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<p>A total of 49,173 international child passport applications finished processing
in January-June 2015. Of this total, <del class="ministerial">2,418 (4.9%)</del> <ins
class="ministerial">3,242 (6.6%)</ins> took longer than three months to be processed,
<del class="ministerial">1,780 (3.6%)</del> <ins class="ministerial">2,539 (5.2%)</ins>
took longer than four months to be processed, and <del class="ministerial">944 (1.9%)</del>
<ins class="ministerial">1,657 (3.4%)</ins> took longer than six months to be processed.</p><p>The
processing time is the length of time from receipt of the application to the passport
being printed. For international child passport applications processed in the same
period, the average processing time was 19.4 working days. Information is not held
on the time between receipt of application and interview date as the date of interview
can be subject to customer availability.</p><p>Her Majesty’s Passport Office must
be fully satisfied that all appropriate checks have been completed successfully prior
to the issuance of passport facilities. This is particularly important in relation
to child applications as part of Her Majesty’s Passport Office responsibility to protect
potentially vulnerable children, including those potentially at risk of child trafficking
and to maintain the integrity of the British Passport.</p><p>These checks can require
the provision of information from other agencies overseas – particularly in complex
applications such as surrogacy cases.</p><p>Delays in the provision of this information
to HMPO can lead to significantly extended timeframe in processing applications.</p><p>
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