Memorandum submitted by the Office of
the President, Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
SUBJECT: AIT JUDICIAL COMPETITIONS
BACKGROUND
At the CASC hearing on 28 February Lord Falconer
was questioned on the backlog of asylum and immigration cases.
He replied by saying that 100 new asylum and immigration judges
were being recruited. He said that the competition to recruit
100 extra judges had to be postponed.
There are in fact two separate judicial competitions
underway. One to recruit 10 new salaried Immigration Judges in
Bradford and Stoke, and a UK wide one to recruit 100 extra judges
to the AIT. It was the Bradford and Stoke competition that Lord
Falconer was referring to. At his appearance before CASC the President
of the AIT, Sir Henry Hodge, offered to write once more to clarify
the scope of both competitions.
STOKE & BRADFORD
SALARIED IMMIGRATION
JUDGE COMPETITION
— A competition commenced last year
to fill 10 vacancies for salaried Immigration Judges in the Bradford
and Stoke area. 114 applications were received for these positions.
It had been anticipated that following this competition appointments
would have been made by the end of December 2005.
— During the process problems arose
with the way that the applications had been handled and the Lord
Chancellor could not be confident that all applicants had been
treated equally.
— The Lord Chancellor decided therefore
that the competition should be annulled and a fresh competition
commenced. The 114 candidates who had applied were written to
in Dec 2005 and notified of this.
— Arrangements are now underway to
run a new competition and it is anticipated that the appointments
will be completed by the end of September 2006.
NATIONAL FEE-PAID
IMMIGRATION JUDGE
COMPETITION
— There is a completely separate competition
ongoing to recruit an extra 100 fee-paid Immigration Judges (as
part of a total of 210 vacancies) across the UK.
— Approximately 100 of the 210 vacancies
are completely new posts with the remaining 110 posts equating
to the number of Immigration Judges within the AIT on non-renewable
contracts who are being asked to apply for posts within this open
competition. I understand that all 110 have been sifted in, although
there is no guarantee that they will all be successful at the
interview stage.
— The timetable for completion of these
appointments has been delayed by two months. This is in most part
due to the very high volume of applications and partly to ensure
that there were no repeat of the problems experienced in the Stoke
& Bradford competitions.
— We expect all appointments for these
vacancies to be completed by the end of September 2006 with London
appointments expected to be filled by the end of July 2006.
Philip Lawley
Head of President's Office
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