Memorandum submitted by the Independent
Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency
Thank you for your letter dated 29 January acknowledging
receipt of my Inspection report on the visa section in Kuala Lumpur.
I'm very pleased to be able to provide you with
some background on the Kuala Lumpur inspection, and to detail
some of the key findings.
This post had not been visited by the previous
Independent Monitor for Entry Clearance and I particularly wanted
to look at a post with a high number of Tier 4 student applications,
in part in response to concerns raised by the UK university sector.
I was also interested to start looking at the hub and spoke model
which I intend to be a feature of my future inspection reports.
Kuala Lumpur was the first international inspection
to look at the full range of services provided by an overseas
visa post, including many of which have been of ongoing concern
to the Home Affairs Committee. I closely examined grants of entry
clearance to assess whether they had been issued correctly, and
in accordance with Immigration rules, and also inspected the administration
of the points-based system (particularly Tier 4). I also looked
at whether the agency was meeting its own 28 day target for completing
administrative reviews and was disappointed to find that this
was not the case.
I am delighted that UKBA has accepted my recommendations
and I look forward to seeing how it implements these in Kuala
Lumpur and elsewhere throughout the international Agency posts.
Experience gained and lessons learnt from inspecting
Kuala Lumpur have been vital in helping us take forward the inspection
programme, including our recent comprehensive inspection programme
in respect of Chennai and Colombo. Chennai ranks third in the
top ten largest overseas UKBA posts for the overall number of
visa applications. This report will be published in late March.
In your letter you also mentioned that you thought
it was important for the Inspectorate to visit Pakistan. I'm pleased
to be able to tell you that work is
already well underway on an inspection of the
visa process in Pakistan. Off-site file sampling of 350 cases
commenced on the 1 February. As part of a wider comprehensive
inspection of the United Arab Emirates hub (in Abu Dhabi), a team
of my inspectors will be closely examining the Pakistan spoke,
with special emphasis on the arrangements in place in Islamabad.
My inspectors fly to Islamabad in two week's time to examine operations
there, and will be in Abu Dhabi from the week commencing 15 March.
They will be considering issues including Tier 4 visas, settlement
visas, administrative reviews, MP's correspondence, entry refusals
and denunciations.
This inspection will also consider the performance
of UK Hub and will examine whether policy and guidance is being
applied efficiently and effectively within the visa section.
In addition, the inspection will make a detailed
assessment of the Risk and Liaison Overseas Network (RALON), as
a key aim of this unit is to protect the United Kingdom from those
who pose a threat and help facilitate the movement of legitimate
travellers.
The HAC session on 2 March will be too early
to discuss the inspection but it is anticipated that we will be
in a position to publish the inspection report in late May. I
would be very pleased to discuss my findings with the Committee
at that time.
February 2010
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