§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applicants for travel documents have been waiting for more than six months. [94795]
§ Mrs. RocheThere are approximately 3,000 travel document applications awaiting consideration which were received over six months ago. In recent weeks, there has been a substantial increase in staff numbers in the Travel Document Section of the Integrated Casework Directorate in order to process increasing volumes of new applications as well as older cases from the backlog.
This, combined with streamlined working practices, has resulted in dramatic increases in output from averages of 120 per week during August to well over 700 last week.