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In this Home Affairs Committee's report into the Work of the UK Border Agency, it criticises the Agency for failing to deport more than 600 foreign national prisoners who were released between 1999 and 2006 and are still in the country and for failing to clear the "controlled archive" of lost applicants. At the current rate it will take a further 4 years to close all cases. The Committee found that the Agency has still not resolved all of the asylum 'legacy' cases first identified in 2006. Instead, there are 17,000 ongoing cases still awaiting a final decision and the Agency appears to be discovering more cases. The Committee remains uncertain over the feasibility of the Government's e-borders timetable. It finds it difficult to see how the scheme can be applied to all rail and sea passengers by December 2014. It acknowledges that the Government must have a comprehensive e-border system if it is to be effective. However, it needs clarity on policy and practicalities for achieving this. The Committee makes a series of specific recommendations aimed at improving the working of the Agency, concerning: appeals, bogus colleges, data provided and use of statistics. It calls on the Home Office to act immediately to deal with the public scepticism over the effectiveness of the UK Border Agency and to require clarity in the information produced for both the public and Parliament.
For the first time the Committee has collated the backlog of outstanding cases in the various areas where the UK Border Agency deals with casework. This report criticises the Agency for failing to conclude the total backlog of 276,460 cases. The Committee makes a number of key recommendations: a team should be established to examine why the 3,900 foreign national offenders living in the community as of 4 April have not been deported; deportation proceedings for foreign national prisoners must begin at the time of sentencing; a list of those countries refusing to accept the return of their own criminals who have committed offences in the UK must be published; the Agency should expand its checks to include a wider range of databases in order to assist with tracing of those in the controlled archive; students should be removed from net migration target; face to face interviews for all foreign students must be compulsory; the Agency must be represented at 100%, not 84%, of all tribunal hearings; all inspection visits on Tier 4 must be unannounced; the Agency must inform the informants as to possible illegal immigrants of the outcome of their tip-off and provide a breakdown of the outcomes of its enforcement visits. The Committee reiterates that Senior Agency staff should not receive bonuses until the Agency's performance improves and bonuses paid in the past contrary to the Committee's recommendations should be repaid
The Committee identifies significant savings made through improved procurement practices, which rose to £75 million in the first three quarters of the 2011-12 financial year. It welcomes the fact that the Home Office is acting on its earlier recommendation to extend the use of the compulsory national framework for police procurement, however expresses concern about the progress of the e-borders programme and the lack of clarity over plans to introduce privatisation into policing. The Committee found that the costly joint procurement exercise being undertaken by Surrey and West Midlands Police lacked clarity. The Committee were not convinced that the Forces fully understood, or were fully able to articulate the process they were undertaking. With the overall costs of exploring this process set at £5 million, the Committee called on the Home Office to take responsibility for ensuring the public and stakeholders were aware of the process and to postpone the exercise till after the election of the Police and Crime Commissioners. Also, despite the letting of new contracts to Serco and IBM in preparation for the London Olympics, the Committee remains concerned about the progress of the e-Borders programme. The Committee also found that an unacceptable level of claims under the Riot Damages Act were still outstanding and recommends that the Home Office work with police authorities to publish a timetable for the payment of all outstanding claims. All those who made a legitimate claim should receive their payments by the first anniversary at the latest
The Agency's backlog is growing at an alarming rate-it has increased by over 25,000 cases since the first quarter of this year. The backlog consists of: the Migration Refusal Pool which contains records of individuals without leave to remain in the UK, who cannot be traced and has grown by 24,000 records since the first quarter of this year-it now totals 174,000; ex-Foreign National Offenders with 3,954 ex-FNOs living in the community whilst deportation action against them proceeds; the so-called 'controlled' archive with cases the Agency has no control over, it does not even know where the applicants are -there were 95,000 cases in archive' at the end of June this year and senior management promised to clear it by 31st December which would mean writing off 81,000 files; Asylum and migration live cohorts where the UKBA has managed to trace an applicant thought to have been lost and is working to close their case- with 29,000 cases in the live cohorts at the end of June this year. The UKBA must adopt a transparent and robust approach to tackling the backlogs instead of creating new ways of camouflaging them. Until the entire backlog is cleared the Committee does not believe that senior staff should receive any bonuses. The Committee also doubts that the Agency is adequately equipped to deal with the increase in asylum applications. Cases waiting for an initial decision after 6 months have risen by 36% since June 2011. The Committee is further concerned about the quality of decision making. Poor decision making may result in people being returned home when they face persecution and torture
The Committee examines the work of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) on a three monthly basis. Following the abolition of the Agency it will continue to monitor the Home Office UK Visa and Immigration service on a three monthly basis. The Committee found a further backlog of 190,000 cases in the temporary and permanent migration pool that were never revealed to the Committee before. The total figure for the backlog has reached over half a million. The Committee feels it is unacceptable that new backlogs are revealed in Committee evidence sessions. The UK Border Agency had a troubled history. Many of its problems predate the establishment of the Agency. Ministers must now explain how those problems will not outlive its demise. To see a change in the culture in the new organisational structure and management it must be complemented by the ability for a wholesale restructuring of the employees of the organisation. The newly appointed Directors General must have the ability and resources necessary to implement this change. The Home Office should outline exactly how they propose to bring about this change in culture. In evidence the Committee were told the immigration service would never be fixed. This surprised the Committee since reducing immigration is a priority of this Government. What the immigration service needs desperately is stability, the resources necessary to clear the backlogs and a wholesale change in culture
