Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
24 JUNE 2003
SIR MICHAEL
JAY KCMG, MR
PETER COLLECOTT
CMG, MR SIMON
GASS CMG CVO AND
MR ALAN
CHARLTON CMG
Q80 Mr Hamilton: That leads me neatly
on to the point I want to discuss about entry clearance, because,
obviously, unless we have a High Commission or an Embassy, it
is much more difficult for us to organise visas and entry clearance
procedures. Now in the Annual Report, and indeed in your supplementary
memorandum, you draw attention to the huge increase, I think it
is a 9% increase, in applications in 2002 for entry clearance
in our posts abroad. To many of us in the House of Commons who
represent a large number of British citizens who are of Pakistani,
Indian, Caribbean, or African origin, maybe, these entry clearance
procedures are critical, because, inevitably, our constituents
have family coming from abroad who want to join them for holidays,
or weddings, or funerals, or special events. And one of the biggest
problems we have, in terms of time in dealing with constituents,
certainly in my case, and many, many colleagues, and I think Mr
Pope as well, in Hyndburn, is those constituents who are deeply
unhappy that their relatives have been refused entry clearance,
not, it seems, often, for good reasons, because we accept that
there are good reasons for refusal, in some cases, but for spurious
reasons. And very often we are asked to provide letters of support,
which usually I say is a bit pointless because it does not figure
in the calculations when an Entry Clearance Officer is looking
at an application. So my question is, how are you going to deal
with the increased demand, and how are you going to ensure that
there is a greater fairness and transparency in the decisions
that are made? And, clearly, we get only the decisions that have
gone wrong, I accept, a huge number go through very, very easily,
with no difficulty at all, and people come to Great Britain and
leave when they are supposed to, and that is fine; we are pleased
about that. But how are you going to cope with that increased
demand, which has already happened and which is quite likely to
increase over the next few years?
Sir Michael Jay: I think it will
continue to increase, but I think you are right to say, Mr Hamilton,
that the vast majority of cases are settled satisfactorily and
are within the time-frame. We dealt with 1.94 million applications
in 2002, which is a huge operation, the visa operation, and that
was an increase of 9% on 2001, and 91% of our straightforward
applications were resolved within 24 hours; so it is a huge and,
I think, on the whole, very successful operation, and, I have
to say, I am full of admiration for the staff that I meet around
the world. I always visit visa sections when I travel anywhere
in the world, because it is a hugely important part of our operation
and I am very impressed by what they do. But there is a significant
number of difficult cases, and a lot of interest, as we know,
from Members of Parliament, because of the letters we get, and,
indeed, most of our ombudsmen cases are cases which derive from
complaints against our visa system. There will always be a small
number of cases which, for one reason or another, go wrong, we
will do our utmost to minimise those, through proper training
programmes and also through making sure that we have got enough
visa ECOs in the posts concerned. And that is helped by the sort
of self-financing arrangement, so these operations are not a claim
on the rest of our budget, it is a self-financing operation, which
Mr Gass could explain, if you would like him to. It is complicated
further by the security situation; there are some parts of the
world, like Pakistan for example, where it has been very difficult
to maintain a full-time visa operation simply because of security
concerns and the difficulty of allowing people to come into the
High Commission. As a result of that, we have been looking at
innovative ways of issuing visas, through courier services, which
can reduce the need for people to come to the High Commission
and Embassy, and we are opening a new network of ten visa application
centres in India, for example, outside the traditional High Commission
and Deputy High Commissions, which I think will enable us to provide
a better service where people are, rather than expecting them
always to come to the capital. So we do have a number of initiatives
to try to improve the service, improve its transparency and ensure
that we have the right number of people in the different countries;
but I do not underestimate the difficulties of this. Again, I
was very struck, being in Nairobi and Addis Ababa last week, by
the huge difficulty at the moment over Somali applicants; there
are very large numbers of visa applicants from Somalia who have
no documentation and who, quite rightly, want to join their families
here, and it is proving quite difficult to manage. Now we are
going to focus resources on that particular issue because there
is a difficulty there. So there are a number of initiatives we
have at the moment to try to improve the system; but I do not
pretend it is going to be easy, because it is a huge operation
and it is going to become, I think, more difficult as time goes
on.
