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Passports

Answer

The IFS (Identity and Passport Service) currently operates seven offices where customers can attend to apply for and be provided with a passport. None of these was closed in the financial year 2010-11. IPS also provides a number of interview offices for customers who are asked to attend a face to face interview in order to authenticate their identity. In the financial year 2010-11 10 interview offices closed. They were located in Andover, Berwick on Tweed, Bury St Edmunds, Dover, Dumfries, Oban, Scarborough, Sleaford, South Molton, and Stirling. Due to redeployment of staff ahead of formal closure, four of these offices did not undertake any interviews in 2010-11. (Andover, Dover, Dumfries and Stirling). The office in Oban was replaced by a video interview office from September 2010. (Customers attend the local authority office and are interviewed over a video link.) Volumes In the financial year 2010-11, 473,407 applications for passports were made by personal callers to the seven offices where this facility exists: London—204,205 Liverpool—77,967 Peterborough—56,340 Newport—43,443 Glasgow—44,139 Belfast—15,057 Durham—32,256 In the financial year 2010-11, 300,115 authentication interviews where conducted across the network of 56 interview offices and 26 video interview locations. Interviews conducted by office

Interviews conducted by office
Aberdeen	1,882
Aberystwyth	568
Andover	0
Armagh	1,026
Belfast	3,731
Berwick on Tweed	2
Birmingham	20,468
Blackburn	6,824
Bournemouth	2,606
Brighton	3,354
Bristol	4,919
Bury St Edmunds	30
Carlisle	1,314
Chelmsford	9,327
Cheltenham	2,557
Coleraine	1,214
Crawley	5,581
Derby	6,831
Dover	0
Dumfries	0
Dundee	2,037
Edinburgh	4,226
Exeter	2,736
Glasgow	9,875
Inverness	837
Ipswich	2,594
Kendal	1,246
Kings Lynn	1,005
Kingston upon Hull	3,107
Leeds	11,078
Leicester	5,752
Lincoln	2,740
Liverpool	9,243
London	59,123
Luton	11,218
Maidstone	7,043
Manchester	14,260
Middlesbrough	3,670
Newcastle	7,008
Newport	5,873
Newport IOW	487
Northampton	3,903
Norwich	2,835
Oban	11
Oxford	3,062
Peterborough	4,105
Plymouth	1,936
Portsmouth	4,723
Reading	11,645
Ripon	563
Scarborough	9
Selkirk	344
Sheffield	7,348
Shrewsbury	1,886
Sleaford	4
South Molton	16
St Austell	1,512
Stirling	0
Stoke on Trent	3,693
Swansea	3,554
Swindon	2,075
Warwick	3,092
Wick	143
Wrexham	2,788
Yeovil	1,648
York	1,828

Of the 300,115 interviews detailed above, 2,563 were conducted via our video interview service from the following locations

Balvanich	35
Bowmore	23
Caernarfon	579
Cambeltown	37
Castlebay	4
Cumnock	135
Dalmellington	83
Dunoon	42
Elgin	273
Fort William	74
Girvan	75
Haverfordwest	493
Kingussie	23
Kirkwall	119
Lamlash	7
Lerwick	101
Locharron	9
Lochgilphead	36
Lochniver	9
Newtown	10
Oban	10
Portree	49
Rothesay	31
St Marys	7
Stornoway	124
Stranraer	140
Tiree	7
Tobermory	10
Ullapool	18

Passport applications rejected The total number of refusals following a face to face interview from April 1 2010 to March 31 2011 is six. Additionally, for the same period, 1,601 adults who applied for a UK passport for the first time withdrew prior to their face to face interviews, where otherwise the passport would have been issued. IFS does not record refusals specifically by postal application or in person application channel. Therefore we cannot say how many applications were rejected at the public counter. However, the figure for detected fraud for 2010-11 for all passport applications (where no passport was issued) is 7,870. Costs The cost of running the personal passport application offices in the 2010-11 financial year was £24.223 million Application offices £10.799 million Interview offices £13.424 million These figures are subject to audit finalisation. This amount represents the direct costs associated with seeing passport applicants in person at passport application and interview offices. It does not include administrative overheads such as accommodation and depreciation of assets utilised.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

8563; 727 c87-90WA

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Applications Closures Passports Offices Identity and Passport Service

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk