Glasgow Passport Office
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S3M-1811, in the name of Sandra White, on Glasgow passport office. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament expresses deep concern at the plans to stop passport-processing services in Glasgow, resulting in the loss of over 100 jobs and leaving Scotland without a fully operational passport service; notes with further concern what appears to have been a deliberate run-down of the service in the lead-up to this announcement; believes that this streamlining process will see a further three or four passport offices throughout the United Kingdom affected, and further believes that concise information as to the effect of these changes should be issued immediately in order to remove the doubt and uncertainty surrounding the plans.
Although the debate is entitled, "Glasgow Passport Office" the matter affects not just Glasgow but the whole of Scotland. I welcome this opportunity to debate this important issue and I hope to have the support of all parties in sending a clear, united message that the proposals for Glasgow passport office are unacceptable to the Scottish people.
Many issues could be raised, such as identification cards, passports for members of the armed forces and emergency passports, but I will not have time to cover them all. I expect that members will talk about such issues.
I welcome to the public gallery members of the Public and Commercial Services Union and I thank the PCS for its excellent briefing, which makes it clear that throughout the process serious concerns have been expressed about inaccuracies, contradictions and disregard for staff and customers in the Identity and Passport Service's approach. Those have been compounded by discrepancies in the evidence that the IPS provided to staff when they were told about the proposed changes.
Staff were told that the Glasgow passport office currently processes around 350,000 passports a year. However, according to a House of Commons written answer from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Identity, Meg Hillier, in 2005 the number was nearer to 600,000; in 2006 it was 650,000; and in 2007 it was 550,000. Staff were also told that Glasgow was chosen because of its small production capacity. However, in another written answer Ms Hillier acknowledged that the London and Belfast offices have consistently had lower processing figures. A serious issue must be addressed. The figures do not add up and staff are being deliberately misled, which might call into question the legality of the proposed changes. Perhaps the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism will seek advice on that.
More sinister and worrying is evidence of a deliberate run-down of services at Glasgow. Again, the IPS and Ms Hillier have provided conflicting information. The IPS told staff that no decision had been taken on where postal applications would be sent. However—lo and behold—in response to another question, Ms Hillier said that 40 per cent of post office deliveries have been diverted from Glasgow to other passport offices since January, which is almost unbelievable. The two positions cannot stand up side by side. Questions must be asked about such discrepancies.
We are witnessing the deliberate run-down of services, a campaign of misinformation and a blatant disregard for the workers and people of Scotland. I hoped that if I expressed my concern directly to Ms Hillier I would receive a response that would enable me to come to the Parliament today with a glimmer of hope and faith that she is listening to the people of Scotland and to passport office staff. However, that did not happen, which is sad. I wrote to Ms Hillier in April, and only by constantly haranguing her—I am not generally known for constantly haranguing people—did I get a response, which was faxed to me today.
It is unfortunate that the response is short, dismissive and curt and contains more contradictions. It says that a decision has not been made. However, in the document that staff were given on 2 April, in answer to a question about whether the consultation period means that changes might not happen, it says, "No. The board has taken the decision." That is contradicted by the response that I received today, which is ridiculous and would be laughable if it were not for the seriousness of the situation and the contempt that Ms Hillier has demonstrated.
I ask the minister urgently to seek clarification on the matter. The United Kingdom Government cannot treat passport office staff like that and it should not be allowed to treat Scottish people like fools.
For the record, will the member clarify that in line with its partnership agreement PCS requires to have input into proposals before decisions are made? We should clearly call for such input.
Elaine Smith is absolutely right—I was going to come on to that. The IPS will make a decision on 1 July, which is worrying.
The consequences of the decision, which has undoubtedly already been taken, as I said, are very worrying. There will be no emergency passport or passport printing services. In future, will Scotland have no passport office? That would mean that people would have to travel outwith Scotland, perhaps to England, to get a passport, and would mean the loss of more than 100 jobs—an alarming point is that given the history and make-up of the Glasgow office many members of the same families have jobs there.
The minister should be aware of the concerns of the business community that it will no longer be able to get passports at short notice. I believe that those passports are called jumbo passports; union representatives have told me that. The economic impact that the possible closure would have on Scotland, particularly on our oil industry, is worrying indeed.
