Download or read book An Investigation Into Border Security Checks written by John Vine and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chief Inspector was commissioned by the Home Secretary to investigate and report on the level of checks operated at ports of entry to the UK. This followed the disclosure that some checks may have been suspended without the approval of ministers and the subsequent suspension of the then Head of Border Force. The investigation focused particularly on: the Home Office Warnings Index (WI) - used to ascertain whether passengers are of interest to the government agencies; Secure ID - checks passengers' fingerprints at immigration controls against those provided in the visa application process; and the risk-based measures that formed part of the level 2 pilot - where it was no longer routine to open the biometric chip within EEA passports or perform WI checks of EEA children travelling in obvious family or school groups. The number of occasions when checks were suspended depended on the volume of passengers, the level of risk they presented, staff available and the infrastructure of the ports. Overall, the Chief Inspector found poor communication, poor managerial oversight and a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities.There was no single framework setting out all potential border security checks, which of these could be suspended, in what circumstances and the level of authority required at Agency or Ministerial level to do so. The Agency now has a stronger grip on checks, but a new framework of security checks is urgently needed, unambiguously specifying checks that must always be carried out and those where there is discretion to suspend.
Download or read book The work of the UK Border Agency written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Home Affairs Committee highlights a number of areas where the UK Border Agency is not meeting the standards which both those using its services and the general public have the right to expect. The committee singles out the continuing threat of delays and backlogs in processing asylum applications, which it attributes at least in part to inadequate decision-making in the first instance. The committee reiterates its predecessors' recommendations about tightening up the registration and inspection of colleges in order to close down bogus institutions established chiefly to enable people to bypass the restrictions on work-related immigration to the UK. It raises concerns that the programme to clear the historic backlog of 400-450,000 asylum cases will end in July 2011 with the Agency having been unable to discover what has happened to the claimants in up to one in seven (61,000) of the cases. The passage of time means that the UK Border Agency is unlikely to trace 70 of the 1013 Foreign National Prisoners whose release without deportation led to Mr Charles Clarke's resignation as Home Secretary in 2005. There are concerns about the adequacy of the training and supervision of those involved in the enforced removal of unsuccessful asylum claimants. Finally, in the current economic situation a significantly lower salary should be paid to the successor to the outgoing head of the Agency.
Download or read book The Work of the UK Border Agency April June 2012 written by Great Britain: Home Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dated March 2013. Response to HC 603, session 2012-13 (ISBN 9780215049926)
Download or read book The Work of the UK Border Agency July September 2012 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Home Affairs Committee asks for quarterly data from the UK Border Agency about its performance against a set of key indicators. This Report analyses data from July-September 2012, or 'Q3 2012'. This report is divided into two sections, the first focusing on the Agency's handling of the asylum and immigration backlog and the accuracy of the information it provided to this Committee on its work in this area. The second section assesses the Agency's performance across the main areas of its work by comparing on a quarterly basis its progress against a set of 'key indicators'.
Download or read book The Work of the UK Border Agency October December 2012 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by IDRC. This book was released on 2013-07-13 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee examines the work of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) on a three monthly basis. Following the abolition of the Agency it will continue to monitor the Home Office UK Visa and Immigration service on a three monthly basis. The Committee found a further backlog of 190,000 cases in the temporary and permanent migration pool that were never revealed to the Committee before. The total figure for the backlog has reached over half a million. The Committee feels it is unacceptable that new backlogs are revealed in Committee evidence sessions. The UK Border Agency had a troubled history. Many of its problems predate the establishment of the Agency. Ministers must now explain how those problems will not outlive its demise. To see a change in the culture in the new organisational structure and management it must be complemented by the ability for a wholesale restructuring of the employees of the organisation. The newly appointed Directors General must have the ability and resources necessary to implement this change. The Home Office should outline exactly how they propose to bring about this change in culture. In evidence the Committee were told the immigration service would never be fixed. This surprised the Committee since reducing immigration is a priority of this Government. What the immigration service needs desperately is stability, the resources necessary to clear the backlogs and a wholesale change in culture
Download or read book The work of the UK Border Agency December 2011 March 2012 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-23 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time the Committee has collated the backlog of outstanding cases in the various areas where the UK Border Agency deals with casework. This report criticises the Agency for failing to conclude the total backlog of 276,460 cases. The Committee makes a number of key recommendations: a team should be established to examine why the 3,900 foreign national offenders living in the community as of 4 April have not been deported; deportation proceedings for foreign national prisoners must begin at the time of sentencing; a list of those countries refusing to accept the return of their own criminals who have committed offences in the UK must be published; the Agency should expand its checks to include a wider range of databases in order to assist with tracing of those in the controlled archive; students should be removed from net migration target; face to face interviews for all foreign students must be compulsory; the Agency must be represented at 100%, not 84%, of all tribunal hearings; all inspection visits on Tier 4 must be unannounced; the Agency must inform the informants as to possible illegal immigrants of the outcome of their tip-off and provide a breakdown of the outcomes of its enforcement visits. The Committee reiterates that Senior Agency staff should not receive bonuses until the Agency's performance improves and bonuses paid in the past contrary to the Committee's recommendations should be repaid
Download or read book The work of the UK Border Agency April July 2011 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-11-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Committee criticises the UK Border Agency for failing to explain why 350 foreign national prisoners due to be deported are still in the country. The Agency provided the Committee with a breakdown of the issues with the deportation process of 1,300 prisoners who were released between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011. The largest group, making up 27% of the total, was labelled 'unknown'. The Committee also found that the Agency has not resolved all of the asylum 'legacy' cases first identified in 2006 within the promised 5 year timeframe. Instead, 18,000 ongoing cases are still awaiting a final decision. The Committee highlights its concern at the dramatic increase in files transferred to the "controlled archive" - where the Agency has lost contact with individuals - in the past six months. The files, which are placed in the archive when every effort to track an applicant has been exhausted, numbered 40,500 in March 2011. By September 2011, it had increased to 124,000. A series of specific recommendations are made: the Government should commission a detailed investigation into financial waste, included the writing-off of bad debts, overpayments to staff and asylum applicants, and failure to collect civil penalties; there should be better liaison between the Agency and HM Prison Service; the Agency is losing too many appeals at immigration tribunals and should raise the quality of its representation; all staff must be aware of the existence of "bogus colleges", which exist only to sponsor visa applications.
