A Service Improvement Plan was put in place

5.1  As problems became apparent, Capita and the Agency put in place a Service Improvement Plan, including:

■  Returning applications with errors and omissions to Registered Bodies to increase efficiency of processing;

■  Training Registered Bodies to eliminate the main sources of error;

■  Recruitment and training of additional staff and extension of working hours both by Capita and the Agency to increase throughput;

■  Temporary secondment of 220 UK Passport Service staff to the Agency and to the Metropolitan Police to boost capacity and performance until systems and productivity could be improved;

■  Outsourcing of data entry by Capita to Hays plc who have undertaken the work at one of their facilities in India; and

■  Other actions to improve workflow and reduce errors including working with Local Police Forces to assist in clearing the backlog and to improve their productivity.

By November 2002, the Bureau's performance had improved to the extent that it regularly issued more disclosures than the number of applications received each week. Backlogs therefore fell and turnaround times improved (see Figure 8).