We should be clear that this is only the start. With another three to four offices to close throughout the UK, could all areas with devolved Governments be without a passport office? Given that possibility, I urge the minister to encourage his Cabinet colleagues to raise the issue at the next meeting of the joint ministerial committee. I draw the minister's attention to information that I learned about only today about Northern Ireland, where there is legislation to protect such services from closure.
A recent PCS magazine included the headline, "Scotland's Going: Who's Next?" That says it all. An irate passport office worker told me:
"Once again, Scotland is being used as a guinea pig to see if these cuts will be accepted before another three to four offices throughout the UK face the same fate. Will it be Wales, Northern Ireland or England?"
It is time that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people sent out a clear message that the cuts are unacceptable, that we will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the only passport processing service in Scotland is retained and that staff must not lose their jobs. We should have a passport service in Scotland.
I thank Sandra White for giving Parliament the opportunity to debate the Glasgow passport office. The matter is, of course, reserved, but it is fair that members should be able to raise their general concerns on the service impact and the impact on jobs.
It is important to establish and to deal with the facts in this case, which has not been easy. Glasgow MPs are active on the issue, including Ann McKechin and Mohammad Sarwar, with whom I have been working and who have kept me in touch with their work. I thank the PCS officials for taking the time to brief us on their concerns. It is important to note that Glasgow MPs have secured a commitment that there will be no compulsory redundancies.
I acknowledge what Pauline McNeill is saying on the matter. How many Glasgow MPs signed the early-day motion on the subject at Westminster? Will she encourage other MPs to do so?
I do not know the figure off the top of my head. I do not read Westminster's daily business bulletin; I usually read the Scottish Parliament's one. As Sandra White is aware, the point that I am making is that MPs are at the forefront of the campaign, as they should be. As members of the Scottish Parliament, we have a legitimate interest in the matter. It is important to have the debate today.
As I said, MPs have secured an important commitment that there will be no compulsory redundancies. It is important to put the information into perspective. In a press release earlier this year, the SNP said that many people may have to go to England to get their passports, but there has been no evidence that that will be the case. Although I have my concerns, it is important to debate the issue with the facts before us.
Will the member give way?
No.
The Glasgow passport office is located in my constituency of Glasgow Kelvin, which is why I am taking an interest in the matter.
Will the member give way on that point?
I am sorry, Presiding Officer. If I say to a member that I am not taking an intervention, surely that means that I am not taking an intervention.
Absolutely. It is entirely up to members whether they take interventions. The member has made it clear that she does not want to do that, Mr Doris. You are down to speak in the debate, so you will get your chance.
There is a lot of conflicting information on the issue. There may be common points of interest, but we need to ensure that we move ahead on the basis of the facts.
I turn to the issues that I am concerned about as the constituency MSP. I am not clear why Glasgow is first in line for restructuring and a redundancy process and I am not happy with the answers that I have seen thus far on the subject. The Glasgow passport office is, because of the expertise of its staff, an efficient office that deals with most of the complex applications, so why is it first in line when no announcement has been made on offices anywhere else in the country?
In many ways, I am looking for assurances about the service. I believe that Sandra White is right to say that the business community service that is currently on offer will no longer be available. On the counter service and the premium service that enables people to get a passport in four hours, we have been told that the counter service will remain, but I am concerned about the language in the document, which states that it will remain "for the foreseeable future". It sounds to me as if it will not be there for the long term, so I want an assurance that it will be.
I also want an assurance that the service that Glasgow and Scots people get from the office will remain the same as it is now. We know that the Glasgow office will specialise in countering fraud, which is one of the jobs that it will take on, but I want an assurance that it will remain part of the mainstream service.
I call on the Government to ensure that it properly consults the trade union, which not only represents its members but has many important points to make about the future and the structure of the service. I would like an assurance on that too.
There are issues to be raised, but we must get them into perspective. I ask, on behalf of my constituents, that the excellent service that they get at the Glasgow passport office remains as it is, if it is not improved, in the future.
I, too, congratulate Sandra White on securing the debate. The loss of more than 100 jobs is a concern for Glasgow and for the whole of Scotland that merits substantial debate now and in the future.
