Changes During Your Lifetime

AFAIK a lot of renewals are done on line. Paper may be scanned in the post room so everything the folks checking applications need is visible on screen. The people who open the post and scan need to be physically in an office. Those 'downstream' do not.

My son works for the Home Office though on EU migrants not passports. He can do most tasks from home but some checks require access to systems where security is an issue and members of his team are rotad to be in the office to do that work.

It's now over twenty years since I visited the Traffic Adjudicators who were dealing with appeals against Council issued tickets for parking and other infringements without papers - except for any brought by the appellant to an attended hearing. Everything, from the Traffic Warden's notebook to the relevant Traffic Regulation Order, was scanned.

I'm sure those charged with issuing applications for passports do care. It's no joke working in an environment where everything is behind and press, MPs etc are on your case.