Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many appointments UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services are available each week at Core sites which do not require a fee.

UKVI continue to work closely with Sopra Steria to monitor progress against their plan to ensure sufficient capacity at their service points in the UK to service projected demand forecasts and for increases to service point capacity to be flexed upwards or downloads where required. As a result the number of appointments available each week varies based on weekly capacity. This is monitored through Key performance indicators.

Provision of sufficient capacity to meet demand is measured against KPI metrics. The KPI for free appointments is 56% of total appointment availability and assures business capacity made available to customers at UKVCAS service points. This metric is designed to ensure, within capacity provided, more than half of all appointments at core sites (Cardiff, Croydon, Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester) will be free to access by our customers.

Details on the relevant performance indicators to measure appointment availability has been published and can be found in Schedule 7 of the UKVI Front End Services contract available here:

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/ec5031ea-021e-471a-86cf-af540e8d8efa (opens in a new tab)

The specific KPI level can be found at the following page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-performance-indicators-kpis-for-governments-most-important-contracts