| British Passports - made in Dusseldorf |  Print |
Article by Claire Clausen, The Copenhagen Post. Used with permission.
Need a new British passport? Think global, and make sure you start the process well in advance because from 1 October 2009 your new passport will no longer be processed by the British Embassy in Copenhagen. The entire process has been moved to ...no, not London, but Düsseldorf. Why not Berlin or Prague or The Hague? Streamlining, efficiency and sustainability are the keys, and Dusseldorf is nothing if not central in Western Europe.
It may seem a pretty odd thing for the Foreign Office to do, but nowadays a passport is no longer a cheap little booklet with your photo and a collection of interesting stamps. The issuing of passports is extremely expensive; document security in today’s world requires all kinds of sophisticated and expensive security measures. For five years or more the overseas passport operation has been operating at a loss. Unacceptable by any standards.
In order to rectify this, and to reduce the risk of fraud by having too many blank passports in circulation, the British National Audit Office in 2006 recommended a reduction in the number of places where printing and the issuing of passports was carried out. Until this year the UK was alone among major Western countries in continuing to print passports abroad. Most other countries issue their passports at home and customers have to wait up to six weeks for a new one. Rather than bring the entire process back to London, passports will still be available abroad, but the process has been successfully centralised in Europe, North America, Southern Africa. It has become more streamlined and cost effective, and delays have actually been reduced.
So, Britons living in Denmark (and the entire Nordic region) take note: applications for new passports will go to The British Consulate General in Dusseldorf.
The Vice Consul at the Embassy in Østerbro says that for several years now passport applications forms have been available on the internet, so the process is not as troublesome as one might think. The cost remains the same: £124.50 plus a postage or courier fee. And more importantly, she explains that all the new ‘production centres’ (as the passport offices are now termed) are charged with meeting target commitments of issuing 90% of passports within 10 days of receipt of a complete application and the fee.
British Consular offices in other parts of the world have already seen their operations transferred to other centres and are confident that the system actually works. ‘We in Copenhagen will be monitoring the Dusseldorf service carefully, to ensure the same high standard of service that we provided here at the Embassy in Copenhagen for so many years,’ assures the Vice Consul. Her team will continue to provide assistance to British residents and visitors who need their help. ‘The changes to the passport system have freed us up to be able to meet the growing need for time to give assistance when needed, particularly in crisis situations.’
The Consular Section of the British Embassy has the following advice for British passport holders:
- Take very good care of your passport
- Check its validity. (Passports can be renewed up to nine months before expiry and the extra time will be added on to the new passport’s validity)
- If you are a frequent traveller, to countries requiring a visa, please make enquiries about obtaining an extra passport.
For further information check http://ukindenmark.fco.gov.uk/en/passports |