I will pick up on points that Sandra White made. I agree with some of them pretty strongly, but I disagree at least mildly with one or two others. The first crucial point that she made was about the need to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the official reasons that have been given for removing services first from Glasgow, and those that were given in a parliamentary answer. I understand that the official reason is to do with processing capabilities in the Glasgow office, but the number of passports that were thought to be produced, which I think was 350,000, seems to be in stark contrast to the figures that were given in a House of Commons written answer. Sandra White's suggestion—although she did not mention the size or capabilities of other offices—that other offices have fewer capabilities than Glasgow, is also worthy of further investigation and is an important point.
I agree strongly with the final part of Sandra White's motion, which states:
"information as to the effect of these changes should be issued immediately in order to remove the doubt and uncertainty surrounding the plans."
The loss of 100 jobs or more obviously affects 100 families and 100 breadwinners within their families.
Sandra White's suggestion that the issue could be raised at the next joint ministerial committee meeting is constructive and might shed some light on the issue. I am in tune with all those points.
Although Pauline McNeill was right to say that the issue is reserved, debates such as this one focus the minds of all who are involved in the process. I hope that it can have a positive impact. If the proposals are passed and jobs are to be lost, the Conservatives want as many jobs as possible to be retained within the identity of the passport service in Glasgow, whether it involves moving people to other departments or people retraining and moving to different functions. It is important that employees are treated as fairly as possible and are given the notice and the information to which they are entitled.
I note in passing that it was suggested that Glasgow passport office may increase its fraud prevention role. If that is the case, perhaps jobs will be available in that function. Although that would probably not counteract the loss of 100 jobs, it would at least go part of the way.
The point on which I am in slight disagreement with Sandra White is that it is very important not to overstate the case and not to elaborate on or exaggerate the arguments. From what I can see, this is about the loss of potentially more than 100 jobs, but I have not seen any evidence to suggest that it is about closing down emergency passport services. I was, unfortunately, unable to attend today's information session, but I sent a researcher who asked specifically whether, if the proposals go ahead, emergency passports will still be available. PCS was candid in its answer, which was "Yes—they will still be available." It is important to make that point and the point that the office will remain open.
In the worst-case scenario, which I agree is a bad case, a quarter of the present jobs will remain in the office. The proposals are not to shut down the office, so it is wrong to scaremonger and to exaggerate the size of the issue. However, we agree strongly with Sandra White on some issues—it is important that we get to the bottom of them.
I will need a pair of sunglasses by the time that I have finished my speech, because the sun is shining straight into my eyes and blinding me.
I thank Sandra White for bringing the debate to the Parliament and I thank the union that is involved for helpfully providing detailed information. The matter is reserved, but the debate should not give rise to a turf war about which matters should and should not be reserved. When jobs in Scotland are under threat, every member of the Parliament has a duty, a right and a responsibility to stand up for those jobs. We are clear about that. During Pauline McNeill's speech, I tried to put on the public record the fact that there can be no assurances about front-of-office jobs at the Glasgow passport office—it is wrong to say that there can be. I will return to that issue. It is absolutely right that we must deal with the facts—it is not scaremongering to talk about the facts.
I want to talk about the human cost of the proposals. More than 100 workers will be affected. Because of the close-knit nature of the IPS, many of those workers could be husbands and wives or fathers and daughters. This is not the first time that their entire lives have been thrown into turmoil because of UK Government reforms, as many of them were transferred from the Department for Work and Pensions during previous reforms. We should always bear in mind the human and social cost of the proposals.
Unions often get a bad name because they are not constructive, positive or optimistic when reforms are suggested. We must give credit where it is due. The PCS has considered not only the Glasgow passport office, but the entire UK infrastructure of passport offices. The union has made an incredibly worthwhile submission, arguing that if there is to be reform of the offices, we should consider everything in the round and not single out Scotland. Credit must be given to the PCS for that. It is clear that the workers and the union have been progressive, positive and optimistic, for which I commend them. I hope that every job survives and that the reforms are thwarted.
The IPS has been completely irrational about the entire process. There are seven passport offices in the UK, but the IPS has decided that there should be three, for reasons to do with ID cards. Did the service consider the seven passport offices in the round and think about which to keep and which to ditch? No—it singled out Scotland's passport office and said that it is going. That is what the IPS has decided. It will go from seven offices down to six and worry about the other three offices later. Scotland's passport office is under deep threat. That is not scaremongering; it is a fact.
