You Don't Really Need Your Passport Do You?

[Wage Slave]

if you read the comments on the Grauniad there are some pretty bad cases, people who find themselves without ID in countries which don't have ID cards for foreign residents, one guy saying they got fined and nearly deported.

I am so glad I didn't send my daughter's Japanese passport in with her UK one, though they say you should send in any other passports you have, if I had I would be facing the prospect of cancelling our flights to the UK in July, which would be a great disappointment for all, my parents are in their mid 80s and are really looking forward to seeing us.

It's pretty obvious it is us tax avoiding expat immigrants that are being put on the back burner while they process the resident voters

Yes, indeed - I have the same parental situation. Forewarned is forearmed eh? I decided to just cancel renewing my daughter's for now as they are clearly not to be trusted. I'll do it in the early winter when we have no travel plans and hopefully things have settled back to the 7 or 8 weeks it took in January.

I heard/remembered today that to board some flights you not only need an unexpired passport but it also must have 6 months left on it. My daughter might get caught out by that on a side trip, but if that happens we can just fall back on her Japanese passport. Sending that off to Liverpool at the moment is a seriously lousy idea.

[Wage Slave]

Full on row mode now. Listening to May and her questions it was obvious that a couple of pennies have partially dropped. There was some small realisation that diverting all overseas applications to Liverpool has overloaded that office. And some realisation that tax dodging expats might have a valid claim on visiting the the UK this summer.

So, the validity of passports extended by a year. Emergency documents available for unpassported kids if other paperwork is OK and you can spend a day travelling to your nearest embassy. Some help I suppose but what if you planned a side trip outside the UK or a stopover? And what if you have already applied and sent all your passports (as instructed) to be put in a box in a Liverpool meeting room?

All in all, I am very grateful I did ours as early as possible in the new year. OK, I could have saved a bit as it turns out but no thanks.

They just aren't very competent this crop of cabinet ministers, are they? Gove, May, Haig - All just not really bright enough, knowledgeable enough or experienced enough for the jobs.

[yanpa]

Hmm, apparently people renewing UK passports from overseas will be given a 12 month extension, though buggered if I can see how that would work in practice.

[Wage Slave]

Hmm, apparently people renewing UK passports from overseas will be given a 12 month extension, though buggered if I can see how that would work in practice.

Well, I suppose it will mean that some people will not have to apply for a passport this year and so reduce the number of applications coming into Liverpool. Fine as long as the only place you need to travel to is the UK - otherwise no use at all. And also fine if the check in staff know about it and allow you on the flight to the UK. And I suppose fine as long as any transit airports are happy too.

All in all - not very satisfactory but might it might get some tax dodging expats out of the hole.

[legion]

I think we are seeing the result of people making decisions who are completely cushioned from reality. Embassy staff live in a closeted world of special treatment, so they did not fight hard enough to keep the system that worked in place. Much easier and better for the career to help massage the numbers and allow this centralization.

All in all it puts the UK in a very poor light internationally, if people with dual nationality were foolish enough to send their other passport, the British government would be effectively withholding documentation provided by other sovereign states, Imagine I had sent in my daughter's Japanese passport, we would now be going along to the Japanese passport office trying to explain the problem. they would be thinking the British passport office are a bunch of incompetent idiots, not a reputation you want when issuing documentation used to cross borders.

By the way, the wife just renewed my daughter's Japanese passport, it took her one trip to submit the paperwork, and one trip with my daughter to pick up the passport, which took less than 3 hours, including two twenty minute train rides and time for shopping too.

[Russell]

By the way, the wife just renewed my daughter's Japanese passport, it took her one trip to submit the paperwork, and one trip with my daughter to pick up the passport, which took less than 3 hours, including two twenty minute train rides and time for shopping too.

Important is the period of time needed between the two excursions to the passport-issuing authority.

I assume in Japan it is less than the UK? (I seem to remember from my family members that it is 2 weeks in Japan).

[yanpa]

Apparently you can still get same-day service if you go to a passport office in the UK (which are probably few and far between, it's a separate government agency outsourced to the provinces). 3~4 weeks is what I vaguely remember as typical turnaround time, though I also remember pre-summer delays being a pretty regular occurrence anyway). One of those things the British just can't get right, like railways and hotel bathrooms.

