Long delays reported by the UK Passport Office

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• Marcw says:

  25 Jun25 June 08:29

  I never understood the drama around Passport renewal. In Spain, you book a slot, go in, hand in your photos, pay your 25€, sign, confirm the information,… And in less than 10 min you have your passport in your hand [if you leave abroad and need to do it over the consulate/Embassy, it takes longer]

  • Anna says:

    25 Jun25 June 08:51

    25 euros! (It’s about £80 here). I’m currently in the process of “reclaiming” my Spanish nationality – if you have a Spanish parent it is conferred automatically but you have to re-apply for it once you are an adult, I don’t know if it will give me any benefits in future but it can’t hurt. I’m pondering the second surname requirement though, as presumably the passport is going to have to match the name on any ticket. I could use my mother’s maiden name or my married name but not sure which order would be best to put them in. Any tips? (At present I am generally known by my father’s first surname and occasionally use my married name).

    • Nick says:

      25 Jun25 June 09:15

      I would follow the Spanish naming convention if you’re going to do that.

      • Anna says:

        25 Jun25 June 09:43

        What exactly do you mean? The naming convention is to take the first surname of your mother and that of your father. My mother only had one surname, being English, and there’s no requirement for me to take it. I have never been known by that name, but I am recognisable by my married name so it would make much more sense to incorporate that.

    • marcw says:

      25 Jun25 June 10:08

      I have no idea how that works. In a normal situation, being born in Spain, you take the first surname of your dad (this will become your first surname) and the first surname of your mum (this will be your second surname). Nowadays, parents can choose, if they wish, the reverse the order. The individual, once they become 18 y/o, may as well change the order of their surnames.

      Now, in your case, I have no clue.

      • Anna says:

        25 Jun25 June 11:06

        I’ve read that most countries treat the first surname as a middle name because they don’t have two boxes for surnames, so it would make more sense for me to have the name I usually go by as the second surname. Here in the UK I always get asked where my unusual surname is from, and in Spain I get asked why that’s my only surname! So I don’t fit in 100% in either country. 🤣

        • Josh says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:17

          Surely there are non-Spanish naturalized citizens who also have this conundrum…I would have thought they would be able to cope with just one surname? But of course this is Spain…

        • Lady London says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:23

          ask a spanish person how the nane on their ticket was made up

          i have a feeling airlines just carry on through the name and truncate. So firstname then as much of the first surname as will fit then if any soace left as much of the second surname as will fit.

          So not taking the firstname then jumping to take the lastsurname : instead, just proceeding through as above so long as there’s space.

          So logically so that your ticketname might match both passports I’d apply for the Spanish passport using my British surname from my British passport as the first surname and then the Spanish one as the second surname.

          I think this makes sense as for people related to the Spanish royal family/ nobility they can have very long lists of family surnames not just two.

        • Genghis says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:28

          Completely unrelated but I’ve a French colleague with quite a few “de’s” in their surname. I remember him saying he had problems with US officials when applying for a US visa.

        • Anna says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:56

          LL, Spanish people often use airlines like Iberia whose booking forms require 2 surnames so don’t have the same issue. I might ask my Spanish cousin what she does when she flies Easyjet or Ryanair though. To clarify, though, I officially have one surname, and that is my Spanish dad’s first surname. So I don’t have a “second” surname of any nationality, unless you count my married name which I sometimes use informally, such as within the family. So I would have to officially adopt a second surname on my Spanish passport, but the dilemma is which one? In Spain this would be my mother’s first surname, but my mother is English, has only ever had one surname at a time, and I have never been known by her maiden name so it would feel infinitely weirder to adopt that than to use my married name, which at least has some connection to me!

        • marcw says:

          25 Jun25 June 13:06

          Ok, my take. I’m a Spanish passport holder and have lived in Spain, the UK and now, The Netherlands. Never have I had any issue with my two surnames. In Spain it’s common to have two boxes for each surname, but anywhere else, that’s not the case. You just put both surnames in the “Surname” box, separated by a space (some people use hyphens instead). They usually fit – and if they don’t, you only put your first surname. The same with airline tickets, although AFAIK, what really matters is your first surname. never ever had an issue.

