Continuing Problems at the Home Office

Julia Onslow-Cole reflects on the difficulties at the Home Office and is cautiously optimistic about the future

I have spent a considerable amount of my time during the last 12 months doing battle with the Home Office after the Immigration & Nationality Directorate in Croydon practically came to a stand-still. Wearing an assortment of hats - Chairman of the International Bar Association's Immigration & Nationality Committee, Secretary of the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association, Member of the Law Society's Sub-Committee on Immigration and a partner of CMS Cameron McKenna - I have attended numerous meetings at the Home Office in Croydon and at the House of Commons with the Minister and other Government representatives in an effort to sort out the problems. I do believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel although, without doubt, the situation is far from ideal.

Everyone who deals with immigration applications will be fully aware of the problems at Croydon but it may be helpful to rehearse the history of the situation. The Home Office deals with all immigration applications except for decisions on work permits, which are made by the Department for Education & Employment ("DfEE") in Sheffield.

However, even work permit holders cannot always escape the clutches of the Home Office, as only work permit applications submitted whilst the individual concerned is overseas can be processed by the DfEE alone. All applications for extensions of work permits have to be sent to the Home Office after they have been processed by the DfEE, as do applications for indefinite leave to remain after four years as a work permit holder, EC residence permit applications, applications on the basis of marriage, and other general immigration applications.

The Home Office Immigration & Nationality Directorate has often been described as Dickensian but no-one imagined that the service could deteriorate from Dickensian to plainly pre-historic levels.
The last Government examined the situation at the Home Office and decided to implement a radical move from a system where there were several hundred thousand files to a completely paperless system. The Government entered into a contract with a third party to undertake an enormous computerisation programme. The programme was much larger and more difficult to implement than had been envisaged and none of the initial deadlines were met. To compound matters considerably, there was a substantial increase in asylum applications which placed an inordinate burden on the already overloaded system. There was a severe reduction in the Home Office work force in anticipation of the new system and, when the system did not work, they did not have the experienced man-power to deal with the applications.

In addition to this problem, the Home Office had to vacate its building, Lunar House, and move hundreds of thousands of files to another building in Croydon. The movement of these files turned into a farce as thousands of them were not labelled properly and several hundred thousand were put into an underground car park which was then declared unsafe, causing delay in retrieving these files. Generally, the move caused enormous disruption. Not only were staff spending their time moving offices, but many files were lost. In an effort to gain control over the situation, the Home Office decided to close down all telephone access to caseworkers dealing with immigration applications and route all phone calls through to a telephone enquiry line. During its first week of operation, this telephone line received more than 200,000 phone calls, but only 6% were answered. Several thousand files were lost and distraught people who needed to travel for urgent business or compassionate reasons started to queue outside the Home Office building in Croydon.

The situation has improved considerably over the last 12 weeks. However, there is no room for complacency.

During the height of the Home Office problems, I came to work one morning to find that a lorry had inadvertently hit the main water pipe at the back of CMS Cameron McKenna's offices and caused a complete power failure in the building. For approximately three hours there was no water or electricity. I was standing in my office in the semi-darkness when I received a telephone call from a Russian client ringing from Moscow. He said that the line was bad and would I shout out what the situation was with his application. I shouted down the telephone: "We have no lights and no water and your Home Office file is in an underground car park which has been sealed off because of toxic fumes!" Things have definitely improved since then.

The meetings that I have attended with the Minister and various officials at the Home Office have been very constructive and I believe that there is a real willingness and anxiety on the part of the Government to sort out the problems. The Government is particularly aware of the contribution that the expatriate community makes to the economy.

The current situation is that Lunar House, the old Home Office building, has been vacated and it is likely that the Immigration & Nationality Directorate will stay at its new home in the Whitgift Centre for approximately two years while the old building is refurbished.

The Immigration & Nationality Directorate is now divided into various units. Calls are dealt with by the Immigration & Nationality Enquiry Bureau ("INEB"). The Home Office is currently maintaining its stance that caseworkers are not permitted to give their direct telephone numbers and that the only way you can reach a caseworker is through the INEB. Applications submitted to the Home Office initially go to the Initial Consideration Unit ("ICU"). The ICU deals with "quick wins". It is obviously important to make clear, fully documented applications with correctly completed application forms. In this way, applications can usually be dealt with by the ICU. If they cannot be dealt with quickly, they are passed to the Case Allocation Unit ("CAU"), which categorises applications. Caseworkers from various Case Management Units ("CMUs") request weekly allocations of cases. The CMUs deal with various types of applications. Cases may stay within the CMUs for several months.

The Home Office is taking steps to deal with a backlog of approximately 22,000 cases in storage as well as trying to keep up to date with current cases. There is also a Correspondence Linking Unit ("CLU") for letters which cannot be linked to files. At its height, there were 21,000 outstanding pieces of mail but by May, these had been reduced to 7,000.

There is a fast track postal service for legal representatives and CMS Cameron McKenna has been allocated the maximum number of slots on the service every week. This means that CMS Cameron McKenna's applications are submitted to the Home Office on a Friday evening and normally returned the following Tuesday morning. There has been a slightly reduced service on the fast track postal service at times but generally it is working well.

Other measures have been taken to alleviate problems and these include the issue of a letter to employers confirming that a work permit holder can work pending endorsement of their passport at the Home Office. In addition, the Home Office has been issuing forms known as RON58s which contain an endorsement of a person's permission to stay in the UK and can save time if they are unable to wait for their passport to be endorsed. It is possible to show the RON58 to the Immigration Service who will endorse the person's passport on arrival in the UK. However, like so many emergency measures, RON58s have created more problems than they have solved, in particular concerning spouses and children.

In summary, it has been a very difficult few months but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The meetings with the Minister and Home Office are continuing and the battle will be won!