Reports released by Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration

Posted: 25/01/2013

On 24 January 2013, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration published two reports.

One of the reports was an inspection of how the UK Border Agency and Border Force handle customs and immigration offences at ports. To view the report, please click here.

The Chief Inspector made seven recommendations having found that:

• on some of these asylum claims it took almost a year to make initial decisions, well beyond the Agency’s six month target;
• record-keeping on decisions not to investigate immigration offences was inadequate and management information on the handling of offences generally needed improvement; and
• the Agency and Border Force’s file retention and retrieval processes were poor as they were only able to supply him with just over a third of the paper files he requested.

The other report was an inspection of applications to enter, remain, and settle in the UK on the basis of marriage and civil partnership. To view this report, please click here.

The Chief Inspector made eight recommendations having found:

• a backlog of 14,000 requests from applicants for the UK Border Agency to re-consider decisions to refuse them further leave to remain and a further 2,100 cases where applicants were still waiting for an initial decision on their application for further leave to remain – some dating back to 2003;
• an inconsistent approach between UK and overseas caseworkers when assessing whether an applicant could be maintained without access to public funds; and
• an equally inconsistent approach between UK and overseas caseworkers when considering human rights in applications which are refused, with overseas staff rarely considering human rights when making a decision.

The UKBA has in turn published responses to both the Chief Inspector’s report on how custom and immigration offences are handled at ports and the report on marriage and civil partnership applications. In its responses, the UKBA agrees or partially agrees to all but one of the Chief Inspector’s recommendations.

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