Here is a new slant on the UK passport issue business. When they changed to online applications late last year the 'promise' was of four weeks for those of us outside the UK with the new 'streamlined' service. Some of us have experienced anything but with long waits already. Now have a look at the link below. Whilst in all fairness it is about a backlog because of the forthcoming holiday season, in fact in the Passport Office's blurb at the end of 2013 was very specifically saying that the new approach was to avoid this kind of situation arising. Now read:
Gone Jane. Ended during the last way of renewing. Now there is online form filling followed by us sending in the two pictures plus old passport. Then there is tracking on the application website but I think Vic and I would both make faces about the credibility of that.
I might be wrong but I was led to believe that if you were British living in France you had to apply for renewal through the British embassy in Paris..that, s how we, ve always done it and service was fairly quick.
In 1999 the passport office in Liverpool managed to lose my passport & those of my 4 children - I telephoned after 7 or 8 weeks & was told I could pick them up in person, since we were travelling a week or so later. When I went there, they claimed they had never received them. Several people joined in the 'no we never got them' chorus. No answer when I asked why they told me to come & pick them up, beyond 'oh no we never said that, you are lying'.
Unfortunately for them I had sent the passports by registered mail (even though they tell you not to, and now we know why) & someone had signed for them - so I produced the receipt & asked who had signed then, seeing they 'had never arrived'.
Cue mass panic & then I spent a couple of hours wondering aloud how many illegal immigrant families with lots of small children were getting good use out of my & children's passports, while they made new ones on the spot. They then tried to charge me the extra on the spot fee but I declined to pay it & explained why so they 'let me off, as a gesture of goodwill'.
Well I do find that very disrespectful and not in line with the required conviviality of the site (tongue in cheek)! Nonethless, obvious to some can be blatently unobvious to others, so we still need people with a degree in it....
As you know Vic, my feeling is much the same. I had roughly five months left on my passport, I am used to some countries I have worked in only giving visas if a passport has over six months left on it. So, I sent if off by Christmas and allowing for 31 days in January, add perhaps 9 days in December and then issued on 6 February it comes to about the same. That is without the time passing it on to despatch, plus delivery time. DHL came three times, failed to call me before the van came out as they should and eventually left a notice that I was not there so sent the consignment back. When I called the PO asking how long it would take to turn back round they told me the time but although I knew from my daughter and my own missed deliveries it is DHL, but they would not even confirm that. That, Paul, is not good or helpful communications. If you think it is normal then I beg to differ having spent 60 odd years in a far more informative and polite world than that.
On the blame the government bit, did I actually say or do that? I said the PPO is having personnel cuts and the NAO thinks there should be more. That is what I was saying and contrasting it with the modernisation that appears not to have the desired effect or else such pieces of journalism as this week, Vic, myself and the other annoyed people would have nothing to say. The holiday season is one thing but we know most people tend to leave buying their toothpaste and renewing their passport to the last moment, thus the PPO should anticipate that instead of spiralling into disarray. Vic and I are not talking about just before the holidays though. So, please describe Vic's wife's or my own role in the responsibility. That might be very interesting.
Paul, no disrespect but do you have a degree in stating the flamin' obvious? Of course people should not expect to have the goalposts moved when circumstances change or they are late in applying but still no harm in asking. You had a good experience with the PPO whereas my wife had a terrible one. Each to their own but you cannot defend the indefensible. The PPO as it stands is in great disarray & quite frankly couldn't organise the proverbial in a brewery. We were passed from pillar to post & town to town as the PPO couldn't even agree who was dealing with the renewal & really didn't seem to care. Yes it was a bit inconsiderate of my MIL to pop her clogs in mid PP renewal but all my wife was ever trying to find out was when the thing might arrive on our doorstep so she could plan things. The PPO couldn't (wouldn't) even tell her which carrier they were using. For you info. my wife requested her PP renewal on line on March 6th & posted the written application the same day. The PP was eventually received here on 23rd April some 48 days later which would normally have been no problem as it didn't expire until July & my wife had requested the replacement in good time & wasn't planning on going anywhere. I think the real problem is (was) the lack of communication & human skills at the PPO which exasperated us. My wife & I spent at least 4 hours on total on the phone & only in the latter days did we find anyone who actually seemed to care & wanted to help. The whole experience was not one we are in a hurry to repeat.