Download or read book The Work of the UK Border Agency April June 2012 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-11-09 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Agency's backlog is growing at an alarming rate-it has increased by over 25,000 cases since the first quarter of this year. The backlog consists of: the Migration Refusal Pool which contains records of individuals without leave to remain in the UK, who cannot be traced and has grown by 24,000 records since the first quarter of this year-it now totals 174,000; ex-Foreign National Offenders with 3,954 ex-FNOs living in the community whilst deportation action against them proceeds; the so-called 'controlled' archive with cases the Agency has no control over, it does not even know where the applicants are -there were 95,000 cases in archive' at the end of June this year and senior management promised to clear it by 31st December which would mean writing off 81,000 files; Asylum and migration live cohorts where the UKBA has managed to trace an applicant thought to have been lost and is working to close their case- with 29,000 cases in the live cohorts at the end of June this year. The UKBA must adopt a transparent and robust approach to tackling the backlogs instead of creating new ways of camouflaging them. Until the entire backlog is cleared the Committee does not believe that senior staff should receive any bonuses. The Committee also doubts that the Agency is adequately equipped to deal with the increase in asylum applications. Cases waiting for an initial decision after 6 months have risen by 36% since June 2011. The Committee is further concerned about the quality of decision making. Poor decision making may result in people being returned home when they face persecution and torture
Download or read book Work of the UK Border Agency August December 2011 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Home Affairs Committee's report into the Work of the UK Border Agency, it criticises the Agency for failing to deport more than 600 foreign national prisoners who were released between 1999 and 2006 and are still in the country and for failing to clear the "controlled archive" of lost applicants. At the current rate it will take a further 4 years to close all cases. The Committee found that the Agency has still not resolved all of the asylum 'legacy' cases first identified in 2006. Instead, there are 17,000 ongoing cases still awaiting a final decision and the Agency appears to be discovering more cases. The Committee remains uncertain over the feasibility of the Government's e-borders timetable. It finds it difficult to see how the scheme can be applied to all rail and sea passengers by December 2014. It acknowledges that the Government must have a comprehensive e-border system if it is to be effective. However, it needs clarity on policy and practicalities for achieving this. The Committee makes a series of specific recommendations aimed at improving the working of the Agency, concerning: appeals, bogus colleges, data provided and use of statistics. It calls on the Home Office to act immediately to deal with the public scepticism over the effectiveness of the UK Border Agency and to require clarity in the information produced for both the public and Parliament.
Download or read book UK Border Agency written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow-up to "The work of the UK Border Agency" (2nd report, session 2009-10, ISBN 9780215542465) and "The E-Borders programme" (3rd report, session 2009-10, HC 170, ISBN 9780215542854)
Download or read book Race Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control written by E. Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the practice of virginity testing endured by South Asian women who wished to enter Britain between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, and places this practice into a wider historical context. Using recently opened government documents the extent to which these women were interrogated and scrutinized at the border is uncovered.
Download or read book UK Border Agency and Glasgow City Council written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Scottish Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-02-10 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee reports on the circumstances around the termination of the UK Border Agency's contract with Glasgow City Council for the housing of asylum seekers in the council's accommodation. The report is highly critical of the manner in which UKBA's London office handled notifying the Glasgow asylum seekers of changes to their housing provision, which it says was inappropriate at best and callous and inhumane at worst. However, the Committee says the Immigration Minister responded speedily and appropriately to the situation he had been put in. The lack of firm contingency plans at the time the contract was terminated is to be regretted and the Committee remains unclear about issues around costs and savings, as well as being unable to clarify the complete financial situation around the accommodation contract. Matters relating to the work of UKBA in Scotland will continue to be reviewed by the Committee, including the Family Return project, and additional figures and information requested by the Committee.