Some members are the lamest defenders of Scotland's jobs that I have heard in an awful long time. They must be stronger than they have been this afternoon. If a juggler has one of their arms cut off and somebody throws six balls at them and asks them to juggle, trust me, they will not be very good. The suggestion is not for a death by 1,000 cuts; it is for a death by two cuts—seven offices down to six, and then six down to three. Scotland will be out next time round in 2010 unless we resist the proposals. However, let us not be parochial. There is solidarity among all passport offices in the UK. Scotland needs a national passport service—it is a vital piece of Scottish infrastructure.
The Conservative member talked about scaremongering. Some people have told scaremongering stories about an independent Scotland. I remember the stories that people in an independent Scotland would need a passport to visit their granny in Blackpool. Under the IPS reforms, people will not even be able to get a passport in Scotland, never mind use one to go down to England. The proposals are ridiculous. The passport office is a piece of Scottish infrastructure that must stay in Scotland. I will finish with a final anecdote about Scotland. The Proclaimers had a great idea when they said:
"I would walk 500 miles".
I thought that they were talking about unrequited love; I did not realise that it meant a 500-mile walk to England to get a passport.
In some ways, I am loth to follow Bob Doris—I do not think that I can match his closing anecdote. I welcome the debate and congratulate Sandra White on obtaining it. I thank members of PCS for the briefing and background information that they have provided.
Rightly, the Identity and Passport Service is reserved to Westminster. The Scottish ministers are not accountable for the lamentable decision that has been made to run down the Glasgow passport office, but we are entitled to make known our views on it. It seems to be a centralising decision that is based partly on a view that the powers that be have taken on the future operating model. As Bob Doris indicated, the target is to reduce the number of offices to three in the course of time.
I will raise three issues, the first of which is technology. Undoubtedly, I am on the Luddite wing of the Parliament, not just because of my personal limitations in operating information technology systems—they break down in my very presence—but because the history of Government IT is littered with disasters on a truly epic scale: the Child Support Agency and Criminal Records Bureau IT systems and the electronic passport application, to name but three. Every MSP knows that after nine years of the Parliament's existence, remote access to our IT still leaves something to be desired. Even when the IT has worked, there has often been a grave mismatch with predicted employee support needs. We have been told that predictions of passport demand, changes in pattern and staff needs have consistently been wrong. That should be a warning sign to us as we consider this issue.
Secondly, there is a need for on-going face-to-face customer contact at convenient points throughout the United Kingdom. Having used the same-day service recently for a family member, I recognise its value. I also understand that the service is valued not just by private individuals generally but by businesses, which frequently need urgent passport renewal, by oil workers and by the armed forces, for which Glasgow is the centre of excellence in the UK. It is not clear whether that service is threatened in the short term—we have debated the matter this afternoon—but I recognise a salami-slice cuts agenda when I see one.
The third point is just as significant. From the beginning, Liberal Democrats have been strongly opposed to the multibillion-pound national identity card system. It has been suggested that one of the factors driving the proposal that we are debating is the way in which the ID card scheme has gone over budget, the consequence of which has been pressure on the general IPS budget. If that is correct, is it acceptable for the service that provides necessary passports to British citizens for purposes of travel for business, pleasure or duty to be truncated or reduced because of a crazy, illiberal scheme that was dreamed up by someone in Downing Street and has become a monster in financial and organisational terms, as well as being objectionable in principle?
Finally, I would like to mention the likely job losses. Sometimes jobs become redundant as a result of changing technologies. If that were not the case, we would still employ men with red flags to walk in front of trains. However, the loss of more than 100 quality jobs in our biggest and most challenged city, on what seems to be a flawed and unproven prospectus, is utterly unacceptable.
I hope that responsible ministers at Westminster will take note of our debate this evening, will have urgent second thoughts on the wisdom of what they seem set on doing and will change their minds.
I congratulate my colleague Sandra White on securing the debate. Many of the speeches that members have made, including Robert Brown's just a moment ago, have been illuminating.