I wouldn't say defending it -and i certainly dont work for the PO - do you??Yes it has served me very well with never a problem - even when one got stolen in Paris.... And as i said earlier, in cases where the need for a passport becomes urgent after submtiting a standard application its bound to be complicated.
What i struggle with is that we all blame the government (and i dont work for them either!) and suggest throwing more money/people at it will make it better? Come on, in the majority of cases (and not the unforseen urgency which can catch even the best organised person out) its people who just forgot or were lazy, and thought that the bit 'we advise not to book if you dont have a valid passport' doesn't apply to them. We all know we are going on holiday, we need a passport,and we know it gets busy towards the summer (My Leclerc runs out of gasoil on a sunday in season, I know about it, and if i forget to fill up, shXX, its my failt, i dont blame Leclerc and report it on Sky news with a webcam into Mr X's front room!!)
Does the individual have no responsibility in this, is it only ever the government??
The UK is one of the few countries whose embassies have no passport service. My OH and children are off to Paris to renew their Swiss passports next week. My physio went to the Dutch consulate recently to renew hers for a trip outside the EU. Then there is the issue of the 'backup' for lost, stolen, etc, passports and the temporary issue document is good only for people travelling back to the UK. If one lives elsewhere... Why does the UK have a second rate passport service? The passport price was lowered by 35% at the beginning of this year, perhaps embassies could have done that too?
You appear to be defending the passport service. Perhaps it has served you well and only those who have grievances show up on SFN. Is it not the fact that there are grievances when their should be none. The UK Border Agency to which the PPO belongs has had and is facing more staff cutbacks. The National Audit Office says it is not efficient. It is on the way to being privatised. Is that a 'happy' agency who we might expect to give a damn?
Yes younger - but perhaps the image is nonetheless a little flattering.
There is one very positive point worth noting. Passports replaced at the embassy in Paris were significantly more expensive (environ €150 de memoire) whereas the new automated online application was only €85.
Perhaps the embassies are no longer able to offer the security checks now required, so perhaps it was a sensible thing to remove this service??
Paul, your picture makes you appear younger than I am by quite some years.
Therefore I remember better than you, if you do at all, when the passport office was in Petty France. Because I do a lot of international travel for work my passport had to be kept up to date and a couple of times I had it full, so needed to change. I always did so in good time. I used to go to Petty France and wait for my passport. One took less than an hour. It seldom took more than one and a half hours. Now things are different. It is biometric and the picture is scanned in. For all of that it is using modern technology and a considerable data base for checking applicants. So, defying all logic, it takes longer than the manual production of a passport 25 years ago. Back then they were talking modern technology to modernise issue, since they have done it. The previous system was totally unsatisfactory. This one is not much better. I renewed one daughter's pp on the old and then my own on the new. No significant difference, both far longer than the website said. I used to be able to renew at embassies or even consulates. That service is gone. An embassy could do it fast using the diplomatic bag if they had no in-country service. Back in about a week. I have had two passports badly damaged and needed to do that. No longer. Theft, damage, loss and so on have become no-man's land with no real aid for those who need it. Modern service, huh?
Whilst I sympathise with what must have been difficult situations to manage, and whilst bullshitting is not an intelligent strategy for any company and in particular a government service, wasn't this just down to bad luck? An urgent need arising when the application had already been submitted as a standard application. A bit like a second class letter that you've already posted that has suddenly become urgent? Aaaaaaarghhhhh, nothing i can do....only scream...
How do you build a system that effectievly enables you to upgrade second class to first class mid contract?
Despite all the warnings (dont book without a valid passport), despite the large amount of time we have to arrange another PP (we dont have to wait until 8 weeks before we leave), we still forget. Perhaps in the future we will see a (paid for) reminder (to the last known adress or phone number), which itself, due to our ever changing adresses, emails and mobile numbers would only have a limited effectiveness.
Difficult, and now,with my new French drivers license, with five year validity, yet another thing i need to remember to change....
I had similar, albeit I failed to be here for the unannounced arrival first time round. I had called and had a different 'excuse' each time. Vic and I have exchanged anecdotes and curses a while ago. You were lucky. Not everybody is. However, I am sure that Vic and I would probably believe it if we were told there is a department for making up spurious excuses with changes every day of the week. The no names policy and not being able to speak to the same person as an outcome is appalling. That though is simply the dressing on the PPO cake, the ingredients altogether are absolute garbage.