Download or read book The work of the Border Force written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maximum queue times at major UK ports have been consistently too high for the last 12 months. Some carriers are resigning themselves to reducing their revenue because Border Force lacks capacity. Many airlines have years of experience in providing advanced passenger information to the United States are now obliged to provide advanced information to e-Border although this information is not always used optimally. The Committee recommends that Border Force: adopt a target for reducing the maximum queuing times; adopt a more frequent measurement of queues in order to improve accuracy and to inform staff rostering decisions; install "waiting time" boards in all arrivals halls at major ports; keep E-gates operational at all times when flights are arriving; and if the control room at Heathrow continues to be a success then adopt the model at other major ports where appropriate. The Home Office should: reintroduce the risk based entry check pilot; carry out a full reappraisal of the number of Border Force staff needed across the UK if it wishes to persist with 100% entry checks for all passengers; and bring forward the reinstatement of 'smart zones'. It was also of notable concern that Border Force has been unable or unwilling to provide comparable data on the number of drug seizures carried out by Border Force in April 2011 and April 2012; the number of passengers about whom security alerts were issued to the Border Force that were actually encountered trying to enter the UK; or the number of illegal migrants trying to enter the UK through the 'Lille Loophole'
Download or read book Management of Asylum Applications by the UK Border Agency written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Asylum Model, introduced by the Home Office in 2006 to achieve faster conclusions to asylum applications, has strengthened aspects of the asylum process. The case ownership approach, in which a single individual manages an application from start to finish, has created a strong incentive to conclude cases and applications are being concluded more quickly, and there are also signs that the quality of decision-making is improving. But the new process is not yet working to its optimum efficiency and effectiveness. The UK Border Agency has done well to improve its handling of the casework. There was a rise in the proportion of cases being dealt with within six months, peaking above the target of 40 per cent in December 2007. The backlog of decisions to be made has however more than doubled in over a year, to 8,700 in the second quarter of 2008. At the point of application, the full screening interview is not taking place in a quarter of cases, so that key information about claims could be being missed. A separate process has been established to clear, by 2011, the backlog of 'legacy cases', unresolved before the introduction of the New Asylum Model, which is put at some 335,000 cases. The Agency has made inroads but the target looks challenging. Few removals of failed applicants are being achieved, hampered by a lack of detention space and problems obtaining emergency travel documents. Throughout the second half of 2007, the gap between unfounded applications and removals increased. The Agency missed its 'tipping point' objective, which is to remove more failed asylum applicants than the number who make new unfounded applications. Unfounded applications exceeded removals by over 20 per cent.
Download or read book Border Management Modernization written by Gerard McLinden and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Border clearance processes by customs and other agencies are among the most important and problematic links in the global supply chain. Delays and costs at the border undermine a country’s competitiveness, either by taxing imported inputs with deadweight inefficiencies or by adding costs and reducing the competitiveness of exports. This book provides a practical guide to assist policy makers, administrators, and border management professionals with information and advice on how to improve border management systems, procedures, and institutions.
Download or read book Public expenditure statistical analyses 2011 written by Great Britain. Treasury and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-07-13 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PESA provides a range of information about public spending using two Treasury-defined frameworks: budgeting and expenditure on services. The budgeting framework provides information on central government departmental budgets, which are the aggregates used by the Government to plan and control expenditure. It covers departmental own spending as well as support to local government and public corporations. The expenditure on services framework is used for statistical analysis. It is based on national accounts definitions and covers spending by the whole of the public sector.
Download or read book Monitoring of the UK Border Agency written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee took evidence from John Vine CBE QPM, Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, and Linda Costelloe Baker, Independent Monitor of Entry Clearance Refusals without the Right of Appeal, on their monitoring of the UK Border Agency. The Committee was pleased to hear the Independent Monitor's assessment that quality of decision making in visa applications by UK Border Agency staff is "reasonable and very slowly improving", but disappointed to hear of her residual concerns about staff training, and to learn that several of her recommendations on training had not been accepted. The report recommends that the Government should ensure that the Independent Monitor's ten 'indicators' for good quality refusal notices be implemented throughout UK Visas, that entry clearance staff be trained to follow these, and that they form part of the inspection regime for visa refusals. In April 2009 the role of Independent Monitor will be subsumed within the new UK Border Agency inspectorate. This concerns the Committee, as the new inspectorate is still being established and is not yet conducting scrutiny of the UK Border Agency. Consequently, the Committee recommends that the Government retains the Independent Monitor position for some months longer, to ensure that there is a sufficient overlap with the new inspectorate, and to guarantee that there is no hiatus in the oversight of visa refusals. Finally the Committee recommends that the title of the Chief Inspector and his inspectorate be amended explicitly to include the word 'independent', in order to clarify that the post is independent from the UK Border Agency.
