I recently renewed my passport in France. There is a new-ish platform here for every document one might want to obtain. I had one form to complete online, that was rather easy to follow. I then had to go to the office once to finish the process. That took only 10 minutes and then the passport was delivered. As painless as can be, I believe.
Whatever the situation is in the UK, it is not hopeless. The government needs to stop being afraid of hiring actual employees and bring all development in-house.
There was a group of people under the gov.uk banner who were actually really good. But a challenge is that if you employ someone, you need to fit them into your grade structure. And decent programmers earn “Senior Civil Servant” figures.
While renewing a passport is one of the easiest things you can do, I distinctively remember it taking a good half-day (most of which is waiting in line jumping from one desk to another until you find someone that can check all the documents you provided are satisfactory and sign off for you).
Now however, if it's not a renewal but a new application, the difficulty sharply increases.
Even Germany has this figured out. Getting a new passport just required me to make an appointment, fill out an online form and go to the appointment with a single person. The only document I needed was my personal ID. Took like 15 minutes, not including the wait before I was called up. I feel like if Germany can get its shit together, any other country can too.
If you're applying for your very first personal ID, then you need to bring a birth certificate and another adult who already has an ID, but it's also something that's been trivial to do for years now.
Whatever the situation is in the UK, it is not hopeless. The government needs to stop being afraid of hiring actual employees and bring all development in-house.