Between January and September 2022, around 360,000 people did not receive their passports within 10 weeks. The Department asserted that when it became aware that a customer needed to travel, it would escalate that individual’s case, at no further cost.11 We asked the Department what it had done to assess the human impact on those who did not receive their passports on time. The Department accepted that even a small percentage of passports not being delivered on time represented “a lot of very dissatisfied people”.12 However, it was unable to tell us how many of the 360,000 people affected had to cancel their travel plans as a result of the delays, and it had not attempted to collect information on this. By extension, the Department would not know how many customers had experienced other consequences, such as not being able to attend family emergencies.13