[legion]

By the way, the wife just renewed my daughter's Japanese passport, it took her one trip to submit the paperwork, and one trip with my daughter to pick up the passport, which took less than 3 hours, including two twenty minute train rides and time for shopping too.

Important is the period of time needed between the two excursions to the passport-issuing authority.

I assume in Japan it is less than the UK? (I seem to remember from my family members that it is 2 weeks in Japan).

yeah, about two weeks, except the wife waited for a rainy Sunday to do the second trip so we could have the previous two weekends chilling in the park, and yes, the passport office is open on Sundays to make it convenient for people.

[Wage Slave]

I think we are seeing the result of people making decisions who are completely cushioned from reality. Embassy staff live in a closeted world of special treatment, so they did not fight hard enough to keep the system that worked in place. Much easier and better for the career to help massage the numbers and allow this centralization.

Although I agree about embassy staff in general, in this case I don't think there is very much that they could have done. Decisions are made in London and they are simply told what they are - It's not won't fight, it's can't fight.

The same is true of senior managers in London except they have a bit more latitude to decide the details of the how. However, if your budget is cut by (say) 20% which is not unusual for this government, at some point you are going to have to make cuts that diminish the level of service and that's that. They are managers not magicians.

So really, the only person who could have fought harder was T May in budget negotiations with Cameron and Osborne. Once she handed the cuts to her managers, they can't fight - all they can do is manage as best as they can with the resources available to them.

[chibaka]

My passport expires next February, suppose I should apply now

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[yanpa]

Might be an idea to wait a couple of months until the current backlog has been swept under the carpet worked off.

BTW they do set the expiry date of the new passport to 5/10 years after the expiry of the old one, not after the issue date of the new one, so there is no "penalty" when applying early.

[Wibble]

I think we are seeing the result of people making decisions who are completely cushioned from reality. Embassy staff live in a closeted world of special treatment, so they did not fight hard enough to keep the system that worked in place. Much easier and better for the career to help massage the numbers and allow this centralization.

Although I agree about embassy staff in general, in this case I don't think there is very much that they could have done. Decisions are made in London and they are simply told what they are - It's not won't fight, it's can't fight.

The same is true of senior managers in London except they have a bit more latitude to decide the details of the how. However, if your budget is cut by (say) 20% which is not unusual for this government, at some point you are going to have to make cuts that diminish the level of service and that's that. They are managers not magicians.

So really, the only person who could have fought harder was T May in budget negotiations with Cameron and Osborne. Once she handed the cuts to her managers, they can't fight - all they can do is manage as best as they can with the resources available to them.

The transfer of passport processing to UK isn't exactly rocket science. It's been a long time planned. They've been printing them there for a while so it just the processing that's move for the regional centres. Presumably they knew how many applications came to regional centres, how many staff it took, and how long it took a foreign application to be checked versus a average UK application . If they couldn't afford to increase the staff numbers and couldn't reduce the processing time, they could have given a realistic time from the processing. If I remember correctly, they reduced the advise turn round time instead. Brilliant planning. Still they did remember to order in lots of extra orange boxes to store the waiting applications in, amazing how they had them all ready.

Might be an idea to wait a couple of months until the current backlog has been swept under the carpet worked off.

BTW they do set the expiry date of the new passport to 5/10 years after the expiry of the old one, not after the issue date of the new one, so there is no "penalty" when applying early.

I think the extra validity from previous passport is capped at 9 months.

[legion]

So really, the only person who could have fought harder was T May in budget negotiations with Cameron and Osborne. Once she handed the cuts to her managers, they can't fight - all they can do is manage as best as they can with the resources available to them.

Good points, but TMay isn't going to fight if she isn't pressured from below. Craig Murray, not the most upright member of the diplomatic core in some ways, lost his job and all its cushy perks because he stood up for what was right when it counted. You don't go far by making waves, so any institution tends to acquire a lot of "team players". This is partly why countries need strong unions, although they are demonised as anti-productive, when they work properly they stop managers fucking up working systems with never never land solutions.

