Passports chief apologises over backlog

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/17/passports-chief-apologises-backlog

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The Passport Office chief executive, Paul Pugh, has refused to resign over his handling of a backlog at the Home Office agency after it was confirmed that there were currently 480,000 applications being dealt with.

Pugh told MPs on the Commons home affairs committee that he apologised to the public for the "anger and distress" the backlog had caused, but did not give any indication of how long it might take to resolve.

He said he had considered whether he should step down but decided "it is my job to lead the agency and that is what I intend to do".

The Labour MP Paul Flynn accused him of "management by panic" and pressed him to think again, to which Pugh replied: "I am not sure how my resignation would help people in any way."

Pugh said the 480,000 applications now being dealt with was 200,000 more than at the same time last year. He was unable to give precise figures for how many of the applications had already taken longer than the normal three-week processing period.

The MPs made clear that they were receiving a steady stream of complaints from constituents unable to travel abroad. The committee chairman, Keith Vaz, gave Pugh until Friday to come up with a detailed picture of the scale of the backlog or face being recalled to give evidence next Tuesday. He said the MPs needed to see "a rapid improvement in the service".

Pugh said demand for passports so far this year had been half a million higher than forecast, and an external inquiry had been ordered into the failure of the forecasting methods.

He rejected claims that either the decision to end the overseas processing of passport applications by embassies or cuts in staffing levels lay behind the crisis. He said the overseas move had been allowed for in the agency's planning, and claimed that in 2010 staff had been so unoccupied that they had spent time tidying the office and reading books.

Pugh said the flood of applications reflected what he called "a significant surge in the seasonality of customer's behaviour", and he was trying to establish whether this shift in the annual pattern of passport renewals and new applications was likely to prove permanent or not.

He told MPs that 3.6m applications for passports had been received since 1 January, 1.9m of them since 1 April. He said 480,000 applications were "work in progress". New applications were being received at the rate of 150,000 a week, and last week 160,000 new passports were issued, 90% of them within the three-week service standard.

Vaz, waving a sheaf of printed emails about cases referred to him by other MPs, revealed that he had texted the home secretary on Saturday to resolve a problem facing one of his constituents.

He said the woman had been set to travel on Wednesday and was told to go from Leicester to Durham to collect her passport, but when she got there it was not ready. Vaz said no one had answered a phone call to Pugh's office on Saturday.