PCS Calls For Passport Services to be Properly Resourced

Amidst a well-publicised crisis in passport office, PCS has called on management to reject the press scapegoating of civil servants and commit to increasing of staffing, reject privatisation and deal with low morale.

Stories about the Passport Office, and complaints about delays for passports have featured regularly in the press over recent weeks. However, contrary to their narrative that this has been caused by lazy civil servants and working from home, PCS has been clear in our analysis of the situation. We are absolutely clear that this current crisis is in no way the fault of our members who are doing a fantastic job under extremely challenging conditions, whether that be in the office or from home.

PCS members have been working continuously through the pandemic and continue to work to a high level during this difficult period whether that be those directly employed by the Home Office or those working on outsourced parts of the service, such as in Sopra Steria.

Recent comments by the prime minister Boris Johnson about privatising the Passport Office are absurd. PCS believe the current problems in passport processing are down to resourcing, casualisation, poor pay and collapsing morale.

Following the effects of the pandemic on international travel, HMPO were fully aware there would be a surge in applications for new and renewed passports. In fact, they said numbers needing to be processed this year would be almost double last year estimating a demand for 9.5 million. Whilst the increase in applications was expected, and PCS cautiously welcomed the proposed recruitment of 1,700 staff, but this has not materialised and efforts to bring in new staff have not been successful.

With years of below inflation pay rises eroding real term levels of pay and the lowest paid in the department now on minimum wage, efforts to recruit permanent staff have proven difficult. Rather than recruiting permanent staff, agency staff have been brought in receiving little training.

At the same time PCS members working for Sopra Steria have been under real pressures in opening and scanning documents onto the system with unprecedented levels of overtime being offered. Again, this is due to under-resourcing and shines a light on the false claim that privatisation is the answer to the current issues.

PCS believes that higher levels of pay, an increase in recruitment of permanent staff, and a radical overhaul of management culture is needed to reverse the current issues in HMPO. We are also calling for bringing back in house the Sopra Steria contract.

Working from home using the new digital application processing was the only way customers could receive a service at times during the lockdown and evidence shows home working to be more productive than office workers doing the same work. Any attempt to lay the blame at working from home or raising the spectre of privatisation are clearly issues designed to appeal to sections of the Conservative party, and shore up diminishing support for the prime minister as public services feel the strain of under-funding.

PCS have been inundated with media enquiries and have been stressing the outstanding work members have been doing but many will have seen a number of misleading stories in the press some seeking to level blame on passport service workers to fit in with their own misguided agenda.

PCS is on your side. That’s why we have written to the Chief Operating Office reiterating our demands about increasing staffing levels, pay, and dealing with low morale.

Karen Alderson (Assistant Group Secretary HMPO lead), Malcolm Speechley (GEC member), Mike Jones (Group Secretary)