House of Commons Home Affairs Committee The work of the UK Border Agency (October–December 2012) Fourth Report of Session 2013–14 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 10 July 2013 HC 486 [Incorporating HC 924, 2012–13] Published on 13 July 2013 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £13.50 Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chair) Nicola Blackwood MP (Conservative, Oxford West and Abingdon) James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Michael Ellis MP (Conservative, Northampton North) Lorraine Fullbrook MP (Conservative, South Ribble) Dr Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) Steve McCabe MP (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Mark Reckless MP (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) Chris Ruane MP (Labour, Vale of Clwyd) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament: Rt Hon Alun Michael MP (Labour & Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth) Karl Turner MP (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Robert Cope (Second Clerk), Eleanor Scarnell (Committee Specialist), Andy Boyd (Senior Committee Assistant), Michelle Garratty (Committee Assistant), Iwona Hankin (Committee Support Officer) and Alex Paterson (Select Committee Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3276; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. The work of the UK Border Agency (October–December 2012) 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 2 The abolition of the UKBA 3 3 Entry clearance operations 7 Regional performance 8 Risk and Airline Liaison Network (RALON) 9 Visa Application Centres 9 Entry clearance in the Gulf: conclusions 10 4 Key indicators of the Agency’s performance 11 Ex-Foreign National Offenders 12 Ex-FNOS released without being considered for deportation 12 Ex-FNOs living in the community 12 Key issue: tackling the backlog of ex-FNOs living in the community 13 Asylum and immigration backlog: live casework 13 Asylum backlog 13 Immigration backlog 13 Key issue: prioritising the conclusion of legacy casework 13 New asylum cases 14 Initial decisions and conclusions 14 Applicants previously removed from the UK 14 Key issue: a growing backlog of cases pending an initial decision for more than 6 months 14 Immigration 15 Number of visas issued and grants for settlement 15 Processing of in-country immigration cases 15 Processing of out of country immigration cases 15 Key issue: backlog of in-country immigration applications 15 Immigration detention 17 Rule 35 reports 17 Child detention 17 Appeals and tribunals 18 Appeals Improvement Plan: progress against targets 18 Sponsors and licensing 18 New sponsor applications 18 Follow up visits 18 Departmental information and cooperation with Parliament 19 Departmental information 19 Cooperation with Parliament 19 Border Agency Backlogs 20 Conclusions and recommendations 21 2 The work of the UK Border Agency (October–December 2012) Annex I: Home Affairs Committee Reports on the UK Border Agency 25 Annex II: Immigration Enforcement Directorate Organogram 26 Annex III: Abu Dhabi Entry Clearance Structure Oct–Dec 2012 27 Formal Minutes 28 Witnesses 29 List of printed written evidence 29 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 30 The work of the UK Border Agency (October–December 2012) 3 1 Introduction 1. This is the Committee’s final Report on the work of the UK Border Agency in 2012, covering the period from October to December. The Report is divided into three main parts, covering the decision to abolish the Agency from April 2013 (Chapter 2), the entry clearance operation which we observed during our visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in March 2013 (Chapter 3), and the key indicators of the Agency’s performance during the three- month period in question (Chapter 4). The latter section follows, insofar as is possible, the format of our Report on the Agency’s performance from July to September 2013, for ease of comparison. 2 The abolition of the UKBA 2. On 23 May 2006, the new Home Secretary, Rt Hon John Reid MP, told our predecessor Committee: I want to be straight with the Committee today and honest with you because I believe that [...] in the wake of the problems of mass migration that we have been facing our system is not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope; it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management, systems and processes.1 Conscious, perhaps, of the fact that his predecessor, Charles Clarke, had resigned only a month beforehand over the Home Office’s failure to deport foreign national offenders, the Home Secretary did not mince his words. He described the frustration of working with a paper-based system from “another age”, when the necessary technology-based system “seems to be on an horizon that never gets any nearer”. He said that he had initiated an audit of performance, weak services, leaderships and skills, and fragmentation in silos across the Department. He said that the Department was not “intrinsically dysfunctional, in the sense that it is incapable of being led in a coherent fashion” but that there were serious weaknesses in its management structures and information flows.2 3. The outcome was the establishment of the UK Border Agency, which attained full agency status in 2009, following the statutory transfer of the border functions of HM Revenue and Customs to the Secretary of State, which allowed immigration and customs functions to be merged at the border.3 However, the establishment of the Agency did not prove to be the panacea that Dr Reid might have hoped. It continued to perform poorly in several areas, such as tackling the asylum and immigration backlog, and dealing with foreign national offenders when they are released from prison, and processing in-country 1 Home Affairs Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2005–06, Immigration Control, HC 775-III (Oral and additional written evidence), Q 866 2 Ibid,. QQ 866–967 3 Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 4 The work of the UK Border Agency (October–December 2012) visa renewals.4 It is not just this Committee which has been critical of the Agency: John Vine CBE QPM, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, has frequently highlighted problems with the Agency, as has the Parliamentary Ombudsman, who noted that almost two-thirds of complaints that had to be sent back to organisations in 2011–12 were about the Agency.5 4. In November 2011, it emerged that differences of understanding between Ministers and senior UKBA officials about the precise scope of a pilot of risk-led border controls had led to some passport checks being waived without Ministerial approval. In response to this, the Home Secretary announced the creation of a new Border Force, taking the border control function out of the UKBA.6 Whereas this remedy was presented as addressing specific problems with entry checks at the border, the episode called into question the whole issue of management and Ministerial oversight of the Agency.7 5. It was following the publication of our last Report on the Agency that matters came to a head. HM Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration had found that this Committee had consistently been supplied with misleading information about the immigration and asylum backlogs.8 Mr Vine’s oral evidence to us was remarkably consistent with Dr Reid’s evidence to our predecessors six years previously—there was a lack of transparency and “shockingly poor” customer service, and the Agency was divided into isolated “silos”. He declined to say, when prompted, that the Agency was fit for purpose.9 However, it does demonstrate how little changes in these matters, whichever government is in office. 6. The day after our Report was published, the Home Secretary announced that the UK Border Agency was to be abolished. She told the House that the performance of what remains of UKBA is still not good enough. The Agency struggles with the volume of its casework, which has led to historical backlogs running into the hundreds of thousands; the number of illegal immigrants removed does not keep up with the number of people who are here illegally; and while the visa operation is internationally competitive, it could and should get better still. The Select Committee on Home Affairs has published many critical reports about UKBA’s performance. As I have said to the House before, the agency has been a troubled organisation since it was formed in 2008, and its performance is not good enough.10 7. We took evidence immediately after the statement from Mark Sedwill, the new Home Office Permanent Secretary; Rob Whiteman, the Agency’s Chief Executive; and Simon 4 A list of the Committee’s 14 Reports on the UK Border Agency from its inception to its abolition is annexed to this Report.