No one to sign DD’s passport renewal!!

[Pinkloveheartpjs]

Trying to renew DD’s passport and we have no one to sign. I could ask my manager but she hasn’t known me for 2 years and I wouldn’t want to put her in that position to lie for us.

I have 2 friends both SAHM, DH doesn’t have anyone he can ask the person he did ask doesn’t have a passport.

What on earth do we do?

I have so many people I could ask at work as I’m a HR professional but I haven’t know them two years.

member, associate or fellow of a professional body or a engineer with qualifications?

I’m chartered in my field and I signed. Are none of your trade friends part of a professional body?

GP, accredited church minister, officer in the armed forces, police officer?

You’re right, apologies.

Agreed.

I don’t know why so many people are having such a hard time reading and understanding the website.

easily done as you can see! 😆

It might be worth asking a pharmacist, ideally not from one of the big chains. The one at Boots (who had known us for years!) refused to certify that MrG was still alive! (This was for a non-UK pension.) So we went to the non-Boots pharmacy where we barely know the pharmacist beyond saying hello in the street - she certainly didn't know his name - and she did it cheerfully within seconds, with an official pharmacy stamp.

You also need photos countersigned if the adult passport is damaged. My ex's passport was coming away on the photo page (the maroon ones had this page on the back, not on the second page with the current very dark navy ones)

I am a self-employed Travel Consultant with my own business and I have signed a few passports for the children of my long-standing clients, over the years.
Might you have a friend/school parent etc who have a similar career?
Or even a Travel Agent that you have booked with over the past few years?

The bit I misunderstood was about what constitutes “First adult passport”, nothing to do with teachers and who can and cannot be a countersignatory. Or whether a signature is needed for a child.

I don’t think that the website is particularly unclear generally.

Teachers are allowed , plus dentist , health visitor, pharmacist and any professional, retired or working

it’s very clear

i just found your first comment about how not being able to understand how someone could read the website incorrectly and then your follow up post needing to apologise for your error… a little funny!

I signed for a lot of my friends and my job is so basic but loosely 'local government*
More people than you think can sign

I know people who just get randomers who haven't known them 2 years to do it because it's such hassle. Some random woman my sister worked with did my sons first ever one. He's had 2 new ones since then.

Can you ask her teacher from last year if she can do it? My kids teachers have always signed my DC passports.

I’m confused that teachers can’t do it any more. I did one a few months ago for a family I’ve taught for years.

They can, as has been repeatedly corrected.

CANCEL THE CHEQUE!

I know no one doing those jobs.

I can’t get past this though:

• be able to identify you, for example they’re a friend, neighbour or colleague (not just someone who knows you professionally)

As a teacher I only know children I teach professionally, so I don’t think I can sign for them. I can sign for friends and their kids though.

OPs kid is 5 anyway, so unlikely to have known her teacher 2+ years.

OP, have you just moved to a new area? It does sound like you need a wider social network, to be honest.

I always think of stuff like this when I see one of the endless post-COVID threads about “AIBU to be a homebody who just is content to stay at home and watch Netflix and potter in my garden?” Etc.

People do have a responsibility to create and maintain social networks, IMO - because if they don’t, the next thing that happens is: they are having an issue with something in their life, and when someone asks “Do you not have a friend who have help you?”will respond that “Oh, I can’t XYZ because I don’t really have friends/have hardly any friends.”

As the “Just ask your child’s teacher etc. to sign” thing indicates, one consequence of people not having proper social networks is that they become over-reliant on government services instead, adding to the burdens these services already face.

It scares me how many teachers can't understand the difference between signing for a friend's child and signing for a student in their class.

Just a little rant about how annoying and complicated this is.
It's really the governments fault
Why are they making it so hard for people?
Any friend should be able to counter sign
Why exactly are they discriminating against someone who works in a shop?For example like an assistant
I mean, who's more likely to have a problem with this, obviously the working class!

They aren't. The friend who works in a shop can sign. The list is just suggestions.

The teacher has to know and be able to identify the parent, not the child (unless pupil is over 16). It’s clearly in the guidance.

Yes I know. They also have to know the parent personally, not just professionally, as per the guidance I posted.

the child/parent distinction is less relevant for primary age pupils as the majority of teachers would recognise at least one of the parents of each child on sight from
not long - a few weeks - after meeting the child (in my experience anyway). At secondary of course it is different.