9 Economic and administrative consequences

Measures relating to the further development and updating of instructions and legislation in the consular field have no or limited economic and administrative consequences and will be funded within the current budgetary frameworks in the relevant ministries.

Measures relating to professionalisation and simplification of procedures that involve drawing on the expertise of specialist communities outside the Foreign Service or making better use of existing tools are expected to lead to more effective use of public resources.

Measures relating to reducing the number of passport offices will have economic and administrative consequences. This proposal follows up previous reports on improving the efficiency of the passport services and the Review of the Foreign Service carried out in 2021. A report will be drawn up that will outline the specific economic and administrative consequences of the proposed measures. The report itself will be drawn up within the current budgetary frameworks in the relevant ministries.

The proposal to prepare a report on the possible outsourcing of passport application processing abroad will require extra resources and will be dealt with in connection with ordinary budgetary processes in due course. The same applies to proposals concerning the further development of existing, or the development of new, technical and digital solutions.

The proposal to consider establishing criteria to determine eligibility to be offered assisted departure, including the requirement to demonstrate ties to Norway, could lead to savings in public resources, in terms of the costs associated both with the assisted departure operation itself and with reception and settlement in Norway. The report itself will be drawn up within current budgetary frameworks in the relevant ministries.