Luca Rastello

Finally the new passport has arrived:

While the news still publish horror stories of people facing all sort of troubles because of the inability to travel due to lack of passport, ours has arrived.
Although it took much longer (over 5 weeks with the online service) than last time we had to renew a passport (about 1 week with the Post Office check and send), as we didn’t need to travel abroad, the delay did not cause us any problems.
If you are interested, this is a chart of where the delays were:

So it took 10 days for the application form to actually be opened, and then another 25 days to process it (this was a straight forward application).

Well, it’s here now!

This morning on my way to work I got the following SMS (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving!):

Passport Office SMS

Passport status: Dispatched

Still nothing, we now are at 4 weeks since the renewal application was sent off, and it has so far spent 17 days “being processed”.

I have to say I am glad we are not planning to travel anywhere abroad in the near future.

Today when I logged onto the passport office website to check the status of the application, I was pleasantly welcomed by a new status: “Declaration form received, being processed“.
So it’s taken 10 days (yes, I am counting the weekends as well, because I seem to remember from the news that staff is working at weekends to clear the backlog), for the passport renewal application to go from the office “inbox”, to being opened by somebody and the data being entered in a computer (at least the application number).

Considering that the backlog is estimated at 53,000 applications, I guess that’s not too bad, it really depends how much longer it will take for the rest of the process. However I am now feeling more optimistic that half way through the 3-week target, we could still hit it.

Quick update: our passport renewal application has now been at the passport office for a week (see Passport Renewal Saga – 1), and it’s the day after the passport office chief was grilled by MPs and apologised for the delays. The status of our application (“Awaiting information from the applicant“), hasn’t changed yet, which points to the application not having been opened yet.

Enter the second week of our Passport Renewal Saga!

According to the Guardian (http://goo.gl/td4MAV), for passport renewal application from within the UK, they have only gotten as far as opening the ones from 21st May.
Given that ours was received by the passport office on 2nd June, it explains why the online status is still (as of this evening)”Awaiting information from the applicant”: they haven’t opened it yet, so they don’t know they already have it!
That’s about 3 weeks behind (assuming that applications normally are opened pretty much straight away when they are received), which is the quoted target time.
Not bad considering that only a few days ago the government was still denying the existence of a backlog.

I recently went on to the passport office website to get information about renewing my daughter’s passport. I found out the new ‘beta’ service, and I thought I would give that a go.
After completing the online application, having the photos done, form and photo countersigned, all was sent off to the passport office in Liverpool, and the wait started.
Then the day after the application was sent off, the news headlines started talking about the huge backlog at the passport office, long delays for passport application processing, and government ministers reassurances that all is under control. Apparently the subject featured at PMQ too.
Although fortunately we have no travel plans in the near future, I still thought it might be interesting to document this renewal application. So here we are.
When I completed the online application, the status went to “Awaiting information from the applicant“.
I was expecting this to change, once my application was received, which happened on Tuesday:

Delivered on Tuesday

However nothing has changed yet as of writing this post on Thursday:

Still unchanged 2 days after the application was delivered.

Check back soon for the next post in the Passport Renewal Saga.