NO2ID

Whilst I would fully endorse the principle of a cheaper passport, is No2id now to become a consumer pricing champion? Something "Which?" might campaign on perhaps, but No2id?

From: David Moss
Sent: 19 July 2010 01:11
To: 'dtletters@telegraph.co.uk'
Subject: The price of liberty

Sir

When Labour came to power in May 1997, a 10-year adult passport cost £18. 13 years later when they left, it cost £77.50. The price was increased to pay for all sorts of facilities which, when the Identity Documents Bill is enacted, will no longer be needed. Travellers will expect the price to be cut, therefore, and the government will surely be pleased and sensible to oblige.

RPI inflation between the two Mays was 42.5 percent, suggesting a "proper" price of £25.65. But that fails to account for all the management consultancy the Home Office have paid for in the interim which must, surely, by now have improved efficiency by at least 10 percent. The new target price for a 10-year adult passport should in that case be about £23. Over to you, Theresa May.

Yours
David Moss

Thank you for your letter of 19 July 2010 to Damian Green On Behalf of Mr Moss. I have been asked to reply.

The Identity Documents Bill was introduced to Parliament on 26 May 2010 and is expected to receive Royal Assent by the end of this year. The aim of the Bill is to scrap the ID Card Scheme and destroy the National identity Register. The Coalition Government is seeking to ensure that the scheme is scrapped at the least possible cost to the taxpayer and the Government has sought ways to minimise taxpayers’ expense and to avoid individuals applying for a card.

Since 1997 the standard UK passport fee has increased by over 300%. Forty four percent of this price increase can be attributed to inflation. Additional price increases have been driven by an increase in consular premiums, paid to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to support UK citizens abroad as well as a number of security enhancements. Security enhancements include the introduction of: ePassports, with an electronic chip; interviews for first time adult passport applicants; secure passport delivery and; a number of other anti-fraud initiatives. The introduction of these security enhancements has been in line with international travel document regulations and entirely separate from the introduction of identity cards.

The Home Office agency, the Identity and Passport Service, issues passports in the United Kingdom. Passport fees only recover the operational costs incurred in processing passport applications and are not used to recover any costs of other Identity Passport Service operations such as the production of General Register Office certificates or issuing of ID cards.

The passport fee is reviewed by HM Treasury to ensure that there is no cross subsidisation between Identity and Passport Service activities and the annual accounts are audited by the National Audit Office to provide absolute assurance that the passport fee only recovers costs of the passport business and was not being used to fund the investment or operating costs of identity cards. Further detail is provided within the Identity and Passport Service Annual Report and Accounts, which are available in the “Publications - Corporate” section on their website at: http://www.ips.gov.uk

I hope this has clarified our position.

Yours sincerely

Alan Brown
Deputy Director, Policy

I hope this has clarified our position.

A business consultant has written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, arguing that passport fees should be dramatically reduced from £72.

On the cost of passports, the only proper breakdown I recall seeing is the one from the 1999(?) report on 'introduction of e-passports' by the Home Affairs(?) Committee.

Our Ref: PG/10/202/8511

2 September 2010

Dear Mr Moss,

I acknowledge receipt of your further letter dated 17 August 2010, which will be dealt with as quickly as possible.

The above reference number should be quoted if any enquiries are necessary.

Yours sincerely
Maria Jegede

Parliamentary & Correspondence Management Team

Reference GF/1378/10

Date 27 September 2010

Dear Mr Moss

PASSPORT FEES

Thank you for your Letter of 20 August to Amyas Morse, Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), in which you provided a copy of your letter to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury regarding the level of the passport fee. Mr Morse has asked me, as National Audit Office Director with responsibility for the audit of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), to respond on his behalf.

It may be helpful if I first outline the role of the C&AG and the National Audit Office. The C&AG, and the National Audit Office (NAO), of which he is head, are completely independent of government. The C&AG has two main functions. The first is to certify the accounts of government departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies and to express an opinion on those accounts. The second is to carry out 'Value for Money' examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which government departments and other public sector bodies have used their resources. In each case the C&AG has the statutory authority to report to Parliament on the outcome of his work.

The audit cited by the IPS in response to your letter is our annual statutory audit of the IPS accounts. The most recent audit was of the 2009-10 Accounts which were published in July and can be found on the IPS website at: http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/1717.htm. The C&AG gave an unqualified opinion on the Accounts (p26-27), certifying both that they give a 'true and fair view' of IPS's financial affairs for the year ended 31 March 2010 and also that the income and expenditure of the Agency had been spent, in all material respects, as intended by Parliament and that the transactions conformed to the authorities that govern them. In line with standard auditing practice, our audit does not examine every transaction but is conducted on a test basis, with our audit procedures designed to give us reasonable assurance that the accounts are free from material misstatement.

In order to reach the audit opinion, we carried out work to provide such assurance that each funding stream was, to a material degree, only used for the activities which Parliament had authorised, including that the passport fee was not used to subsidise the other activities of IPS. Note 3, on page 41 of the Accounts, sets out the income and expenditure of IPS by business stream; this shows that for 2009-10 the passport operation made a deficit of £4.2 million.

With respect to Value for Money Studies, the Comptroller and Auditor General produces an average of two reports on the activities of the Home Office and its associated bodies each year. The last on the activities of the IPS was the 2007 report on the introduction of e-passports, to which you refer in your letter. As such we have not undertaken any recent work on the value for money of the passport operation.

In choosing the areas to carry out a Value for Money audit we are ourselves required to have due regard to value for money. This means we have to focus our limited resources on the areas where we think the greatest risks to value for money lie. We take into account a number of factors including the likely impact on the accuracy of the body’s financial statements.

I hope this provides you with clarification on the work we have undertaken and I would like to thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.

Yours sincerely
Susan Ronaidson
Director