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Written Question
VFS Global: Contracts
Friday 4th October 2019

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2019 to Question 268421, if she will publish details of the Service Levels relating to the Next Generation Visa (NGOV) Services contract delivered by VFS Global.

Answered by Seema Kennedy

In line with the Government’s commitment to transparency, the Home Office has published the VFS Global Next Generation Visa (NGOV) contract schedules on Contracts Finder (part of gov.uk).

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/2c8f6f38-6f15-46ec-9954-c8571b0f1c05?p=@FQxUlRRPT0=NjJNT08=U

The Service Levels can be found in Schedule 7 of the contract. These Service Levels set out the criteria Home Office uses to assess the performance of VFS Global in handling visa and settlement applications


Written Question
VFS Global: Contracts
Friday 4th October 2019

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had on whether to extend the contract for Next Generation Visa (NGOV) Services delivered by VFS Global beyond the current expiration date of 31 March 2021.

Answered by Seema Kennedy

The Home Department are currently in discussion with the suppliers who deliver the Next Generation Outsourced Visa (NGOV) contract to review proposals for an extension beyond 2021 but no recommendations have yet been made.


Written Question
VFS Global: Complaints
Friday 4th October 2019

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints her Department has received about VSF Global each year since the start of its contract with her Department in 2013.

Answered by Seema Kennedy

The performance against service standard in relation to customer complaints relating to UKVI can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-august-2019. We do not publish statistics on complaints received in relation to individual supplier performance


Written Question
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
Tuesday 9th December 2014

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on current investigations by the National Audit Office into the work of Serco at Yarl's Wood detention centre.

Answered by James Brokenshire

The Home Office holds no information on any investigations by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the work of Serco at Yarl's Wood detention centre. We have had no formal correspondence with NAO on this subject.


Written Question
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints about Yarl's Wood Detention Centre her Department has received regarding (a) access to healthcare and (b) mental health provision in the last 12 months.

Answered by James Brokenshire

Information on complaints relating to access to healthcare and mental health provision can fall under two categories, non-clinical and clinical.

A total of 4 non-clinical complaints regarding access to healthcare or mental health provision have been received in the last twelve months.

In addition the Home Office has been notified of 96 clinical complaints, routed via the centre’s healthcare provider. These complaints relate to clinical competence or treatment but may also include reference to access to healthcare or mental health provision. Due to medical confidentiality the Home Office is unable to access clinical complaints to differentiate the individual elements.

The information provided is management information and has not been subject to the detailed checks that apply for National Statistics publications. The figures are provisional and are subject to change.


Written Question
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many female officers were employed by Serco at Yarl's Wood Detention Centre in each year from 2010 to 2014 to date.

Answered by James Brokenshire

The Home Office does not publish numbers of staff employed by itsservice providers at immigration removal centres as this could compromise the security of their facilities.

The percentage of female detainee custody officers (DCOs) employed at Yarl’s Wood IRC by Serco for the years 2010 to 2014 is in the table below.

Year Percentage of female DCOs
2010 46%
2011 36%
2012 46%
2013 42%

The information provided in the tables below is based on management information only and has not been subject to the detailed checks that apply for National Statistics publications. These figures are provisional and are subject to change.


Written Question
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre
Tuesday 25th November 2014

Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many women have been detained at Yarl's Wood Detention Centre for (a) 0 to six months, (b) six to 12 months, (c) over one year and (d) two years or more.

Answered by James Brokenshire

The requested information is not available. A subset of the latest published figures show that as at 30 June 2014 there were 294 female people detained in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre who had been held in the immigration estate for less than 6 months, 9 for between 6 and 12 months and none for longer.

The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of people detained in the United Kingdom for immigration purposes, within Immigration Statistics: April – June 2014, from the GOV.UK website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release