Got an email from the passport office today, they rejected my daughter's photo, wrong colour background, I had half expected this but I did want them to be aware complying with UK specs is not easy when the facilities available comply with other country specs. Have found a photo machine in the locality which might have the right colour background ......grey or cream ......

Weird thing was the email was just a form letter, the information I needed was in an attachment, a lopsided scan of a printed letter, I guess they emailed it to speed things up .....but why they didn't save the original document as a PDF and attach that escapes me. Imagine printing out a document, scanning it, then attaching it ...... most likely the result of an archaic department structure with modern tech slotted in.

A Kiwi colleague told me how he renewed his passport, he took his iPhone into a well lit room, had a co-worker take his pic, he uploaded that to the Kiwi passport office website, it was checked for eligibility there and then, he filled out the forms online, paid the money and hit send, new passport arrives a couple of weeks later. His theory is NZ has a small population so they make up for the lack of manpower by working out efficient processes.

[Russell]

A Kiwi colleague told me how he renewed his passport, he took his iPhone into a well lit room, had a co-worker take his pic, he uploaded that to the Kiwi passport office website, it was checked for eligibility there and then, he filled out the forms online, paid the money and hit send, new passport arrives a couple of weeks later. His theory is NZ has a small population so they make up for the lack of manpower by working out efficient processes.

That's probably also why NZ passports are very popular with certain people...

[wagyl]

What is more, that guy was able to get a British passport, which is more than the members here can do!

[legion]

What is more, that guy was able to get a British passport, which is more than the members here can do!

more passports than Mossad

[yanpa]

Those caught up in passport backlog should holiday at home, minister says
Tourism minister Helen Grant suggests Passport Office backlog creates opportunity for 'staycations' – holidays within Britain

People caught up in the passport backlog should consider holidaying in Britain instead of going abroad, the tourism minister, Helen Grant, has said.

Speaking after the home secretary, Theresa May, issued an apology to people whose travel plans had been disrupted by the delays, she insisted the backlog of applications would be cleared. But she ran the risk of further enraging those caught in it by suggesting they have a "staycation".

Some called Grant's comments "appalling" and accused her of "not living in the real world".

Grant, who is at the World Cup in Brazil in her other capacity as sports minister, said she was very confident that applicants would receive their passports.
...the holiday misery continues...

Damn, these people really need to have their heads inserted forcibly into their rectums before being placed up against the wall and shot.

[Coligny]

Was she trained in Japan ? Or just the lovechild of a brother and a sister really to close to each-other ?

[yanpa]

Was she trained in Japan ? Or just the lovechild of a brother and a sister really to close to each-other ?

I need to let you into a secret... Stupidity is a global phenomenon, not just limited to Japan.

[wagyl]

Looking at the graphic in the Grauniad piece, probably printing the passport covers is what is holding everything up. I mean, it has got to take some time to write

EUROPEAN UNION
UNITED KINGDOM OF
GREAT BRITAIN
AND NORTHERN IRELAND
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
DIEU ET MON DROIT
PASSPORT

on each one of those.

(Anecdotal digression: when I first got a biometric passport, I was pretty surprised by the symbol of indigenous rights being printed on it. I worked it out eventually, but it took much longer than it should have. I don't know why that symbol was meant to represent a biometric passport.)

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

Had a weird one with Australian Embassy renewing kid's passport. You have to make an appointment to put in your paperwork and the wait for the interview is around 2 weeks.
Not the greatest of starts....


10 minute document check and 7 days later the passport was done and home delivered. Not too bad a turnaround.

[IparryU]

Had a weird one with Australian Embassy renewing kid's passport. You have to make an appointment to put in your paperwork and the wait for the interview is around 2 weeks.
Not the greatest of starts....


10 minute document check and 7 days later the passport was done and home delivered. Not too bad a turnaround.

Just renewed my passport 2 weeks ago. Still waiting for it....

Sent from my SC-03E using Tapatalk

[chibaka]

So just to be helpful, now they strike...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28519085

Hundreds of passport workers across the UK have gone on strike in a dispute over staff numbers and pay.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said the action was a "bid to end staffing shortages that have caused the ongoing backlog crisis".

