Travel Requirements

(asked on 8th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to speed up the time taken by her Department to process travel documents.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 28th February 2022

1) & 3) The standard published processing time for Travel Document applications is 14 weeks. The average current processing time is 11 weeks and 2 days for initial consideration of applications and over 80% of applications are being completed within 14 weeks. Those applications not meeting the service standard are normally awaiting further information from the applicant.

2) COVID and the work from home restrictions have affected our ability to maintain performance against the service standard due to the previous paper-based nature of the application process. To mitigate those impacts we have moved to an online application system, reengineered our internal processes, recruited additional staff and expanded our operation to a second office to ease the effect of regional staff absences. These changes have improved our performance against the service standard, a trend which will continue.

Reticulating Splines