Condemnation for bonus payments to immigration officials

There has been massive criticism of the nearly £300,000 in bonus payments made to staff involved in the operation of the UK’s immigration system.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, called the move astonishing given recent revelations concerning the abandonment of many unresolved case files. A review of UK Border Agency files had previously found that 40,000 cases involved no formal record of the whereabouts of immigrants who were asked to leave the UK, many of which had been unconfirmed for years. Vaz said that there were serious concerns about the efficiency of staff with a string of high profile errors having been discovered in the lengthy backlog of immigration files which itself had also attracted widespread condemnation.

Some 450,000 files were first uncovered three years ago, having been placed on the UKBA backburner with no action taken. To date, around half of these have been resolved with immigration authorities using the statistics to trumpet an apparently high removal rate. The Home Affairs committee investigated the 220,000 files marked concluded only to find that 88,500 of them, over 30 percent, contained errors.

Only 30,000 people on file have in fact been removed from the UK while 74,000 asylum seekers and dependents have been allowed to stay. The report was critical of ongoing delays as these can contribute to the building of a stronger family life in Britain and further reason to be granted leave to remain in the UK.