Maximum queue times at major UK ports have been consistently too high for the last 12 months. Some carriers are resigning themselves to reducing their revenue because Border Force lacks capacity. Many airlines have years of experience in providing advanced passenger information to the United States are now obliged to provide advanced information to e-Border although this information is not always used optimally. The Committee recommends that Border Force: adopt a target for reducing the maximum queuing times; adopt a more frequent measurement of queues in order to improve accuracy and to inform staff rostering decisions; install "waiting time" boards in all arrivals halls at major ports; keep E-gates operational at all times when flights are arriving; and if the control room at Heathrow continues to be a success then adopt the model at other major ports where appropriate. The Home Office should: reintroduce the risk based entry check pilot; carry out a full reappraisal of the number of Border Force staff needed across the UK if it wishes to persist with 100% entry checks for all passengers; and bring forward the reinstatement of 'smart zones'. It was also of notable concern that Border Force has been unable or unwilling to provide comparable data on the number of drug seizures carried out by Border Force in April 2011 and April 2012; the number of passengers about whom security alerts were issued to the Border Force that were actually encountered trying to enter the UK; or the number of illegal migrants trying to enter the UK through the 'Lille Loophole'
This report discusses the impact of the Committee work in the 2010-12 Session of Parliament. Prepared as a Traffic Light Report, the first of its kind, it scores Government responses to each of the Committee's recommendations as green, red or yellow, to indicate whether, in the Committee's view, they have been accepted by the Government, rejected, or are still under consideration or development. It is intended as a benchmark and tool for developing a more strategic approach to scrutiny, which will improve the Committee's ability to hold the Home Office to account. Going forward, it will be used as the basis for the systematic follow-up of recommendations over the rest of the Parliament.
This report discusses the pre-appointment hearing of the preferred candidate, Tom Winsor, to the post of Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Pre-appointment hearings are to assess the suitability of the preferred candidate, but that cannot be done effectively in a vacuum and the Committee were disappointed that the Home Secretary initially refused to provide information on the selection process or the shortlist. The Committee recommends that the Government in future provide such information in keeping with the recommendation from the Liaison Committee. The Home Affairs Committee is content for the Home Secretary to proceed with Mr Winsor's appointment. This is considered against the background that his nomination was controversial. If appointed he will be the first Chief Inspector who has never served as a police officer. They urge Mr Winsor to reach out to forces, police officers of all ranks and their representative bodies to build bridges. He must create a strong relationship with forces and with police and crime commissioners. The Home Affairs Committee will take a continued interest in the work of the Chief Inspector and look forward to hearing evidence from him on a regular basis
It is inevitable that the UK will have strategic, commercial or security-related interests overseas which have the potential to conflict with its human rights work, says the Foreign Affairs Committee in a report published today. The Government should not be trying to assert that the two can co-exist freely: it should instead be explaining publicly its judgments on how to balance them in particular cases. The Committee's recommendation comes in the light of the FCO's decision not to designate Bahrain as a "country of concern" in its 2011 report on its human rights work, despite the repression of demonstrations in Bahrain in 2011. The Committee recommends that the criteria for designation should be based purely on assessments of human rights standards and should not be coloured by strategic or other considerations. The Committee also challenges the Government for being inconsistent in not taking a public stance on the Bahrain Grand Prix but boycotting group stage games at Euro 2012 in Ukraine. On rendition, the Committee finds that the protracted police investigations had an unacceptable impact on the work of the Gibson Inquiry and of relevant committees. The Government should explain why current investigations into claims of rendition made by two Libyans are expected to take so long. The Committee accepts that enough progress has been made in Burma to justify some relaxation of the EU's sanctions regime, but it says that Burma's human rights record remains seriously blemished. It recommends that the UK should call for better access to those still detained as political prisoners, and should press the Burmese authorities to allow independent observers to visit Rakhine state, to assess the extent to which the rights of the Rohingya minority are being respected.
This report concludes that it is getting easier for anyone to advertise themselves as a private investigator - with modern communications and cheap surveillance devices - and while the industry remains unregulated, a number of serious risks remain. The Committee explores the risks of the involvement of private investigators in the justice system and law enforcement and the threat of corruption those links entail. The Committee recommends that the Government set up a robust licensing and registration system as soon as possible. Private investigators and their companies should be governed by a new Code of Conduct for Private Investigators. Under this system a criminal record for breach of section 55 should disqualify individual from operating as private investigators. It also proposes that dealings between police and investigators should be recorded and that there should be a one year cooling off period between serving as a police officer and entering the investigation industry. While recognising the honest contribution made by most private investigators, this report highlights the involvement of some private investigators in an illegal market in personal data and calls again on the Government to strength the penalties for data offences. The Committee also calls on the Independent Police Complaints Commission to take direct control over investigations in cases alleging police corruption in relation to private investigators