Do Not Go 'Pass'

In which The Author tries to resolve an identity crisis

Last week I mentioned that my friend Clare and I had spent two days trying to sort out her application for a so-called 'CitizenCard'. She's going to need some form of ID when we go to London, otherwise she might have trouble getting served when we inevitably hit the pub. Since she doesn't have any photo ID which also shows her date of birth, the CitizenCard seemed like the obvious solution, as it contains the official PASS hologram.In the words of Prof. Jim al-Khalili, let me explain …

PASS allegedly stands for (National) Proof of Age Standards Scheme. Their own website states:

The PASS Scheme was launched in 2000 to combat fake proof-of-age cards which were becoming a widespread national problem. Providing a reliable, robust and recognisable ‘proof of age’ supported by enforcers, to help those who sell age-restricted products avoid selling illegally to under-age customers.

Carrying a card bearing the PASS hologram means young people can gain access to the goods and services to which they are legally entitled without having to risk carrying more costly documents such as passports or driving licences.

When a young person produces any card bearing the PASS hologram, the retailer only needs to check the photo and the date of birth, and the sale can proceed. This saves a massive amount of time for the retailer along with giving them peace of mind.

Sounds like just the ticket, doesn't it?

Wrong! You're just so fucking wrong!

According to the leaflet I obtained from Gareth Rees's newsagent / corner shop / off licence in Aberdare, the card includes a 'Home Office and Police endorsed PASS hologram'. This ties in perfectly with the 'Challenge 21' scheme operated in most pubs in the South Wales Valleys. Other places, notably in the bigger towns and cities, operate 'Challenge 25'. In fact, this is the poster displayed in the Cambrian, just around the corner from Gareth's, at the time of writing.

Well, that all sounds fairly straightforward, doesn't it?

My favourite word, remember …

In reality, it's been anything but fucking straightforward.

The first stage of the operation involved picking up the application form. Now, you'd probably think that the obvious place to look is in the corner shop operating Challenge 21. Well, I asked for a leaflet in Trecyon Spar, Lifestyle in Trecynon, Premier on the Gadlys, Premier, Best-in, Londis and Nisa in Aberdare, and eventually found one in Gareth's place. Then the fun really started.

Clare filled in all her details, I stashed the application form in my Netbook case, and we went in search of passport photos. Since the photo booth in Aberdare Post Office is a pile of shit, we ended up spending a very pleasant couple of hours in Treorchy. It may be four miles from Aberdare as the crow flies, but (as the old joke has it) if Wales were flattened out it would be bigger than England. We had to catch a train to Pontypridd and then travel up the Rhondda line from there. It takes about an hour, and covers somewhere in the region of twenty miles. It's not an ideal situation, but it made a nice change on a sunny Thursday morning.

Our first stop was Treorchy Library, to photocopy Clare's birth certificate. It had to be A3, as they're an odd size, so that cost us 24p. Then the cost started mounting up.

The fee for CitizenCard is £7.50. Since I was lending her the cash, we had to get a postal order. This quaint means of sending money was completely new to her – I assume The Winslow Boy is no longer a set text for National Curriculum English. While she was in the photo booth (which cost another fiver), I sorted out the money. There's a one pound surcharge on a PO of that amount. I also needed an envelope and a stamp. In the space of ten minutes, we'd spent nearly fifteen quid. So far, so good.

On the way back, we stopped into the library to borrow scissors and glue. We had to trim the photos to the exact dimensions stipulated in the leaflet.

Here's where the fun ended.

According to the information leaflet, applicants have to

Take this form to a person aged 25 or older, in work, contactable at their workplace and must not be a relative, guardian or carer.

They cannot be retired, self-employed or work from home or live with you. They must be a professionally qualified person, for example:

• Accountant
• Bank / Building Society official
• Barrister / Solicitor / Legal Secretary
• Chemist / Pharmacist / Optician
• Civil Servant (permanent)
• Connexions Adviser
• Doctor / Dentist / Surgery administrator
• Local Government Officer
• Local or County Councillor
• Police / Prison /Probation Officer
• Politician (MP / MSP / MWA / MNIA / MEP)
• Publican /Licensee (DPS or PLH)
• Social Worker
• Teacher /Lecturer

Full descriptions of acceptable verifiers at www.citizencard.com

1. The verifier must complete the VERIFIER DECLARATION and countersign one photo.
2. You must show the verifier one of the following original ID:
• passport
• national identity card
• Home Office ID
• photo driving licence
• card containing PASS hologram
• UKBA Biometric Residence Permit
If the verifier knows you personally you can show them one of the following forms of ID instead:
• original or certified copy of a birth certificate
• NHS Medical Card
3. Take this form, together with one of the above original ID plus a photocopy of that ID, to the verifier who will need to countersign this form, one photo and the photocopy of the ID.
4. If you have changed your name you will need to get a copy of the legal documentation (e.g. marriage certificate/deed pool) signed and dated by the verifier.

Not even the Goddess Eris herself, whose fourth stage of Chaos – Bureaucracy – seems to be the current situation of human civilisation, could have devised such a byzantine system.

By now I was honestly starting to wish the UK government had introduced the compulsory microchipping of newborn children. If your parents are fairly well connected (as Dad was, being a councillor and a well-known figure in Aberdare's commercial life), you will probably know someone in most of those categories. At the age of fifty, being a fairly sociable sort of guy with lots of friends in a whole variety of professions, I can probably tick every single box on the list – except one (neither Clare nor I know what a Connexions Adviser is).

