Reduction in price of passports - second helping

The request was partially successful.

Dear Identity & Passport Service,

In http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re... you made a number of assertions regarding passports. These sought to justify the increase in the price of a passport from £18.00 in 1995 to £77.50 fifteen years later, an over fourfold increase in fifteen years, but were extremely unconvincing.

One of the assertions was "The passport fee is reviewed by HM Treasury to ensure that there is no cross subsidisation between IPS activities and that the passport fee only recovers costs of passport operations."

I refer to http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_stor... "Scrapping biometric passports to save £134m".

Please assist me with my enquiries into you activities by answering the following questions.

1) The negotiations referred to in the article are presumably now concluded. Please provide the figure for the costs saved by scrapping fingerprinting of people who are not criminals but simply wish to go about their lawful business.

2) If your assertions in response to my earlier enquiry were truthful then a reduction in the price of passports is now due. Please provide copies of all documents where reductions in the price of passports is discussed.

This time please take note of this paragraph, something you couldn't be bothered to do last time. Please note that "replies" which involve attachments in proprietary
file formats are not acceptable. A reply which is not in plain text format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer. It may be that copies of documents cannot be provided in plain text format, if that is the case please contact me to discuss a suitable format.

Yours faithfully,

David Hansen

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hansen,

Thank you for your email of 17 February. Please find an acknowledgement
attached.

<<17781 David Hansen.doc>>

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Hansen,

Thank you for your email of 15 February. Please find a response attached.

<<17781 D Hansen response.pdf>> <<David Hansen response.pdf>>

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

David Hansen left an annotation ()

These officials still can't be bothered to reply to people in the format they asked to be replied to in. I wonder if they would treat a blind person as arrogantly.

Here is the text of their reply

Headquarters
Identity and Passport Service
Parliamentary & Correspondence
Management Team
4th Floor, Peel Building, SE
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Tel
(020) 7035 8889
Fax
(0870) 336 9175
Email [Identity & Passport Service request email]
Web www.ips.gov.uk

Mr David Hansen
Email : [FOI #62134 email]

Reference: FOICR 17781/11

Date: 14 March 2011

Dear Mr Hansen

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your e-mail of 15 February, in which you ask for information on the
National Identity Scheme. Your request has been handled as a request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your questions and the responses are detailed below.

In
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re...
ing-109221 you made a number of assertions regarding passports. These sought
to justify the increase in the price of a passport from £18.00 in 1995 to £77.50
fifteen years later, an over fourfold increase in fifteen years, but were extremely
unconvincing.

I refer to http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_stor... "Scrapping
biometric passports to save £134m".
Passport Adviceline: 0300 222 0000
Email us at [Identity & Passport Service request email].
Visit our website at www.ips.gov.uk.

Please assist me with my enquiries into you activities by answering the following
questions.

1) The negotiations referred to in the article are presumably not concluded. Please
provide the figure for the costs saved by scrapping fingerprinting of people who
are not criminals but simply wish to go about their lawful business.

We estimate that the cancellation of ID cards and the National Identity Register will
realise savings of £86m over four years and further savings in the region of £134m will
be realised by halting the introduction of fingerprint biometric passports.

The negotiations with suppliers to cancel or amend contracts signed under the National
Identity Service have been concluded. The payments to suppliers associated with
cancellation of these contracts are as follows:

Supplier Compensation
Payment
Thales £2,002
k
Cable and Wireless
£ 68,k
3M £183
k
Total £2,253,k

In addition the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is paying Thales to decommission ID
card systems and securely to destroy the personal data held in these systems. These
payments will not exceed £400k.

Other contracts held by IPS and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) have been modified as
a result of the decision to cancel ID cards and halt second biometric passports. No
compensation payments to suppliers were necessary in the course of modifying these
contracts.

2) If your assertions in response to my earlier enquiry were truthful then a
reduction in the price of passports is now due. Please provide copies of all
documents where reductions in the price of passports is discussed.

Please see the response to your earlier information request numbered 17267/11 which
is attached for your convenience.

A reply which is not in plain text format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer.
It may be that copies of documents cannot be provided in plain text format, if that
is the case please contact me to discuss a suitable format.

Section 11(1) of the Act states that where an applicant expresses a preference for
communication to be made in a particular form the public authority should, as far as is
reasonably practicable, comply with this preference. This section of the Act refers to the
Passport Adviceline: 0300 222 0000
Email us at [Identity & Passport Service request email].
Visit our website at www.ips.gov.uk.

form in which the information will be provided eg. electronic or paper. However, it does
not cover the way in which the information is presented. IPS is acting in accordance with
Home Office instructions which recommend that all electronic departmental responses
are issued in the portable document format (pdf).

In keeping with the Freedom of Information Act, we assume that all information can be
released to the public unless it is exempt. In line with normal practice we are therefore
releasing the information which you requested via the IPS website.

I hope that this information meets your requirements. I would like to assure you that we
have provided you with all relevant information that IPS holds.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal
review of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to
the address below, quoting reference 17781/11. If you ask for an internal review, it
would be helpful if you could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.

Information Access Team
Home Office
Ground Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
e-mail: [email address]

As part of any internal review the Department's handling of your information request will
be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you
remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you would have a right of complaint to the
Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information
Act.

Yours sincerely

H Reid
Parliamentary and Correspondence Management Team

Passport Adviceline: 0300 222 0000
Email us at [Identity & Passport Service request email].
Visit our website at www.ips.gov.uk.