First child passport

[Sam822049]

Hi,

I sent off for my first child passport almost 3 weeks ago. I've chased them up a few times and on Thur I asked if I could speak to the team that do the checking as it's been in that status for 2.5 weeks. I was called back by a very unhelpful guy who basically told me he had just sent it off to a third party to do a standard identity check.

I travel on 4th Jan and the person I spoke to said the third part weren't open weekends and bank holidays so everything could take a bit longer. He wouldn't tell me what checks were being done and if I could call anyone to make things a bit quicker, he wouldn't give me any timelines on how long it would take and he also told me as he is on holiday next week he wouldn't be able to give me any updates - he said someone else in his team should pick it up but if they don't he will deal with it when he returns.

I'm really worried now as I think the passport might not come in time.

Baby parents, grandparents all are British and have British passports so I would have though the checks would be done quickly? Also the baby was born in the UK. The person I spoke to spoke really quickly and seemed a bit panicked and gave me the impression that he should have progresses these checks already but has now left it too late.

Does anyone know what checks they do, who they use to do the checks, if I can do anything to speed things up etc?

Any advice is really appreciated.

They might follow up with whoever signed the photos. I think you are told to allow 6 weeks for a first passport.

It's been a while but the checks on my DD first passport were to verify the counter signatory. The PO sent sig a letter asking them to provide evidence on headed paper that they were who they said they were.

Unfortunately this was over Easter so delays with bank hols and post, and sig was on mat leave so couldn't provide the necessary. We found it quicker to do a new application with a different sig, submitted it, then called PO to explain time pressures. They phoned new sig person rather than wrote and we got passport issued after a week (less than a week before we travelled, having made original application over 2 months before!).

Check with your counter sig person - did they receive the letter asking for identition check, when did they send back? Then call PO again with that info.

Ours took a good 6 weeks without bank hols when we did Dds. I guess you can't go to Liverpool for an on the day one for a first passport can you?

They say that first passports can take 6 weeks, I can imagine it'll be even longer this time of year.

I asked the guy on Thur if it was the counter signature check and he wouldn't say. He did say that it's an electronic check and that I shouldn't worry about postal delays as they weren't using post for the check.

Looks like the guy I spoke to last week didn't tell me the truth. They wrote to my counter signature at work but because of Christmas it only came through yesterday. We posted the confirmation using next day delivery and they got it today. I spoke to the passport office using the number on the confirmation request letter and managed to get through to a really useful person (Mr Mason) who helped get it all sorted in 5 mins - that's all the time they needed. It's now been dispatched as a priority (I paid £60.50) and it should come through any day now.

The call centre are useless and sometimes quite rude. They kept telling me to call back a few days later. I asked to speak to a manager who explained they don't have the tel no for the team that carries out the checks etc so they can only send messages via their internal systems which often get missed/ignored. My advice to anyone in the same situation is use the number that is on the letter that comes asking the counter signature to send confirmation. There are a few different offices so you need to get through to the one looking after your application.