The Scottish Government recognises that this is an anxious time for employees who are affected by the Home Office's decision to remove the processing of postal applications for passports from Glasgow. This afternoon members from all parties have made a strong case for the IPS to pause and to consider and evaluate fully the likely effect of the proposed move on staff and the ability of the IPS to serve Scottish customers and the Scottish economy fully and properly. We will watch carefully to see how the 90-day consultation process progresses, how the IPS reacts to this debate, and what steps it takes to address the concerns of staff and, if necessary, to find suitable alternative employment for the staff affected.
I am aware that in April the IPS wrote to Kenny MacAskill, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, to inform the Scottish Government of the changes that it proposes to the operation of the Scottish passport service. The rationale that the IPS offered for the mooted change is that the Glasgow office has a relatively small production capacity and that currently its output per full-time equivalent member of staff is lower than that of larger offices.
However, I share the concerns about centralisation and the impact on passport applicants—the Scottish customer. What makes those concerns so vivid is that we are told that the proposed move is part of a broader IPS efficiency strategy that its board is considering to move to two or three application processing centres over the next few years up to 2011. We are also told that the IPS will consider the proposed changes and their impact on the other offices across the nations and regions of the UK over the summer. I believe that the debate will reinforce that previously declared intent.
The Public and Commercial Services Union wrote to the First Minister back in April to ask him to look into the situation. He has done that and has assured the PCS that he has passed on its concerns to Scottish National Party MPs so that they might make appropriate representations at a United Kingdom level.
We know that the IPS has recently created 47 new jobs with the opening of the new passport interview offices, and the expansion of its Glasgow operational intelligence unit has created a further 36 jobs. We are pleased to see that counter service in Glasgow will continue. However, if the proposed changes go ahead, how passport applications from people in Scotland will be affected by being processed outside Scotland remains a concern.
Obviously, this Government believes that there must be no significant increase in the time that people must wait between sending an application for processing and receiving a new or renewed passport. We also believe that there must be no impact on people who make telephone inquiries: they must be understood and their issues must be promptly and accurately dealt with—not least because any such impact would be at odds with the IPS's assertion that the proposed changes will help to improve operational efficiency while simultaneously providing the best possible service to its customers.
While it would be inappropriate for the Scottish Government to comment directly on claims that there has been a deliberate run-down of the service in the Glasgow office, it is undeniable that there were almost 100,000 fewer postal applications to the Glasgow office in 2007 than there were in 2006. Weight is added to that by Sandra White's evidence on the conflict between the IPS position and that of Meg Hillier.
I am aware of Sandra White's data and the anecdotal evidence that suggests that postal passport applications from the south of Scotland, Lanarkshire and the Lothians were processed in Peterborough and Durham instead of going to Glasgow, as had previously been the case. The Parliament, the IPS employees in Glasgow, PCS officials and the people of Scotland need and must have an open explanation of that anomaly. In other words, there is a need for a full reconciliation that shows the postcode make-up of the total Glasgow throughput in a timed series, so that we can view it over time.
Meanwhile, we also need to pay attention to the consultant John Seddon, who has studied the effects of centralisation and has grave reservations about situations in which that is not done effectively, with staff fully consulted and proactively involved in the change process, or in which customers' full needs and expectations are not fully catered for.
Mr Seddon believes that excessive back-office centralisation often produces waste and poorer customer service. He tells us that one of the most alarming drivers of what he calls failure demand—that is, the waste of resources and the creation of work that adds no value for the customer and builds in delays, frustration and disappointment—is the drive for more and more centralisation and concentration of back-office functions.
In Mr Seddon's experience, moving to an overly centralised back office, unless it is done with extreme care, removes a system's ability to handle cases speedily and deliver the consistent crisp responses that busy people expect. He also believes that overcentralisation destroys continuity by removing skills and experience; creates waste through additional handovers, rework and duplication; lengthens the time taken to deliver a service; and consequently creates more failure demand. He also contends that overcentralisation inhibits the system's ability to absorb and cope with variety—in, for example, accents and place names—and eliminates the ability to generate the empathy that can put people at their ease, to accelerate the administrative process, or to avoid or rapidly fix errors or omissions in application forms.
I genuinely hope that the IPS is listening to the debate and is prepared to learn from what has been said in the chamber and by the unions and staff. We will watch the situation very closely. We are familiar with many previous false economies that delivered no savings but instead delivered increased costs and worse service. I restate my clear advice and hope that the IPS pauses, considers and re-evaluates the situation.
Meeting closed at 17:39.