          In your case Anna, I don’t know what you can do or not. But, you could as well end with my surname duplication: in my case both surnames are the same. The reason is, even though I was born in Spain, my parents got married in Germany, and my dad took my mums surname. Now, when I was born, the civil servant that registered my name said, “ok, first surname of your dad – he is german, so only has one surname, the one he took from my mum when married, and my, and first surname of my mum (also German, same surname). So I ended up with two identical german surnames.

        • Anna says:

          25 Jun25 June 14:37

          That’s very interesting marcw! The solicitor I’m using says one surname has to be my mother’s but don’t seem to know whether that’s her maiden name, or my dad’s name, which she took when they married. So I may well end up as “Anna Bloggs Bloggs” for Spanish purposes. It’s only going to be an issue if I use my Spanish passport to get into Spain or other EU countries if they bring in some sort of visa requirement for UK nationals, and it appears differently from the name on my boarding card.

      • Anna says:

        25 Jun25 June 12:58

        Oh yes those really long names! I wonder what Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso had on his passport 🤣

    • John says:

      26 Jun26 June 04:44

      The names on your British and Spanish passports need to be exactly the same because Theresa May was so scared of immigrants with strange names. If you use a different set of names on a Spanish passport you won’t be able to renew your British passport without lying. Never mind tickets as long as it broadly matches nobody except Ryanair cares.

  • Lady London says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:32

    That exact same service is quoted as a “Priority” service in the UK and is used as an excuse to cost you 10x the amount. i.e. same service costs 200 euros or so here.

    I think we in the UK are being conned.

    • Anna says:

      25 Jun25 June 11:03

      I agree – and a kid’s passport costs more than half what an adult’s does but only lasts 5 years so that’s even more of a con!

    • Tony says:

      25 Jun25 June 11:10

      Have been for a longtime in many different ways.

      • Rob says:

        25 Jun25 June 11:29

        Depends if you define ‘conned’ as ‘paying the correct cost of your service without any state subsidy’.

        Even at £177 for the same-day service, it must still be loss-making if they cost it properly. For a start, the freehold of the Victoria Passport Office is worth well over £100 million if it was sold off for housing. You could move the processing staff to Slough if you weren’t running the Premium service.

• The Lord says:

  25 Jun25 June 08:45

  Wonder if similar issues with visa processing?

  • Sanya says:

    25 Jun25 June 09:22

    Yes it most definitely is. I have submitted an application for Indefinite leave to Remain (Permanent residency) and its been sitting for the past 4 months as no appointments are available for bio-metrics processing. In the meanwhile, if I leave the country my application (costing £3k) becomes invalid, and I cannot change employers or quit or do anything I want to.

    • The Lord says:

      25 Jun25 June 10:49

      Terrible, good luck with your application. Did you have the option to pay the extra for the in person premium service?

      • Sanya says:

        25 Jun25 June 11:11

        I did when I submitted in March, but they have not been able to complete the service due to the centers closing. For new applications, the have suspended all premium services entirely. This is forcing people with expiring visas to submit under standard processing which prevents travel for over 6 months.

• Ron says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:11

  Renewed our daughters passport couple of weeks ago and got it back less than 14 days. Her new passport is still the burgundy one, but without EU on the front. Wonder what determine the processing time? Surely all straight forward applications should take roughly the same amount of time.

• Nick says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:16

  “No idea why some are being expedited and some aren’t”

  Presumably this depends which of the 7 passport offices you send it to? As in, some offices are processing as normal and some aren’t?

  • Ron says:

    25 Jun25 June 13:18

    We did it online and was being updated throughout the whole process. I found it useful to know where you are within the process.

• B P says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:32

  I used the online renewal (which involved taking a selfie) and it was 10 calendar days from submission to the new (blue) passport being delivered. This was in early June. Weirdly the delivery person had to take a picture of my front door when he delivered the document.

  • Also says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:26

    Proof it went to the right person given that you are not allowed to sign for post right now.

    • Josh says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:13

      Never had to sign for a new passport before anyway. They were always just pushed through the letterbox by the courier.