[Russell]

So just to be helpful, now they strike...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28519085

Hundreds of passport workers across the UK have gone on strike in a dispute over staff numbers and pay.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said the action was a "bid to end staffing shortages that have caused the ongoing backlog crisis".

It's a good way to drive home the message that cutting budgets ultimately has consequences for the service provided.

So, just blame your politicians.

[yanpa]

Just in case any Leftpondians were feeling left out:

Passport Database Outage: 'We Regret The Inconvenience'
US State Department database used to process passports and visas still hasn't recovered from a crash last week -- leaving tens of thousands of people stranded overseas.

Job interviews missed, work and wedding plans disrupted, children unable to fly home with their adoptive parents -- the consequences keep proliferating in the aftermath of a database outage that crippled the US State Department's process for issuing passports, visas, and other documents related to travel to the US.

As first reported last week, the Consolidated Consular Database (CCD) used by staff around the world to process applications for travel to the US has been experiencing severe performance problems, including outages, since Saturday, July 19. The performance of the system is apparently still impaired, making it difficult for consular staff to whittle down the backlog.

The State Department has published few updates since it originally acknowledged the issue -- except on its Facebook page.

...more...

[legion]

So just to be helpful, now they strike...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28519085

Hundreds of passport workers across the UK have gone on strike in a dispute over staff numbers and pay.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said the action was a "bid to end staffing shortages that have caused the ongoing backlog crisis".

It's a good way to drive home the message that cutting budgets ultimately has consequences for the service provided.

So, just blame your politicians.

Although this affects me, my daughter still hasn't got her Brit passport and thus travels as a child of Yamato, the passport workers have my sympathy. I exchanged a couple of emails with the lady processing the application and she was obviously looking for ways to speed it up.

Be advised Japanese photo machines don't pass muster, they flunk on background colour first time, and too bright second. In the past we got leeway but I guess the photos are all being fed into a facial recognition database and so the rules are being enforced. So if you can't travel to the UK and use a UK spec machine you will need to go to a studio and hope they can get the right size and bg colour.

This isn't just a problem of budget cuts, resources are being diverted to all these new security measures, systems we use to abdicate responsibility. Lots of rules, procedures, but no individual accountability.

[Wibble]

Be advised Japanese photo machines don't pass muster, they flunk on background colour first time, and too bright second. In the past we got leeway but I guess the photos are all being fed into a facial recognition database and so the rules are being enforced. So if you can't travel to the UK and use a UK spec machine you will need to go to a studio and hope they can get the right size and bg colour.

This isn't just a problem of budget cuts, resources are being diverted to all these new security measures, systems we use to abdicate responsibility. Lots of rules, procedures, but no individual accountability.

The technical photography guide is still there buried on the irritating new .gov.uk site
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... tographers
So you can just take a photo yourself and mess about with the sizes and colour as long as it's properly printed on proper paper they won't know the differences. Probably more chance of success with that than getting a Japanese studio to be compliant.

[Wage Slave]

I had no problem using pictures taken by the photo processing shop in the local supermarket. I never thought photobooth quality was good enough for passports so have never tried it.

[Yokohammer]

I had no problem using pictures taken by the photo processing shop in the local supermarket. I never thought photobooth quality was good enough for passports so have never tried it.

I was surprised recently when I used one of those newfangled digital photo booths to take a mugshot for my zairyu card. The quality was really very good, and you even get to adjust the position of your head in the frame.

I actually had a shot done at the local mom & pop photo studio first, and it was crap. So I tried the photo booth at one of the big home centres around here and it was perfect.

Go figure.

[Coligny]

These booth depends on the supply chain... With 3 to 5 megapixel cameras needed for mobile phones sold by the bucket for few bucks and photo printers not much more expensive they can hardly do wrong...

Same as the explosion on micro RC offering that rely on micro motors used for phone vibrators.

Next up on the giant cost crash list are ~10" size LCD screen. When carmakers discover its much cheaper to have gauge made with 1 screen rather than aircore dials and leds indicators they will start ordering by the trainload and production cost will fall in line with dog kibbles prices.