Q81 Mr Hamilton: I understand, and
I pay tribute certainly to your staff, who have improved dramatically
over the years, certainly the six years that I have been a Member;
and, Islamabad, I know the situation there in Pakistan, having
spoken to our new High Commissioner. And I was intrigued to discover
you are using a firm called Gerry's/FEDEX to courier around the
applications, since the person who deals with my casework in that
area is called Gerry, it was quite convenient really. But the
other thing I wanted just to ask you about really was the very
few cases where there are problems, and I appreciate that many
of your staff are highly pressurised and that that is a problem
that causes tempers to get raised, especially when you have awkward
people trying to apply. I am not going to talk about individual
cases, but, for example, in Bangkok recently, one constituent
told me that staff there were quite rude to the person who was
applying; now it may be that she was rude back, and I am not going
to discuss the individual case, but I wonder, in those cases,
where you have had a number of complaints in a particular post,
whether you address those concerns and pinpoint them to individual
members of staff and then help them with retraining?
Sir Michael Jay: Certainly, I
hope we would do that. I cannot comment on individual cases, but
certainly I would expect that the head of a consular or visa section,
or indeed the head of post, to be aware of an increase in complaints,
because, certainly, my experience as an Ambassador is that complaints
come to you, as Ambassador, and if you notice that suddenly you
are getting an increase, you think, "Hang on, there's something
not quite right here," and talk to the Consul, talk to the
Entry Clearance Manager, and say, "Look, have we got a bit
of a problem here, is there somebody who's under a bit of pressure?"
If so, take them off, or, if there is a problem, do some more
training. So that, I think, I would hope, would be part of the
good management of an Embassy and of a visa section.
Q82 Mr Hamilton: Finally, Chairman,
can I just ask whether you are confident that you will be able
to meet all your PSA targets in the area of visas and entry clearance
in the next year?
Sir Michael Jay: I think we will
make a really good stab at it. I cannot promise you that we will
meet absolutely all of them. But we take the PSA targets extremely
seriously, they really are, more than has been the case in the
past, a driver for our activities and we will do our utmost to
meet them.
Q83 Mr Pope: Just to follow on, briefly,
from what Mr Hamilton was saying. First of all, a quick comment,
to say, in my experience, it is hugely better now than it was
just a few years ago. There has been a very rapid improvement
in entry clearance, and, I must say, I would not want to be an
Entry Clearance Officer, it looks to me an extraordinarily hard
job. I have two quick questions. Can you say just a word about
training for Entry Clearance Officers? Constituents come, and
it does appear just inexplicable why they have been turned down;
quite often you can see easily why somebody has been refused but
sometimes it seems just really arbitrary, and I wonder if you
could say something about the training? The second point is about
Islamabad. I too have come across Gerry's/FEDEX. I am not sure
`innovative' is the word that I would have ascribed to this process.
Clearly, there are massive problems in Islamabad, but it is causing
a lot of difficulty in a country where there are a great number
of people who wish to visit the UK. So I would be grateful if
you could say just a few words about that, please?
Sir Michael Jay: I am afraid I
have not; I do not know whether one of my colleagues has got details
on the training available. If I could ask the Director of Human
Resources to say a word about training.
Mr Charlton: Mr Pope, it is standard
for Entry Clearance Officers to be trained before they go out
to post, so that they receive a standard training package which
they are expected to pass before they go out. Obviously, once
they are there, they work very much as a team, which probably
you have seen, and they do look very much at their own performance
and try to improve on the job. In areas where there are particular
problems, the head of UK visas will go out routinely, with one
or two of his trouble-shooters, where there are big queues, for
example, I saw this happening in Lagos earlier this year, and
try to sort that out, they are very alive to the customer care
side of the operation.
Q84 Mr Pope: That is very helpful.
The other problem is about Islamabad?
Sir Michael Jay: On Islamabad,
I used the word `innovative' because it is—
Q85 Mr Pope: It is a new Foreign
Office word?
Sir Michael Jay: I will take that
as a compliment. It was a new way of doing things, and, in fact,
although it is not enabling us to provide as good and as fast
a service as we would like ideally in Islamabad, given the demand
and given the security situation, it has enabled us, I think,
to provide a much better service than if we had not had that service
and had still had the problems over access to the High Commission
because of the security concerns. I should say that I know that
the Foreign Secretary is very, very concerned personally about
the whole question of visa operation and entry clearance services
and follows these innovations and other departures extremely closely.
Mr Pope: I think we have some similar
surgeries, yes.
Q86 Richard Ottaway: Chairman, just
to add to my two colleagues; having a Croydon seat, where immigration
matters are probably the number one issue, things have improved
a lot, as far as your side of the operation is concerned, I wish
I could say the same for the Home Office, but a satisfied customer
from your perspective. Can I take your mind back, Sir Michael,
to the dreaded question of resources and deal with property and
assets. The Report, where you have an aim or an aspiration, an
ambition, to recycle £100 million of your assets in the three
years from 2001 to 2004, how are you getting on with that?