• Anna says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:38

  I’ve got a booking there in December and they seemed to be filling up as I struggled to get a room that would accommodate 3 of us. They said they were going to be really busy in the run up to Xmas.

• Nathan says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:49

  ‘Irrespective of UK travel guidelines, UK citizens cannot enter the Netherlands until at least 6th July and there is no guarantee that the ban will be lifted after that. The same rules apply for Danish and Swedish nationals.’

  What happened to that bit of EU law that said one cannot discriminate against fellow EU members individually i.e. the self same reason that the UK’s proposed reciprocal untrammelled entry for the French, and no others, had to be binned?

  • Nick_C says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:12

    A) Rob is wrong. See earlier comments.

    B) They are not discriminating against UK Nationals. They are discriminating, quite reasonably, against people arriving in the Netherlands from the UK.

  • riku2 says:

    25 Jun25 June 11:37

    There is no EU law about entry to individual states. The member states decide for themselves, there is no “EU law” in this area. Even in the schengen zone individual countries decide. This is why the border from Norway -> Finland is open for free movement but not Sweden -> Finland. EU member states control their own borders and decide who can come in.
    Rob is also mixing up “citizens” with people coming from that country. I live in Finland but i’m not a Finnish citizen. I have a UK passport. And when going to Norway i’m treated as somebody coming from Finland – nothing related to the nationality on my passport.

  • Chris Beyer says:

    26 Jun26 June 17:24

    Well, di you not leave the EU?

• Lady London says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:55

  I’m not particularly impressed that various government services seem not to making much effort and even be seeking to prolong not working.

  If supermarket workers are having to turn up and work behind perspex screens and with hygiene measures, I dont see why some availability including in person for defined urgent needs, cannot be provided in government and public service offices when everyone even small businesses is trying to get back on their feet.

  I also had the impression government employees are all on 100% pay whether they are being called to work or not.

  It’s not good enough and applies across a range of public services. I’m also sick of funding public service workers the luxury of defined benefit pensions that any sane employer in the UK stopped offering about 20 years ago due to the expense. Unlike pensions I and my employer contribute to, money is not put aside for hovernment employee pensions – there’s no money kept back to pay these at all they are ‘unfunded’. These pensions are paid to recipients by taxes paid in by all of us each year and guaranteed increasing levels.

  Recovery must be gradual across the country due to social distancing needs but it must start now and government services and their publicly open locations must take the lead now and start offering a service.

  • Lady London says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:15

    To the poster with a new baby they cant get a first passport for as no face to face (not even across perspex) service is being offered so they have to move or cancel travel arrangements, my annoyed comment above about public offices and government employees not even trying to work out a way to provide a service when the rest of us have to, was prompted by your plight.

    The Passport Office should provide a minimal personal service now. Otherwise things just stay worse for longer.

    • Lady London says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:36

      correct ChrisC if you cant even register a birth some time after the baby’s been born because some lazy local public service provider has not bothered to find a solution to provide the ounlic service they’re supposed to then this is exactly why I am getting annoyed.

      This epidemic is only round one. If public employees and their management are not prepared to work out a way to provide the service they’re supposed to then let’s outsource the lot and see if they’d rather have tried to work like everyone else whose taxes sponsor them.

      • ChrisC says:

        25 Jun25 June 12:49

        Stop with the insults of public servants.

        It was the government who made the decision to halt registrations.

      • Riccatti says:

        25 Jun25 June 15:13

        @ChrisC

        “The Government” will not act without the advice of the said public servants, whether it be a minister, or a leader of the local council — for operations they do as advised.

        If the hardworking public servants want to stay away from offices, they so advice.

        What about a responsible public servant raising a concern: how would it affect the mere mortals if the Government stops issuing papers, eg birth certificates.

  • Aston100 says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:32

    Unions.

    • memesweeper says:

      25 Jun25 June 10:35

      Even in non-unionised parts of government you will often find a culture of near-total risk avoidance in middle management — which is hardly surprising as there are no incentives to take any risk.

      • Lady London says:

        25 Jun25 June 12:04

        IME despite motivational management-speak I have always found the stick works much better than the carrot.

        I am prepared to have months of public sector strikes, streets not cleaned, rubbish not collected, etc, if thats what it takes to sort this problem.

    • Lady London says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:00

      This needs to be broken. Rishi will never get the country back on its feet until he faces and sorts out the removal of these public sector pension arrangements that are so unfair on the rest of us. The cost even now is becoming unsustainable for the taxpayer.

      Government employees and other public servants need to be back at work now like the rest of us. Same exemptions as the private sector for those needing to shield.

      • Rob says:

        25 Jun25 June 12:11

        I didn’t think Government employees could be furloughed? On this basis they are all working.

        • Lady London says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:41

          Exactly. As in being paid but not even trying to work. Meanwhile public services not being provided.

          That was OK after 4 or 6 weeks or even 8 at a push. But it’s been 13 weeks now and they’re not even trying in a lot of services/places. Epidemics as a concept there has to be an operations plan for to keep operating has to be ongoing now – for public and private sectors.

        • Lady London says:

          25 Jun25 June 12:47

          All 100% paid but apparently lots not actually working. DWP, DVLA, passport office, many, many local services….it’s public services just not being provided.

        • memesweeper says:

          25 Jun25 June 13:23

          Some definitely are, as are many private sector workers under contract to government department/agencies.

      • Anna says:

        25 Jun25 June 12:48

        Public sector pensions have all been reformed in the past few years. Unfortunately the government did it cack-handedly and is now going to have to pay out a lot of money to judges, firefighters and the like as some of the changes have been deemed to be discriminatory. But there has to be decent pension provision to attract people to the public sector and contributions can be high – over 14% in some cases.

    • BlueThroughCrimp says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:51

      As a member of one of the nation’s favourite unions to hate, I can say you’re talking absolute nonsense.

      And we’ve carried on, with adaptations pretty much as normal.
      But same old anti-union rhetoric as per. 🙄

      • Lady London says:

        25 Jun25 June 13:06

        @BlueThroughCrimp I’m actually very much in favour of unions. Have got into trouble for saying so in the workplace.

      • Aston100 says:

        25 Jun25 June 15:38

        Hopefully we’ll get a government one day that has the courage to smash the militant unions.
        Let’s see London underground staff laughing at that point.

        • BlueThroughCrimp says:

          25 Jun25 June 15:55

          Yawn. Same old same old.

  • Nick_C says:

    25 Jun25 June 12:48

    … I’m also sick of funding public service workers the luxury of defined benefit pensions that any sane employer in the UK stopped offering about 20 years ago due to the expense. Unlike pensions I and my employer contribute to, money is not put aside for hovernment employee pensions – there’s no money kept back to pay these at all they are ‘unfunded’. These pensions are paid to recipients by taxes paid in by all of us each year and guaranteed increasing levels.”

    As a general statement, that is not true.

    There are a little over 5 million people employed in the public sector – 3 million in central government (which includes the NHS) and 2 million in local government.

    The Local Government Pension Scheme is fully funded. The lowest earners contribute 5.5%, middle earners 6.8%, and the very highest earners 12.5%.

    The scheme has been radically reformed. Employee contributions have risen. Pensions are no longer based on final salary. Retirement age has increased from 60 to 68. I understand other public sector schemes ave also been reformed.

    “Sane employers” stopped final salary schemes for new entrants when Gordon Brown raided the pension funds. Unscrupulous companies also raided their pension funds. Funded Pension schemes used to regularly run in surplus.

    One way or another, I believe we need to provide retired people with a decent income. If this isn’t achieved by generous pension schemes, the state picks up the bill through benefits such as Pensioner Credit. Or we could adopt the US model and have 75 year olds serving us in shops and restaurants (I don’t know what unskilled young people would do if they had to compete with pensioners for jobs.)

    On your other point, most of my friends in the public sector, and the private sector, are working from home. But bins are being emptied, the roads are being repaired (more actively than usual, taking advantage of the reduction in traffic), schools and hospitals are open.

    • Jeff 99 says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:55

      “ I’m also sick of funding public service workers the luxury of defined benefit pensions ”

      Don’t fund it then.