But what about the rest of the country's young people?

I mean, when you were fifteen or sixteen, how many barristers, MPs and publicans did you know personally? A teacher could have 'verified' your form, but many kids (Clare included) don't have a great experience in school. Approaching someone whom you hate the sight of is a non-starter. And why the actual fuck is someone who's just left school going to be dealing with an accountant, a local government officer, or a building society official? Meanwhile, it's hard enough to get an appointment to see your GP when you're feeling poorly. Goddess only knows how he/she would react if you rocked up to the consulting room and asked him/her to sign the back of a fucking photo.

In addition, if you're calling on the services of anyone on the 'acceptable verifiers' list, you have to show them photographic ID. For fuck's sake, we're going through this fucking palaver precisely because Clare doesn't have photographic ID! Think about it for a few moments. No, wait – you're all intelligent people. You'd have spotted this fundamental flaw in the argument within nanoseconds. That's why you don't work for the fucking Home Office, the geniuses behind PASS, or the people who issue the CitizenCard.

So we were almost back to Square One. But Clare's been coming to the pub for a few years. It's fair to say that Ian, the guvnor, knows her personally. I know he's never been to her house for tea and biscuits, but as a licensee, he was the only person we could think of. I'd asked him about it the previous evening, and he'd kindly agreed to endorse the photocopy of Clare's birth certificate and verify the photo.

'I've done it for a few people,' he said, 'but something always seems to go wrong.'

Well, he fucked our luck just by saying that.

After we'd quadruple-checked everything, Clare ran down to the postbox before last collection, on the way to karaoke.

Needless to say, on the Tuesday afternoon she messaged me on Facebook. She'd had a text telling her that there was a problem with the verification, and to await further details by email. I picked up another form, bought a second postal order – because the Citizencard fee is non-refundable if the application is rejected – and started racking my brains for someone else who could countersign the paperwork. Clare and I chatted for a while, then she decided that, even if she could submit a fresh application, there was no guarantee it would get to her in time for London.

By this point the whole trip was looking increasingly less likely anyway. She said she'd rather save her money and apply for a provisional driving licence in the new year. In the meantime, she'd spoken to some of her friends. They'd been turned away from a nightclub in Merthyr even though they were carrying 'acceptable ID' as listed on the poster reproduced above. So much for the PASS hologram, then!

It was time to institute Emergency Protocol One (Fuck it!). I went to the post office on Friday morning and picked up the DVLA form for her. I also exchanged my postal order for one to the value of the driving licence (£34.00 – plus the inevitable surcharge). I read through the form and the accompanying booklet over coffee in Servini's. I was astonished to learn that the eligibility criteria to verify the application seemed much less stringent than those for the ID required to buy twenty fucking Silk Cut.

As well as the usual suspects listed above, local shopkeepers can countersign the photo, as can librarians and engineers. The only snag is that the applicant has to have known the verifier for five years (as I discovered when I asked my friend in the library about it).

And, needless to say, you have to have two forms of ID. Would you believe me if I told that one of the acceptable documents is a fucking card bearing the PASS hologram? Yes, of course you would – this is human civilisation in end-stage Bureaucracy, after all.

I messaged Clare and asked her to meet me in town. I told her to dig out something with her National Insurance number on it, as well as her birth certificate, as the two forms of ID. Needless to say, she couldn't find anything bearing her NI number, so we called to the Jokecentre. A very helpful adviser listened in some amusement while I explained what we needed, and then generated a letter on headed notepaper giving Clare's details. She signed it, we thanked her profusely, and then headed to Lloyds Bank, where Clare's account is based.

Here's another thing. According to the DVLA, you can only have the photo signed by a member of bank staff at your local branch. Considering that HSBC recently pulled out of Aberdare, that Barclays and Natwest have cut their opening hours, and there are no longer any banks in Hirwaun, Mountain Ash or Abercynon, that's going to be a task in itself. In addition, young people are more likely to use online banking services, where there's no physical presence at all. It's another aspect of modern life that the Powers That Be clearly haven't fucking thought through.

Anyway, the chap we spoke to in Lloyds was very helpful. He took us into his office, pulled up Clare's account details, looked at all the documentation we'd provided, and filled in the necessary information while we chatted about the nightmare we'd had for the last week and a bit. We shook his hand when we were leaving, and headed straight to Servini's to fill in the form. Just after midday we put the fucking thing in the postbox with a great sigh of relief, and went to Merthyr for lunch.

After I'd posted an angry status on Facebook about the entire rigmarole, my friend Claire L. responded. She'd had to jump through a similar series of hoops when her twin boys were in their early teens. It had cost her a small fortune to get their passports sorted out just so they could go to the bloody corner shop for her.

Surely there's an argument here for schools to take the initiative. Regardless of the relationship between them and their pupils, in my opinion all qualified secondary teachers should be legally obliged to endorse applications for the CitizenCard on request.

More to the point, all bar staff, and certainly all members of the BII and the SIA, should be legally obliged to undergo thorough training in the issue and use of the PASS hologram. If young people carrying government-approved ID are still being turned away at the doors of nightclubs by knuckle-draggers with fluorescent armbands, the CitizenCard and similar forms of ID clearly aren't fit for purpose.

In fact, they aren't worth the plastic they're printed on.