Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of trends in the number of technical issues in relation to home office applications since January 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Increasingly since 2023, applications to remain in the United Kingdom have been processed on the new caseworking system, Atlas.
It is a complex system that has many integrated services such as security checking, sending notifications to applicants, triggering the production of BRP cards or creation of digital status. Whilst there have been some issues encountered as Atlas has been developed, no systemic issues have been identified that have caused concerns to be raised with the third-party IT suppliers helping develop and support Atlas.
Most technical issues are resolved within days.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken was to resolve technical issues in relation to processing home office applications in each month in 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Increasingly since 2023, applications to remain in the United Kingdom have been processed on the new caseworking system, Atlas.
It is a complex system that has many integrated services such as security checking, sending notifications to applicants, triggering the production of BRP cards or creation of digital status. Whilst there have been some issues encountered as Atlas has been developed, no systemic issues have been identified that have caused concerns to be raised with the third-party IT suppliers helping develop and support Atlas.
Most technical issues are resolved within days.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has raised concerns with third-party providers on technical issues impacting claims since January 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Increasingly since 2023, applications to remain in the United Kingdom have been processed on the new caseworking system, Atlas.
It is a complex system that has many integrated services such as security checking, sending notifications to applicants, triggering the production of BRP cards or creation of digital status. Whilst there have been some issues encountered as Atlas has been developed, no systemic issues have been identified that have caused concerns to be raised with the third-party IT suppliers helping develop and support Atlas.
Most technical issues are resolved within days.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle technical issues in relation to home office applications.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Increasingly since 2023, applications to remain in the United Kingdom have been processed on the new caseworking system, Atlas.
It is a complex system that has many integrated services such as security checking, sending notifications to applicants, triggering the production of BRP cards or creation of digital status. Whilst there have been some issues encountered as Atlas has been developed, no systemic issues have been identified that have caused concerns to be raised with the third-party IT suppliers helping develop and support Atlas.
Most technical issues are resolved within days.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the cause of recent technical issues delaying home office applications.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Increasingly since 2023, applications to remain in the United Kingdom have been processed on the new caseworking system, Atlas.
It is a complex system that has many integrated services such as security checking, sending notifications to applicants, triggering the production of BRP cards or creation of digital status. Whilst there have been some issues encountered as Atlas has been developed, no systemic issues have been identified that have caused concerns to be raised with the third-party IT suppliers helping develop and support Atlas.
Most technical issues are resolved within days.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people are awaiting decisions on applications to the Home Office as a result of technical issues in each month since January 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The exact number of people awaiting decisions on applications to the Home Office as a result of technical issues in each month since January 2023 is not information currently held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in each quarter since the Windrush Compensation scheme was launched, how many people who received an award applied (a) fewer than three months, (b) three to six months, (c) six to 12 months and (d) more than a year before the award.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Windrush Compensation Scheme’s priority is to ensure people receive the maximum compensation as quickly as possible.
The time taken to allocate a claim for a substantive casework consideration has been reduced from 18 months to under 4 months. The 4-month period includes all essential eligibility checks, together with a Preliminary Assessment to make an initial payment of £10,000 wherever possible.
Information on the time taken from a claim being received to a compensation payment is not published.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what his Department's policy is on informing applicants if the time taken to process their application is longer than the published service standard as a result of technical issues.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Where there is a technical issue which prevents caseworkers from taking action on a case, the department will seek to address these as quickly as possible and resolve these so the case can be completed within its service standard. Where the technical issue may cause the case to go out of service standard, caseworking teams will write to the customer to inform them of the delay and keep them informed of progress.
The latest published statistics which includes data on performance against Service Level Agreement for Standard, Priority and Super Priority visas up to the end of Q3 2023 can be found in this link (Data tab VSI_02): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/visas-and-citizenship-data-q3-2023.
Q4 2023 stats are due to be published shortly.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for biometric residence permits were delayed as a result of technical issues in each month since January 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
At the point a decision is made to grant permission to remain, a BRP is automatically requested by the caseworking system and data is sent to the DVLA for the BRP to be produced. Any automatic requests that become “stuck” when sent to DVLA are targeted and proactive reporting is being developed to identify such cases earlier.
During 2023, DVLA produced 99.6% of BRPs within 24 hours of this automatic request process and 100% within 48 hours.
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the number of children in families with no recourse to public funds who are unable to access 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition applies to millions of people, the vast majority of whom are visitors or other temporary migrants who have no need for public funds during their stay. It also applies to those without status, many of whom may not be in touch with the Home Office.
The Home Office’s Chief Statistician wrote to the Office for Statistics Regulation on 3 July 2020 to explain why the Home Office does not feel that it is of practical application to produce an estimate of the total population subject to NRPF present in the UK at any one time. His letter can be found at: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/response-from-daniel-shaw-to-ed-humpherson-parliamentary-question-response/.
To note, 30 hours’ free childcare is not considered a ‘public fund’ for immigration purposes. However, the eligibility criteria, as set by the Department for Education, requires at least one parent to have permission to access public funds, which means it may not be available to all families.
Parents with NRPF are able to access the 15 hours’ free early education entitlement available for all three and four year olds regardless of their family circumstances and, if eligible, 15 hours’ free early education for disadvantaged two year olds. These 15-hour entitlements primarily benefit the child and their educational development and outcomes. While there are some benefits to parents in reduced childcare fees, this is not the main purpose of these entitlements. The 30 hours’ free childcare entitlement is primarily focused on supporting the parent(s) into work.