Border Agency Must 'Improve Decision Making'

The UK's Border Agency must improve its decision-making and make full use of its powers, a report has concluded.

In his third annual report, Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine, said the agency must get more decisions right first time, adopt a consistent approach, make full use of powers to enforce the law and use intelligence to prevent and detect immigration and customs offences.

The report, covering the period from October 2010 to October 2011 contains a total of 125 recommendations for improvement to the Agency, which had come under intense scrutiny after a public bust up between Home Secretary Venessa May and a Border's Agency official in recent months.

Among other findings, the Chief Inspector found error rates were still "far too high" in the Agency’s visa decision-making, with too much emphasis placed on achieving "numerical targets" and not enough on the "quality" of decision-making.

The Chief Inspector also found the Agency was not making full use of its available powers to effectively enforce the law, according to the report.

During his inspection of the Agency’s Civil Penalties Compliance Team, the Chief Inspector said there was a considerable gap between the total amount of fines issued to employers for employing illegal workers and the total amount of fines collected by the Agency.

Speaking about his report on Monday, John Vine said: "This year has been extremely busy for the inspectorate - we have delivered a full programme of work against an ambitious inspection plan and increased the breadth and depth of our examination of the UK Border Agency.

"As a result of my inspections this year, I would like to see the Agency getting more decisions right first time, adopting a consistent approach, making full use of its powers to enforce the law and using intelligence to prevent and detect immigration and customs offences. I also want to see change taking place more quickly."

(DW)