While HMPO was confident it had now resolved this issue, it took two to three months for HMPO to discover the problem, and only after it was raised with them by customers. We asked HMPO why it had taken it so long to realised that there was a problem with the dates attributed to these applications.27 HMPO explained that the communication of how these cases should be handled had broken down in certain locations, and it had developed new management information and new processes to ensure that these applications were moved to the right part of the queue in future. It explained that by June 2022, it had identified and started to resolve the problem, but accepted that it had not been aware 22 Qq 108–110; C&AG’s Report para 4.5 23 Q 115; C&AG’s Report, Figure 3 24 Qq 67–68 25 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.8–3.9 26 Q 44, 46; C&AG’s Report para 3.10 27 Qq 45, 47–48 12 Investigation into the UK Passport Office of the policy earlier. In response to our questions about what it had learned from the experience, HMPO explained that it aimed to reduce the volume of applications being transferred from the digital system to the paper-based system in future.28