Unsatisfactory UK Border Agency To Be Scrapped Entirely

28 Mar 2013

Following a number of scandals and unsatisfactory performance standards, Home Secretary Theresa May has confirmed that the UK Border Agency will be entirely abolished.

There’s hope on the horizon that UK immigration matters might improve for South Africans, as the Home Office has decided on a major overhaul on immigration law enforcement in the UK.

Following a number of scandals and unsatisfactory performance standards, Home Secretary Theresa May has confirmed that the UK Border Agency will be entirely abolished. Its functions are to be handed back to the Home Office to deal with directly, in a crackdown to what May has called a “secretive culture” within the agency. The news comes despite an overall improvement on migration numbers to the UK.

In a statement read out in parliament, the Home Secretary announced that the Border Agency had failed in its five-year history to balance the sheets, citing among chief concerns that an overwhelming volume of casework leading to “a historical backlog running into the hundreds of thousands” had been the chief motivation for her decision. ”The number of illegal immigrants removed does not keep up with the number of people who are here illegally,” May said while holding the previous government led by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and later by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown accountable for introducing such an inefficient government agency.

May also attacked the reactionary work culture at the heart of the agency, dealing with acute crises rather than with ongoing caseloads while criticizing outdated IT systems to be taken out as the first change to be applied.

This wasn’t, however, the first time that the UK Border Agency suffered setbacks; last year, the Border Force arm of the agency had been separated in a first attempt to improve operations.

The Home Secretary also announced that two separate agencies dealing with immigration matters will now be set up in future: one to deal with visa and immigration enquiries and the other focusing on enforcing breaches of immigration rules. She also revealed that the Home Office would present a new draft bill to parliament in its next session, aimed at simplifying immigration law and its guidelines. Whether or not that will make anything easier for the 200,000 South Africans in the UK is yet to be seen.

Source: http://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/uk-border-agency-to-be-scrapped-amidst-confusion-over-future.htm