit-surplus
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)I got mine last year and it was fucking exorbitant....
mwooldri
(10,303 posts)I had a problem last year - I'd lost my passport and "green card". Fortunately I didn't have any urgent travel needs so time wasn't a factor.
$160 and 8 weeks for a passport, then $450 and 6 weeks to get a Customs & Immigration Service appointment for biometrics and a 1 year temporary "green card" stamp in my passport.
Plus with the number of ex-pats, they're more likely to be more aware of difficulties with renewing passports lately and aren't leaving them to the last minute.
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)Part of the initial application streaming work was originally contracted out to Siemens Information Systems under John Major. Siemens lost the contract to French outsource specialist Steria in 2009.
Steria outbid Siemens on the basis that they would make a huge profit by outsourcing all initial application streaming to personnel in India (cheaper than UK staff). Brown's ministers balked at the security implications of everyone's old passports and valuable ID documents being shipped off to India for initial streaming and then being shipped back again for Home Office civil servants to complete the ID checks.
Steria have a contract that is somewhat less profitable than they hoped and they are struggling to provide the volume and results that their bid promised the British government. The British government has closed many passport offices, cuts its overseas facilities and cut civil service staff and this has exacerbated the situation.