Formed 1 April 2006 Employees 3,180 (2013) | Jurisdiction United Kingdom | |
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Preceding agencies UK Passport Service
UK Passport Agency Headquarters 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF Minister responsible Robert Goodwill, Minister of State for Immigration | ||
Her Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) is a division of the Home Office in the United Kingdom. It provides passports for British nationals worldwide and was formed on 1 April 2006 as the Identity and Passport Service, although the Passport Office had also been its previous name.
The General Register Office for England and Wales became a subsidiary of HMPO on 1 April 2008, and produces life event certificates such as birth, death, marriage and civil partnerships.
HMPO's headquarters is collocated with the Home Office at 2 Marsham Street and it has seven regional offices around the UK, in London, Glasgow, Belfast, Peterborough, Liverpool, Newport and Durham as well as an extensive nationwide interview office network as all first time adult passport applicants are required to attend an interview to verify their identity as a fraud prevention measure.
History
The Identity and Passport Service was established on 1 April 2006, following the passing of the Identity Cards Act 2006 which merged the UK Passport Service with the Home Office's Identity Cards programme to form the new executive agency.
In 2007, the ninety British diplomatic missions that issued passports were consolidated into seven regional passport processing centres (RPPCs) based in Düsseldorf, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, Pretoria, Washington, D.C. and Wellington with an additional centre in Dublin.
The Identity Documents Act 2010 repealed the Identity Cards Act 2006, and required the cancellation of all identity cards and the destruction of all data held.
On 1 April 2011 responsibility for British passports issued overseas passed from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to IPS. The printing of passports issued overseas had been done in the UK since August 2011 and the administrative work performed at these RPPCs was repatriated to the UK during the 2013-14 financial year. From April 2014 all British nationals based overseas had to apply for their passports directly to the UK.
The Identity and Passport Service was renamed HM Passport Office on 13 May 2013 in an effort to reflect the agency’s departure from its association with the scrapped National Identity Register and ID cards. The government stated in the press release that “The inclusion of ‘Her Majesty’s’ in the title recognises that passports are the property of the Crown, bear the royal coat of arms and are issued under the royal prerogative.”
HMPO's executive agency status was removed on 1 October 2014 and it became a division within the Home Office.