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Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine): The Home Secretary alluded to statistics projecting a higher demand earlier in the trial. When the statistics were undershot, alarm bells did not ring about the pent-up demand that would come later. Perhaps the undershooting was misread as a reassurance that there would not be as much of a problem as previously thought.
Mr. Allan: The problem is the lack of slack and contingency planning to allow for variations. The agency has been under tremendous pressure to make efficiency savings--of 24.5 per cent. from 1995-96 to 1997-98--so it has considered any chink of light and been glad to cut costs anywhere, rather than allowing any slack in the system. A system that fails to deliver has not made efficiency savings: it has made cash savings that have turned out to be inefficiency savings.
We are concerned about those who have missed their travel dates. According to a parliamentary answer from the Home Office, there were 95 such cases in all in 1998-99. There have been 50 so far this year. We are concerned also about those who did not declare a travel date, because it is quite common not to do so.
Fifty may sound like a small number, but it represents 50 families whose holidays have been ruined, or people who may have failed to make important engagements abroad. The individuals concerned should be compensated. Another parliamentary answer said that the Passport Agency's current policy is to reimburse, by an ex gratia payment, the reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by customers as a direct consequence of clear operational errors or failure to provide an acceptable level of services; that each case is considered carefully on its merits; and that it is not the agency's normal policy to make compensation for distress and inconvenience arising from such errors and failures.
Is that still the case? People will be especially interested to know whether there will be compensation for distress and inconvenience, which will in many cases have been considerable. How have the budgets been revised for compensation? In 1998-99, 74 per cent. more was paid in compensation than in 1997-98. What might the total be for this year? That money is being wasted, in the sense that it should never have needed to be paid.
The Home Office has offered several reasons for the problems that we do not accept. Passports for children serve a useful purpose in preventing abduction. I noted earlier that my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir R. Smith) has a child on his passport. The line adding the child strikes me as
easily forged, so having a separate document will bring real benefits. It is astonishing, however, that effective preparations for the change were not put in place. There is no excuse for the Passport Agency failing to deliver it effectively.
I have heard anecdotally that one problem that has arisen is that when one child is issued a passport, the other children in the family want one too. Such human factors could and should have been taken into account.
We do not believe that it is reasonable to blame the IT system. It is traditional on the telephone to blame the computer.
Miss Widdecombe:
If one can get through.
Mr. Allan:
I will come to that in a minute, as I am quite exercised about the unacceptable standard of service on the telephone.
How much were Siemens and Security Printing Systems fined, or is it like the Immigration and Nationality Directorate system, in which no fine is levied but the company does not get paid when the system is not running effectively? The system is working, but not as well as it should.
I know that the Home Secretary has an interest in freedom of information, but I hope that he will not cloak this problem of genuine public concern in a cloud of commercial confidentiality. People who hand over £21 or £31 have a right to understand how that money is spent and whether it is spent well. I hope that commercial confidentiality will not be trotted out as an excuse for not revealing how Siemens has suffered for failing to reach contractually arranged targets.
How much has been levied on the Immigration and Nationality Directorate contract, where the problems have been even more extreme? A pattern is evident that needs to be examined as a whole. It is not enough simply to take each information technology system in isolation, as the lessons will apply to the delivery of any such system.
High seasonal demand was one of the original reasons put forward to explain the delays. That is a "leaves on the track" argument and is unacceptable. High seasonal demand is a recurrent feature. A person who telephones British Gas with a complaint in the middle of winter is not told that the high demand for gas in winter means that the complaint cannot be satisfied. Responses such as that from any of the comparable utilities would put them out of business. One of the matters needing attention is the extent to which a monopoly supplier can extend periods of inefficiency because people have no choice of supplier.
Mr. MacShane:
The demand for passports has risen by nearly 200,000 since 1997. Does not that show that people are happier under a Labour Government, that they want to travel more and that they have the money to do so? It is not a matter of seasonal demand, but of our Government's success.
