To tell you that Passport Office staff will strike for 5 weeks?

[Workyworky]

I support them.

Just thought I'd let people know to get their applications in ASAP.

I'd imagine (but don't know) that there will always be the facility to obtain an emergency passport, which will cost a lot, but it does at the moment anyway.

Non urgent travellers will suffer delays though, but that is the aim of the action surely?

They earn approximately 26;000 a year, so not bad, for what is basically and admin job

They are currently advertising for staff at the lowest grade at £22,400. Come April that won’t be that much over minimum wage.

I said almost exactly that earlier today: air traffic controllers and then customs or immigration staff will be next. I'd advise anyone who hasn't booked their holiday to stay in the UK this summer.

I fully support the strikers though. Ppublic sector staff haven't had anything like a decent pay rise for ages. Their wages must have fallen a lot in real terms and the differential between their pay and NMW has shrunk, so the lower grades aren't not getting much more than people doing much easier jobs.

From April, the annual pay for a 37 hour week at NMW will be a few hundred over £20k, I had to work it out for someone yesterday.

£10pw or thereabouts above NMW doesn't seem a lot for making sure that only the right people get passports, and that they get them reasonably quickly.

If there is any attempt at outsourcing this by the Gov, there's a good chance that the DWP will down tools aswell. It's one thing making it difficult for people to obtain travel documents, but it is another thing entirely to block pension and unemployment payments. And that might just be the start.

It's at the beginning now, but it could gather momentum amongst PS if Gov refuse to engage.

Their unmanageable workload has only arisen because they’ve been fucking about at home for 3 years playing Call of Duty

And you know this how?

I don’t know what their remuneration package is except as a public sector body it’ll likely be 40% higher than people in private sector on similar jobs

You're right, you don't know, and furthermore couldn't be arsed going online to find out anything to support your baseless claim.

Their unmanageable workload has only arisen because they’ve been fucking about at home for 3 years playing Call of Duty

😂😂😂 this made me laugh so much I said it out loud and everyone I'm with laughed and nodded in agreement.

I tried to renew my passport back in June 2022, which involved updating it to show both my maiden and new married names (essential that both are shown as I use my maiden name professionally). All very easy to do via the official observation page the helpline told me; I just needed to send in a comprehensive covering letter, which I duly did.

Almost a sodding year later and I still don’t have a correct passport as the numbskull who processed my renewal got my name wrong. It took 6 months to get a response to my formal complaint, and even then that was only because my MP got involved. When they finally deal with my complaint, the complaints team couldn’t even correct it for me and said I have to reapply via paper forms instead even though the error is entirely theirs. They’ve been sat on my reapplication for weeks too with no compensation offered.

I’m never going to get my bloody passport at this rate. I run a business in the private sector and I’d never get away with this.

Thanks for the heads up OP, I managed to get a fast track appointment in early April for DS’ renewal. I was going to wait a few weeks but glad I didn’t thanks to you :)

@mrspinkhat

"As I mentioned in other posts my salary should have risen £12k to keep up with inflation- it's gone up by £5k"

• Do you think all the private sector workers have had pay increases? Many companies have reflected their loss of profit in no salary increases.

"Our staffing levels have halved, work increased"

• Again, do you think the private sector hasn't had any redundancies? A lot of the private sector isn't heavily unionised like the public sector to protect them against redundancy.

"pensions messed with"

• pensions that are probably much more generous than the private sector and will allow you to retire much earlier than private sector workers.

It’s five months till the summer holidays chill your beans folks. That’s like twenty weeks.

It’s 4 months till English school holidays. Some places finish earlier and some people go on holiday earlier than the school holidays. A 5 week closure will not just push applications back by 5 weeks but a lot longer to deal with the backlog. Most people also want to have their passports a comfortable amount of time ahead of their holidays so that they aren’t panicking near the date.

I need to renew mine DHs and DS. We go away in twelve weeks. I’m really worried. Sending them off tomorrow but so will Everyman and his dog 🙄

Not gonna lie, having heard the news this morning, I'm pretty relieved I decided to renew ours in Feb - got them back yesterday!

But you need to have a valid passport for booking flights and hotels, so I imagine people don’t want to wait until the last minute to book..

You dont need the passport at time of booking flights

Those that have renewed recently how long did it take from them receiving the old one to you getting the new one please? We got the text yesterday saying it was received and that it can take up to 10 weeks.
We need to check in for our holiday early July so I'm hoping it is here by then!

I recently applied for a first child passport for a child born overseas, so didn't have a passport to send but had to send loads of supporting documents. It took 4 weeks in total, including 8 days for my documents to arrive at the Passport Office.

Here was the timeline for me. The actual passport arrived on the 24th.

Renewal - gov.uk estimated 10 weeks
applied online 27 feb
posted old passport 28 feb
old passport recd 2 mar
application approved 8 mar
passport printed 9 mar
despatched to courier 9 mar
received passport 10 mar

It was pretty good first text 27th Jan

Passport sent 11th Feb, arrived a couple of days after

Not sure if it’ll start to slow as people send them in to avoid strikes

They are being paid, through the union, they are laughing that they are effectively having 5 weeks paid holiday which starts just in time for Easter school holidays and ends Bank Holiday Monday so if they take 4 days leave after that they can then add the Coronation BH on the end of it.

This is after they had tons of paid holiday during the pandemic as they were sent home at the drop of a hat or repeatedly said they had tested positive. On return they had to social distance so only half the office could go in. No wonder their workload is high.

They have additional financial incentives on top of overtime and can work from home. I can't see how their working conditions are poor, especially compared to NHS & Teaching. When asked, most of them don't know why they are striking but some have the mentality that they are hard done by.

Oh and after they have been on strike there will be plenty of that overtime on offer to catch up with the work. If you work in the passport office you know this is true.

@ChimChimeny
mine took ten days