Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Lord Triesman of Tottenham, Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 11 October 2006
Dear Mike,
In the Committee's report on the FCO's 2004-05
Departmental report, you recommended that we set out the goals,
work programme and achievements to date of the Passports Best
Practice Unit (BPU). In doing so in our White Paper response,
we referred to an impending review of the impact of the effectiveness
of the Unit. This would be informed by feedback from the first
three posts reviewed by the Unit (Amsterdam, Beirut and Damascus),
six months after their reviews.
The review of BPU has now been completed and I thought
you might be interested to receive a copy. I believe this specialised
review team, which operates in co-ordination with our wider Consular
Review Team, is making a positive impact in improving the working
practices of our posts to enable them to meet their PSA targets.
Posts are given recommendations on how to improve their procedures
and are given six months to implement the recommendations. Feedback
from the posts themselves has been overwhelmingly positive, and
the review team has also provided a valuable insight into the
challenges faced by post, which helps to develop and inform passport
issuance policy and procedures.
I have also enclosed a copy of the 2006 Consular
Strategy Update: In Partnership, which sets out what we
have achieved over the past year and the challenges we face in
the year ahead.
I hope you will find this helpful.
David Triesman
The Lord Triesman of Tottenham
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