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The Government has brought in Royal Mail and logistics group DHL to help ease the backlog of millions of passport applications as many people wait months before being able to book their summer holidays.
It is understood that the Passport Office has brought the delivery giants in to assist delivery contractor TNT to cope with the unprecedented demand for passport renewals as households seek a sunshine break for the first time since the pandemic hit getaways more than two years ago.
While the Passport Office insists TNT is meeting the terms of its contract and delivery times, DHL has increased its capacity by 25 per cent to help ease the strain, while Royal Mail is assisting by sending back non urgent supporting documentation.
However, one Home Office official told i that fears were growing that plans were not advanced enough to recruit a contractor to run passport deliveries when TNT’s three-year £77m deal comes to an end in July.
The official said: “There is concern that there needs to be a smooth transition to the new passport contract, whether TNT is selected again or if the deal goes elsewhere. If we’re not ready for that then the work we’re doing now to ease the process may be redundant if we have not got a deal agreed for the next contract to begin in July.”
A spokeswoman for FedEx, the ultimate owner of TNT, said: “We took a number of actions to restore service levels across our Passport Office network, including operational resources, extra team support and additional customer support resources. Since late December 2021 we have been operating within the service level requirements agreed with our customer.”
Since Covid lockdown restrictions were lifted and popular holiday destinations such as France, Italy, Portugal and Spain lifted travel restrictions, more than five million people have applied to for a new or renewed passport.
A spokeswoman for the Passport Office said: “Since April 2021, we have been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their British passport as more than five million people delayed applying due to the pandemic. We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible, with the vast majority of all passport applications are being dealt with well within 10 weeks.”
The Passport Office has also implemented contingency arrangements to help speed up applications, including the temporary recruitment of staff from across the Home Office and other government departments.
“To deal with this demand, we have increased staff numbers by 500 since April 2021,” the Passport Office added. “This has helped us to handle more applications than ever before, with more than one million passport applications processed in March 2022.”
A government source told i that at least some of the blame for the hold ups was being pinned on Teleperformance, the company that runs the Passport Office’s phone lines, rather than the delivery group TNT.
“If you see most of the individual cases, its people complaining they can’t get through to speak to anyone, no one can tell them what is going on,” the source said. “[Teleperformance] are not getting enough people answering the phones effectively.”
The firm was asked for an improvement plan six weeks ago but “clearly haven’t got there yet”.
It is understood that Abi Tierney, director general of the Passport Office, is set to “call in” the Teleperformance boss Daniel Julien for a dressing down over the delays this week, stressing “you need to improve quickly”, the source said.
The Passport Office added: “The passport advice line is being delivered by Teleperformance, which is in the process of recruiting additional staff to better service customer queries.”
No 10 has also confirmed that Boris Johnson is considering a privatisation of the Passport Office should its performance not improve.
During today’s Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister is reported to have told ministers to “privatise the arse” out of the Passport Office and he said he would bring an end to the “post-Covid mañana culture” in the Civil Service.
A No 10 source said: “The point is these organisations need to improve services so they are not costing people more money.”
The Prime Minister left the door open to privatising UK passport services amid rising anger over backlogs and delays for families planning to travel this summer.
In an interview with TalkTV, Boris Johnson refused to rule out selling off the Passport Office and suggested it was not providing value for money.
And he admitted to using the phrase “post-Covid working from home manana culture” in Cabinet, when talking about his frustration over sluggish public services.
“I did use those words, I didn’t necessarily use them about any particular institution, but I think we have a general issue in some of our approaches to public services, and perhaps more widely, that we all got used to working from home, to Zoom calls, to thinking that we could do business like that,” he said.
“I think for many people it is great […] But I have to ask myself, I’m the custodian of the public purse and I’m looking at how much we’re taking and how much we’re spending, whether actually it is as productive.
“When I see institutions not delivering things like passports or driving licences in a speedy way, these things are quite expensive, it’s £150 to get a new passport, we want action.”
Asked if privatisation of the passport office was a genuine possibility, Mr Johnson said he did not care whether an institution was in the private or public sector, he wanted to “deliver value for money” for taxpayers.
Mr Johnson added that he was not ruling anything out.
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