My passport needed renewed last week, so I was pleased to find that there was an online system to reapply for your passport. If you are tempted to use it, don't bother. You fill in some information, they then print the form off at their end, post it to you, you sign it, and sign a direct debit form and post it back to them. They claim that they have to use a special printing format that would not work on most home printers.
I would imagine that an online process would be introduced to improve efficiency, but this is a fine example of an online system that ends up costing more, both in monetary terms and in time costs.