Sir Michael Jay: We did pretty
well in the first year. Mr Gass can give you the detailed figures.
We did not do so well last year, largely because the property
market collapsed, particularly in the United States, where we
had some properties we were trying to sell, and we are hoping
to recoup in the current year, which is the third year of the
present triennium, in the hope of reaching the £100 million.
But it is not self-evident that we will reach that £100 million
this year, at the end of this triennium, and that, again, will
put pressure on the budget and lead us to look at economies elsewhere.
Q87 Richard Ottaway: Before Mr Gass
answers the details, how will you make up the budget, if there
is a shortfall?
Sir Michael Jay: I cannot say
that at the moment, it will depend on how much the shortfall is,
it might be things that we would have to delay, projects that
we would have to delay a bit, in order to make up the shortfall.
I hope we will not have to do that, but the international property
market is not as strong as we would like just at the moment. But
perhaps I could ask Mr Gass to say a bit more.
Mr Gass: In the first three years
in which we rolled this out, we had a target of £90 million,
we met that; last year we achieved sales of £41 million.
So that took us quite a substantial way over the three-year target
of £100 million. Last year was disappointing, we sold only
a bit more than £13 million last year, partly that was because
some deals were delayed, because of property upsets in the post-11
September environment, and we have a plan which would help us
to catch up with that; but it is not a certain business, that
is absolutely clear.
Q88 Richard Ottaway: If there is
a property downturn in other parts of the globe, would it be better
to postpone generally until the market turns up, rather than flogging
off the assets just for the heck of hitting a target?
Mr Gass: We are certainly not
in the business of doing a sort of bargain basement sale on properties,
no, but it does depend a lot on whether the property meets our
requirements or not. Where we have poor properties, of which we
still have some, there is then the dilemma, which is the classic
stock market dilemma, do you hold on and hope that the property
market will go up, having a property which is not really what
you want, or do you sell it and then reinvest by buying a different
property, possibly in the same city, at a lower cost. So it is
a calculation which obviously we have to make case by case.
Q89 Richard Ottaway: I agree. I do
not particularly see the Foreign Office as property speculators.
Mr Gass: Indeed, not.
Q90 Richard Ottaway: Can I take you
to the very specific matter of the consular residence in San Francisco,
clearly a matter you are well aware of; first of all, are there
any plans to sell it?
Sir Michael Jay: Yes, there are.
We have now completed the purchase of an alternative consulate
and there are plans to sell the existing residence.
Q91 Richard Ottaway: You have actually
completed the purchase of the new site, the new residence?
Sir Michael Jay: As I understand
it, that has been completed.
Q92 Richard Ottaway: My next line
of questioning is moderately academic, but are you well aware
that the British-American Chamber of Commerce has described the
new house as utterly inadequate for the type of operations that
they would like to see conducted over there, and described it
similar to the type of house one would find in Acton or Ealing,
"a far cry both in size and architecture from the type of
house envisaged by your Committee"?
Sir Michael Jay: I am aware of
their views, and I do not agree with them. The residence in San
Francisco, the Consulate-General, the present one, is a large
and rather splendid building; it is larger than we need, and we
would not be able to keep it in the condition in which it would
need to be kept if really it was to be a good advertisement for
Britain. So I am quite clear in my own mind, having visited it,
the right thing to do is to sell it and to move into what we believe
is a very good, fit for purpose but smaller building. One of the
concerns I know that the business community has had is that there
is a conference room attached to the Consulate-General, which
there will not be in the new one, that is true, but we are making
arrangements to ensure that we can have access to a conference
room next to the office itself, in order to make up for that.
It was a difficult decision, this, and there was a lot of attachment,
for reasons I understand entirely, to the residence in San Francisco,
but I am clear in my own mind, as are our Ministers, that this
is the right way to go.
Q93 Richard Ottaway: The Chamber
of Commerce, in anticipation almost of your remarks, Sir Michael,
sent us photographs of the new residence.
Sir Michael Jay: I have had them
too, on my e-mail.
Q94 Richard Ottaway: In that case,
you will be well aware that it is by far the most modest of all
the residences in San Francisco now, in fact, it is really down
on a par with the Swiss residence, everyone has got far superior
buildings. Just to say that, if the community there says that
they do not think it is up to much, if you have done the deal
then I suppose that is it, but it is a matter of regret. How much
money was actually made out of the two deals?
