Correspondence from the Minister for Immigration
to the Chair
REDUCING NET
MIGRATION
Thank you for your letter of 15 September.
The points you raise about restriction of use of
the term "college", and the development of an intelligence
network for use by the Department for Business, Enterprise and
Skills (BIS), are matters for colleagues in BIS as they go wider
than my interest, which relates to colleges insofar as they are
sponsoring non-EEA students to study here. The UK Border Agency's
register of sponsors for Tier 4 is restricted to only those institutions
that meet rigorous selection criteria, which includes an assessment
of the academic provision of the institution via accreditation,
and these institutions are also subject to visits by UK Border
Agency officials.
You referred to the importance of unannounced visits
in combating bogus colleges. The UK Border Agency now has a requirement
that at least 50% of standard post-licence visits must be unannounced,
and this requirement is being met by all regional visit teams.
Additionally further visits are commissioned by the Tier 4 sponsor
investigations team all of which are unannounced. UK Border Agency
visits to licensed Tier 4 sponsors range from standard visits
to check understanding, through to full compliance visits. Large-scale
operations are co-ordinated by the sponsor investigations team,
and involve support from other Agencies such as the Police.
You have asked for the number of colleges that
have closed down since the Home Affairs Committee's last report
in July 2009. We have suspended 214 Tier 4 sponsors since 21 July
2009 and revoked 48 licences. Since the launch of Tier 4 we have
revoked a total of 53 sponsor licenses. The number of non-EEA
students affected by closures or restrictions on the operation
of colleges is 43,300. The UK Border Agency does not have the
power to close down colleges as the Agency's licence relates only
to non-EEA students coming under T4 of the Points Based System.
20 September 2010
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