BACKLOG BRITAIN
Chaos as Covid delays hit families applying for holiday passports, new parents registering births and older drivers renewing licences
BUREAUCRATIC backlogs caused by the lockdown are paralysing the country, campaigners said last night.
Despite coronavirus restrictions being eased, lives are still on hold because of massive delays at official agencies.
Thousands of elderly motorists are housebound and isolated because of chaos at the DVLA – and:
■ More than 150,000 babies are thought to lack legal status because parents could not register their births;
■ Travellers are waiting more than four months for passports to be processed, causing families to cancel holidays;
■ Grieving relatives are suffering the extra heartache of long delays in obtaining probate to administer estates;
■ Backlogs are placing huge pressure on
the NHS, with nearly 200,000 suspected cancer cases waiting for key tests – a rise of 44 per cent.
MPs said it reinforced Boris Johnson’s call last week for private and public sector bosses to get Britons back to work.
‘The side effects of the lockdown are astonishing and dangerous,’ said former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith. ‘Lockdown for the economy and public services has been a total unmitigated disaster.
‘We’re now in a race to get everything up and running before everything crashes completely and unemployment soars. We have got to persuade the public that we have to get back to work, that if they take reasonable precautions the vast majority should be OK.’
Tory MP and former minister Steve Baker said: ‘All our imaginations were unequal to the task of foreseeing the consequences of closing down a large proportion of our economy and society. Only now do we see what a profound shock this has been.
‘For all the reasons being highlighted by the Daily Mail we have got to try to get back as much as possible to business as usual.’
A Daily Mail investigation has found that pensioners over 70, who require their driving licences to be renewed every three years, have been left waiting months to receive replacements. It means thousands have stopped going out for fear of being prosecuted.
An estimated 790,000 drivers over 70 have applied for a renewal since March, with delays affecting anyone who sent their application by post.
The DVLA blamed the pandemic for reducing staff numbers and said drivers waiting for new photocards can still drive, even if their licence has expired.
But many told the Mail they were unaware of this exemption as they have been unable to get through to the DVLA, either by phone or email.
Caroline Abrahams of the charity Age UK said: ‘Driving a car is a lifeline for many older people. We appreciate that the DVLA may have fewer staff than usual at the moment but being able to drive is so essential for many older people, for all kinds of reasons, that it’s vital they can renew their licences without undue delay.’
It can also be revealed that a generation of babies born during lockdown have not been officially recorded because register offices were closed.
More than 150,000 born from around March 23 may still not officially exist. It means thousands of families cannot travel or take holidays because they cannot apply for passports for their newborns.
Parents have been unable to open savings accounts and claim child benefit. Worth £21.05 a week for a first child, this is normally available only on presentation of a birth certificate.
Bristol, which opened register offices as early as June 8, has a queue of 2,212 birth registrations – with parents being asked to wait five weeks for an appointment. Manchester reopened on the same day with a backlog of 4,000.
The Local Government Association said: ‘With birth registrations having to be suspended for three months, councils are experiencing a considerable backlog. We are urging the Government to consider allowing them to be done over the phone or online in the future.’
It has also emerged that delays of up to four months for new passports are causing families to cancel holidays and visits to relatives abroad.
Holidaymakers have reported waiting as long as 143 days to receive new documents, also holding up mortgage applications for house deals.
Official data suggests the time for processing probate, part of the legal process required after someone dies, is taking up to nearly twice as long as usual. Public sector staff not returnto their offices is said to have exacerbated the problems with processing driving licences, passports and other public documents.
The NHS is also facing a backlog of patients, with those suspected of having cancer of primary concern.
NHS data shows there were more than 180,000 people in England waiting for an endoscopy at the end of May – up from 125,160 in May 2019.
Cancer Research UK says around 2.3million fewer tests that help diagnose cancer have taken place since lockdown started.
Fewer than one in six workers is thought to have so far returned to their offices.
A DVLA spokesman said social distancing at its offices meant ‘application times can be longer than usual’.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Her Majesty’s Passport Office has continued to operate throughout the coronavirus pandemic, processing standard passport applications. We have been very clear it will take longer than usual to receive a passport as a result of changed working practices designed to keep both customers and staff safe.’
‘It has been a profound shock’