Sir Michael Jay: We have not yet
sold, so we do not yet know, but we are confident that there will
be positive returns, and also that we will be avoiding a heavy
capital charge on the existing residence and avoiding heavy maintenance
charges over the next few years. And I think the residence is
fit for purpose, it is a good house, it can accommodate a sufficient
number of people, businessmen and others, for dinners, and also
we have very good, high-quality offices in San Francisco, which
we have moved into fairly recently, and I think the combination
of the two is what we need in San Francisco and gives a very good
image of Britain.
Q95 Richard Ottaway: But, Sir Michael,
Mr Mackinlay pointed out the losses on the Focus Programme earlier
on. I venture to suggest, flogging off the family silver here,
the sums you are going to raise do not even pay a small fraction
of the sorts of losses you have got on some IT programmes, and
yet the money you are meant to be gaining is meant to be going
into IT programmes; so all that is happening is that assets are
being sold and they are not even covering the losses on these
IT programmes?
Sir Michael Jay: We are selling
them not just to raise money but we are selling them because what
we need is an estate worldwide which really is fit for purpose,
which is the right size, the right scale and enables us to carry
out the functions we need. The San Francisco residence, we have
rough targets for the size of residences in different countries,
and the one in San Francisco is 350% over the sort of recommended
scale, and the maintenance of something which is so much larger
than what is regarded as a sensible norm, the cost of maintenance
is just too great.
Q96 Sir John Stanley: Sir Michael,
as you know, this Committee has been very robust in cautioning
your Department in not flogging off the family silver, as Mr Ottaway
rightly says. In most of these cases, these are irreplaceable
buildings, and they are buildings that are irreplaceable not simply
on cost grounds but very often in terms of the location and the
facilities which they provide. I am sure like yourself, I come
at this issue with a background of a very, very long period of
time. For three years I was responsible for the diplomatic estate,
as the PSA Minister, and it was the same story then, and this
will be familiar to you. The Treasury, right back then, were trying
to flog off our Embassy in Paris, in the Rue St Honore,
and send you out to the Parisian equivalent of Ealing and Acton,
which we successfully fought off, and it is the Treasury at the
same game, all over again. And I must tell you, Sir Michael, that
I was dismayed, as I know was our Chairman, when we were in Prague
a few weeks ago, at the meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
to be told that our excellent Embassy, right in a key position
in Prague, is apparently now threatened with being sold. You are
shaking your head, I am delighted you are, and I hope you are
going to be able to assure us that that is not going to happen.
If I could ask you to respond to the general concern that the
Foreign Office needs to have locations which reflect properly
the importance that our country attaches to its diplomatic and
commercial relations with the countries in question? And, whatever
you say about San Francisco, these are the people on the ground,
these are the people who are engaged in doing business between
America and this country, and they are in no doubt that this marks
a significant downgrading in the status of British representation
in San Francisco. And if you do it elsewhere, in Prague, or elsewhere,
the same will be true, it will be seen as a major downgrading,
and the people who will rejoice will be our competitors, diplomatically
and commercially, round the world?
Sir Michael Jay: I agree completely
that we need to have really good-quality, well-placed, centrally-located
offices and residences around the world, and that is what our
aim is; but, equally, the aim is to have the right kind of residence,
the right kind of office, and to have a constant programme of
modernisation to ensure we have that. I think the decision that
I have described for San Francisco was the right one. In Prague,
which I visited recently, the combination of offices and residence
is an extraordinarily historic castle; it is not convenient, in
terms of its layout, and it is very expensive to maintain, we
spent £800,000 over the last two years in maintenance and
refurbishment alone, and we have to take this into account. Now
there has been no decision at all on Prague.
Q97 Sir John Stanley: Is it under
threat?
Sir Michael Jay: We have to look
at every property to make certain that they are paying their way
and that we are going to be able to maintain them in order to
make them efficient and effective; we have to do that.
Q98 Sir John Stanley: But, Sir Michael,
you have been to Prague, you know it intimately as well; you understand
totally that is an absolutely irreplaceable site.
Sir Michael Jay: I agree.
Q99 Sir John Stanley: And it speaks
volumes for the importance that Britain attaches to its historical
relationships with the Czech Republic, to a very, very important,
new member of the European Union, and a new member of the European
Union which will be of significant economic and commercial consequences.
There is no way, if that Embassy is sold, that anything remotely
equivalent in the centre of Prague is going to be obtained?
Sir Michael Jay: As I say, no
decisions at all have been taken about that, and no decisions
would be taken without consultation and agreement by Ministers,
and I am quite certain that the factors that you have mentioned
will be taken into account. It is a magnificent site.
Chairman: Well, the point is made. Sir
Michael, we have three colleagues who want to come in on this,
there is a block on locally-engaged staff and on retirement, and
we have a major discussion afterwards; so can I ask colleagues
to be brief on this.
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