Passport Office workers strike over staff shortages

28 Jul 14
Civil servants in the Passport Office have today taken strike action in protest over what unions said was a staffing crisis at the agency.

By Richard Johnstone | 28 July 2014

Civil servants in the Passport Office have today taken strike action in protest over what unions said was a staffing crisis at the agency.

The one-day stoppage comes after the government stated the office was dealing with the highest demand for passports in 12 years and had issued over three million passports so far in 2014.

The Public and Commercial Services union said there were not enough staff members to deal with this spike in applications, as more than 300 posts had been cut at the agency since 2010. This has caused a backlog in issuing passports, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said, and action was being taken to highlight the problems.

Although talks have taken place with senior managers in a bid to resolve the backlog, he added there was no commitment to work with the union to agree a long-term solution to understaffing.

‘We are still a long way off getting a commitment from the agency that it will work with us to put the proper resources in place to ensure these backlogs do not reoccur year after year.’

A Home Office spokesman said it was disappointed that the PCS had called this strike given that the Passport Office had been in discussions with the union over staffing levels.

‘If necessary, we have contingency plans in place to ensure that during any industrial action passport offices will maintain a service to the public and keep any inconvenience to a minimum,’ he added.

‘All Passport Office customer service centre counters will remain open and we will be able to issue passports for those in emergency situations, with urgent travel needs.’


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