Mr. Allan:
The hon. Gentleman has his view, but others may suggest that people are fleeing from the present condition of the country. I do not want to get into that debate, but the Government should have been able to plan for the happiness factor when they took office. Two years ago, they should have anticipated the wealth that they were going to create, and required the Passport
The utility providers do not behave in this way any more, because regulators monitor their operations, yet Ministers are ready to attack any other provider of a core service that fails to deliver. When the train services fail to meet their targets, Ministers line up to criticise them. They levy fines and believe that the system of regulation governing those providers should be strengthened. We agree about that, but why should the Passport Agency be exempt from the general structure? A target is a target, and there are penalties if it is not achieved.
Miss Widdecombe:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I had a question that I wanted to ask the Home Secretary, but he had become rather exhausted and would not take it. Given that the Home Secretary accepts responsibility for what has gone wrong--and the number of things that have gone wrong, for which he has also accepted responsibility, is really rather large--does not the hon. Gentleman think that the time may have come for the right hon. Gentleman to expect a penalty to be imposed on him?
Mr. Allan:
Certainly. One of the more depressing aspects of the matter is that it seems that the compensation and fines that are paid or levied will be added to the customer's costs. Passport applications will therefore cost more, which is unacceptable. The Passport Agency is self-funding, but its structure needs examination if a more rigorous system, ensuring that standards are met and not resiled from, is to be achieved. We must make sure that customers do not end up paying for the failure of the service provider.
I shall close with several suggestions for ways forward to deal with what I consider to be the key priorities, but first the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) seems very keen to intervene.
Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester):
Incompetent planning was mentioned earlier, and it is clear that, whatever the reason, the planning was appalling and left much to be desired. Does the hon. Gentleman know whether the Government's estimates take account of the pound's strength on the foreign exchanges? Is not that likely to increase the number of people wanting to go abroad and therefore applying for passports? Should not the Government say whether the exchange rate was incorporated in estimates of the number of passports that will be demanded?
Mr. Allan:
I am amazed by the number of wider factors that can be introduced to this debate. It might be even more dangerous to discuss currencies and exchange rates, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, than it would have been to debate the more general economic conditions mentioned by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane).
I want to offer the Home Secretary some positive pointers towards key improvements. First, there should be a telephone call centre. People come to our surgeries
because they cannot get through on the telephone.Again and again people say that they are sorry to bother us, but they have been on the phone for hours. They are not exaggerating, and that is not acceptable. Utilities set strict targets, answering 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of calls within a specified number of rings. The targets are monitored, and the regulator checks them. Anything less than the target is deemed unacceptable.
Setting up a call centre system would bring considerable savings to the Passport Agency. We have been told that one way around the problem is to write to the agency, but I cannot believe, given the modern technology of 1999, that answering letters can be cheaper than answering telephone calls. The Passport Agency would save money by having a call centre in which people with computers could answer basic queries about the progress of an application, preventing people whose applications relate to August and September from queueing, as the Under-Secretary wishes them not to do. The problems would be greatly reduced if people could simply get through on the telephone.
The cost of a modern call centre should not be inordinate. The utilities, for example, with their high seasonal demand, can spill over from one call centre to another. The hon. Member for Rotherham would surely agree that south Yorkshire is an excellent site for a call centre, as the area is already developing centres in abundance.
We must also offer guaranteed service targets for processing times. The number of days before travel at which the passport will arrive is critical to the applicant. It is not acceptable to tell a customer that he or she will receive documents before travel, but that they may arrive one or two days before. We cannot tolerate that level of service, as it would generate queries and personal applications. The agency should be able to say that, if people have applied four weeks ahead of the date of travel, the passport should be guaranteed to arrive at least a week ahead. I hope that the Government can accept that target, as well as learning lessons about the information technology contracts and making improvements for the future.
Has there been any progress on consideration of a photocard passport, as mentioned in the agency's report for 1997-98, following the introduction of the photocard driving licence? It seems bizarre that someone who has obtained a passport at great expense and trouble, and who is travelling only within the European Union, will have the passport checked in the most cursory way. We have abolished embarkation controls. The airlines check passports because of carriers' liability, but documents are not checked in detail.
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