26 September 2014

The Passport Office will be stripped of its agency status and be brought back under direct control of ministers, Home Secretary Theresa May announced today.

The decision comes after a disastrous summer, where there was a backlog of 537,663 applications, and was recommended by the Home Affairs Committee last week (September 16).





The Passport Office had previously closed 22 passport centres, and axed 550 jobs.

PCS, who were not consulted on the decision, says it will not accept a simple rebranding of the agency. It supported the select committee’s recommendation that the Passport Office “must have the right number of staff, and the right mix to deal with peaks in demand, as evidenced by the extremely high use of overtime so far this year”.

Pointing out that the move was announced just moments before MPs began debating air strikes in Iraq, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Despite the cynical timing of the announcement, clearly designed to bury an awkward issue, we welcome this if it will mean we get the staff we need to provide a quality service under public control.

“Instead of the short term measures we’ve seen, we want to sit down and negotiate a long term solution to staffing to ensure the crisis we saw this summer is not repeated in future.”