High street chemists and photographic shops are in talks with the Government about taking photographs and fingerprints for the national identity card scheme, Jacqui Smith will announce today.

The move comes as figures show that the cost of the project has risen by more than £200 million, to more than £5.3 billion.

The Home Secretary will also announce that residents of Greater Manchester will be the first to be able to volunteer for identity cards.

Ms Smith’s decision to seek the help of high street businesses in taking the biometric fingerprints and photographs needed for the cards is an attempt to minimise costs and make enrolment in the scheme easy.

Ministers are already committed to opening a nationwide network of enrolment centres that would include mobile facilities for people living in remote areas and those who would have difficulty getting to the centres.

Ms Smith said that providing facilities on the high street would allow people to provide their biometric details while shopping. The Post Office is also holding talks with the Government: Ms Smith is meeting Post Office managers and pharmacy trade groups this morning.

“The companies interested in working with us to deliver the service will play a key role in ensuring that the public can apply for an ID card or passport simply and easily,” Ms Smith said.

“While private companies will clearly benefit from the increased footfall from offering this service, their customers will benefit from being able to quickly provide their biometrics while they are out doing the shopping.”

John Turk, the chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “The association has expressed an interest in ensuring that community pharmacy members have an opportunity to provide biometric enrolment services. Community pharmacies are located in the heart of their communities, so they could help to make the process of applying for an ID card or passport especially convenient.”

Figures to be published today will show that the overall cost of the identity card scheme has risen to £5.3 billion, including a £46 million increase in providing the cards for foreign nationals. The rise for foreign nationals is a result of sending the cards by secure mail and making fingerprint checks against police databases.

The figures, published by the Home Office, do not include the costs that will have to be paid by organisations such as government departments and the National Health Service to provide machines to read the cards.

Residents of Greater Manchester’s ten metropolitan boroughs who hold a valid British passport and are over 16 will be the first to able to volunteer for ID cards. New staff working airside at Manchester airport will, from the autumn, be the first workers required to have an ID card. Ministers are in talks about extending the requirement to existing airside employees.

James Hall, the chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, confirmed Manchester’s status as a “beacon” for the ID card project at a low-key, pre-breakfast briefing at the city’s Central Library. He was also announcing an online facility for anyone to register their interest in signing up to a card via the Directgov website.

Officials have acknowledged that there is no agreed date on which the cards will become available, other than it will be in the autumn.

Phil Booth, of the civil liberties group No2ID, described the latest initiative as a “secret launch for something that does not exist yet”.

He said: “This is a face-saving exercise to avoid ministerial egg on face. It is a stunt to say they have started to sign up volunteers for this scheme, and to create the impression of moving forward, because for every step they take, they take two steps backwards.”

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