Monitoring of the UK Border Agency: first report of session 2008-09 report, together with formal minutes and oral evidence

House of Commons papers 77 2008-09

Corporate Author:: Great Britain Parliament House of Commons Home Affairs Committee
Author:: Keith Vaz (chairman)
Publisher:: TSO (The Stationery Office)

The Committee took evidence from John Vine CBE QPM, Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, and Linda Costelloe Baker, Independent Monitor of Entry Clearance Refusals without the Right of Appeal, on their monitoring of the UK Border Agency. The Committee was pleased to hear the Independent Monitor's assessment that quality of decision making in visa applications by UK Border Agency staff is "reasonable and very slowly improving", but disappointed to hear of her residual concerns about staff training, and to learn that several of her recommendations on training had not been accepted. The report recommends that the Government should ensure that the Independent Monitor's ten 'indicators' for good quality refusal notices be implemented throughout UK Visas, that entry clearance staff be trained to follow these, and that they form part of the inspection regime for visa refusals. In April 2009 the role of Independent Monitor will be subsumed within the new UK Border Agency inspectorate. This concerns the Committee, as the new inspectorate is still being established and is not yet conducting scrutiny of the UK Border Agency. Consequently, the Committee recommends that the Government retains the Independent Monitor position for some months longer, to ensure that there is a sufficient overlap with the new inspectorate, and to guarantee that there is no hiatus in the oversight of visa refusals. Finally the Committee recommends that the title of the Chief Inspector and his inspectorate be amended explicitly to include the word 'independent', in order to clarify that the post is independent from the UK Border Agency.

Extent	[2], 13, Ev 12p.	ISBN	9780215525642
Size	N/A	Price	£8.50
Binding	Paperback	Published	12 Jan 2009
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