    • Lady London says:

      25 Jun25 June 13:00

      I agree with you Nick_C on everything especially local government having largely made the needed pension changes. But still a monster problem of unfunded public sector pensions on a now unaffordable and these days, unfair defined benefit basis for public services/central govt/Whitehalll has to be eliminated before Rishi should look for more from the taxpayer.

      Regardless of the pensions issue it’s too long now for all public services not to be provided at least partially including those involving contact with the public. And the fact none of them got furloughed so theyre all still getting 100% even though departments like DWP and DVLA say not enough staff are working…. not fair. If they want to keep the taxpayer’s goodwill they need to find a way to reopen the public-facing visible parts of their service.

      • Paul says:

        25 Jun25 June 20:15

        Can I remind you that pubic servants are also tax Payers and they don’t have the luxury of dodging that tax with accountants

      • Jonathan says:

        25 Jun25 June 22:55

        I can only speak in detail about the NHS Pension scheme but similar changes were enacted to all public sector schemes.

        We are now a career average salary scheme rather than final salary.
        Contribution rates have increased substantially (I pay 13.5%)
        My pension age has increased to 68 and is tied to any further increases in State Pension age. If I choose to retire at 65 I’ll lose nearly 20% of my pension. (How likely is it a doctor will continue to be able to function safely in a craft speciality like surgery at 68? At 2AM in n emergency?)
        The NHS pension scheme delivered a £22 billion surplus over the last 15 years.
        The scheme is now cost neutral to tax payer (within a 2% margin) with 5 yearly actuarial assessments. If future liabilities are predicted to exceed contributions then members contribution rates are increased to cover the shortfall.
        At the last actuarial valuation (published Feb 2019) the scheme was predicted to be 3.2% in surplus.

        The days of the kind of pension the Daily Mail would have you believe we receive are long over. I’ll also ignore the recent taxation issues where many of my colleagues ended up paying effectively 120% tax on their earnings over £105k.

        • Jonathan says:

          25 Jun25 June 22:57

          I’d also like to point out the passport office staff may not be sat at home twiddling their thumbs. In my hospital dental surgery was stopped as it was perceived to be high risk and low urgency. The dentists and dental nurses were all sent to work in the pharmacy department dispensing prescriptions.

  • Paul says:

    25 Jun25 June 20:13

    As one of the lazy public servants you insult with your ignorant lack of understanding of our pensions and right wing swivelled eyed loon view of what we do , let me enlighten you.
    Firstly I and many more have worked every day since lockdown often from home, mostly using clapped out IT, in my case, my own. Having endured a decade of below inflation pay awards austerity that starved us of funding meaning there was no money to invest in IT or training.

    We fought for two weeks over Easter to get governments systems to work as we Endeavoured to get free school meals to those in most need Often at midnight and the wee small hours.

    Meanwhile the lowest paid went in to schools daily to keep them safe, secure and ready to reopen .

    We waded through hundreds of pages of guidance often contradictory often stupid displaying a woeful ignorance of education. Public announcements not backed by reality or plans

    As for my luxury pension. It is and has been for almost 10 years A career average pension. When an you are paid 15,000 a year it’s not exactly going to let you experience Q suite travel, even ex EU

    So kindly keep your unpleasant and insulting comments to yourself.

    Yes things could have been better but address that to those who wrought this chaos on us, who spent 10 years starving pubic service of funds, keeping pay at 2010 levels and who focused on the ideological madness of brexit while ignoring the warnings of the national risk register. And let’s not forget being two weeks are to lockdown resulting in 10’s of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

  • Dan says:

    26 Jun26 June 00:06

    Where to start on this….

    Yes, government workers not furloughed but that’s only because most have been redeployed to work on Covid front line. Getting PPE to hospitals, ensuring there’s a plan for schools reopening etc. Isn’t magic. My partner has been working 12 hour days, sometimes nights (normal a HMRC tax inspector – now responsible for PPE supply pipeline) for no extra pay.

    Public sector pensions are generous, but the contribution rate for employees can be as much as 11%, and base pay far below private sector for roles in e.g law, finance etc total benefit package is probably about equal.

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