Recommendations & Conclusions
7 items
6
Recommendation
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
The Home Office has not done enough to understand the experience of customers and improve the service they receive. The Home Office has achieved good performance in managing ‘straightforward’ applications – processing 94% of these within its service standards in 2023 and 2024 (970,000 cases). However, it takes much longer …
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The Home Office has not done enough to understand the experience of customers and improve the service they receive. The Home Office has achieved good performance in managing ‘straightforward’ applications – processing 94% of these within its service standards in 2023 and 2024 (970,000 cases). However, it takes much longer to process applications on which the applicant has not provided all of the information and further checks are needed to make a decision – which represented 18% of applications between the end of 2021 and 2024 (330,000 cases). The Home Office refers to these as ‘complex’ applications, it removes these from its public reporting and has no target processing time. Further, the Home Office does not have reliable data on the processing times for ‘complex’ cases and sponsor licence applications, which means it does not fully understand its performance. The Home Office’s target of 80% of applicants being satisfied with the application service illustrates a lack of ambition, suggesting it is content with one in five of its customers being dissatisfied. It is not doing enough to understand the customer perspective and make improvements to its service, including addressing concerns from applicants and sponsors about complicated guidance and poor customer support. Applicants and sponsors are also unable to track the progress of their applications, which is the cause of many complaints about the service. The Home Office’s planned transformation of its sponsorship system has also been delayed and it needs to address operational issues with the IT system used for processing visa applications. recommendation In its Treasury Minute response to this report, the Home Office should set out how it is improving its customer service. As part of this, it should: • develop and publish a balanced scorecard showing its performance in processing all applications (including ‘complex’ cases) and providing a good customer service; • set and publish more stretching targets for cu
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, explaining that complex cases are excluded from published service standards and that it already publishes customer satisfaction scores and uses KPIs. It does note the recent launch of a visa processing times tool and is testing a new sponsorship …
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HM Treasury
33
Conclusion
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
The Home Office has performed well when processing ‘straightforward’ skilled worker visa applications.92 These are applications where the applicant has met all obligations and provided the necessary information.93 In 2023 and 2024, it processed 94% of these cases (970,200 out of 1,033,500) within its service standard times of three weeks …
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The Home Office has performed well when processing ‘straightforward’ skilled worker visa applications.92 These are applications where the applicant has met all obligations and provided the necessary information.93 In 2023 and 2024, it processed 94% of these cases (970,200 out of 1,033,500) within its service standard times of three weeks for out-of- country applications and Health and Care Worker applications, and eight weeks for in-country extensions. This is below its target of 98.5% but, when we took evidence in early May, the Department claimed that it was now meeting this target.94
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the committee's conclusion on processing performance, explaining that complex cases are excluded from published service standards and outlining the reasons for such exclusions and where further details can be found.
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HM Treasury
34
Conclusion
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
The Home Office marks cases as ‘complex’ for reasons such as the customer not supplying the correct information, third party checks being required or the applicant having a pending prosecution. The times taken to process these cases are not included in the Home Office’s published processing statistics.95 The Home Office …
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The Home Office marks cases as ‘complex’ for reasons such as the customer not supplying the correct information, third party checks being required or the applicant having a pending prosecution. The times taken to process these cases are not included in the Home Office’s published processing statistics.95 The Home Office said it was not possible to determine a service standard for ‘complex’ cases as there are a wide range of factors that are outside of its control.96 Analysis of management information on Skilled Worker visa extensions showed that, between the start of 2021 and the end of 2024, it took the Home Office over 100 days to make a decision on 6,500 ‘complex’ applications.97
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the implied recommendation, stating that complex cases are excluded from published Service Standards, but service level agreements for Skilled Worker visas are published, and reasons for complex cases are available on GOV.UK.
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HM Treasury
35
Conclusion
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
We asked the Home Office why the proportion of ‘complex’ cases increased during periods when it received large numbers of visa applications.98 Between the end of 2021 and 2024, it has marked 18% of applications (330,000 cases) as ‘complex’, but this increased to 31% between July and September 2023, which …
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We asked the Home Office why the proportion of ‘complex’ cases increased during periods when it received large numbers of visa applications.98 Between the end of 2021 and 2024, it has marked 18% of applications (330,000 cases) as ‘complex’, but this increased to 31% between July and September 2023, which is the period when applications peaked.99 The Home Office told us this was due to it applying more scrutiny 92 Q 72 93 C&AG’s Report, footnote 15 94 Q 73 95 Qq 74, 76; C&AG’s Report, para 3.2 96 Qq 74, 78 97 C&AG’s Report, para 3.3 98 Q 75 99 C&AG’s Report, para 3.3, fig. 7 23 to applications, which required more information from applicants. It said it was not “gaming” its published performance statistics by marking cases as ‘complex’ when they were not.100
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the implied recommendation, stating that complex cases are excluded from published Service Standards, but service level agreements for Skilled Worker visas are published, and reasons for complex cases are available on GOV.UK.
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HM Treasury
36
Conclusion
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
We asked the Home Office whether there was a need for greater transparency and improvement targets, for ‘complex’ cases. This is important as the absence of a service level agreement for ‘complex’ cases creates a risk that the Home Office will prioritise ‘straightforward’ cases, which do have a public target. …
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We asked the Home Office whether there was a need for greater transparency and improvement targets, for ‘complex’ cases. This is important as the absence of a service level agreement for ‘complex’ cases creates a risk that the Home Office will prioritise ‘straightforward’ cases, which do have a public target. The Home Office said it aims to resolve all cases as quickly as possible by monitoring workflow and moving resources when necessary, but did not provide assurance that ‘complex’ cases are not de-prioritised.101 It publishes processing statistics in its transparency data but this only provides data on the number of ‘complex’ cases, and not its performance is processing them.102 The Home Office said it has no plans to change the way its transparency statistics are reported.103
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the implied recommendation, stating that complex cases are excluded from published Service Standards, but Skilled Worker visas have service level agreements and reasons for complexity are outlined on GOV.UK.
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HM Treasury
38
Conclusion
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
We were concerned that the Home Office lacked ambition in improving its customer service. Its target of 80% of customers being satisfied with the application process implies it is content with one in five of its customers being dissatisfied. The Home Office told us that it tries to exceed this …
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We were concerned that the Home Office lacked ambition in improving its customer service. Its target of 80% of customers being satisfied with the application process implies it is content with one in five of its customers being dissatisfied. The Home Office told us that it tries to exceed this score and also has an internal net experience score.107 It receives customer feedback from a range of sources and told us it works to improve the customer experience and end-to-end ‘customer journey’.108 However, the National Audit Office found that it had not made effective use of its management information to develop a full understanding of its customer service, which limits its ability to understand the causes of problems and improve the service it offers.109 100 Q 75 101 Qq 78-79 102 C&AG’s report, para 3.3 103 Qq 74, 78 104 Q 72; C&AG’s Report, para 3.5 105 C&AG’s report, para 3.5 106 IMM0004; IMM0006; IMM0010; IMM0019 107 Q 82 108 Qq 80-81 109 C&AG’s Report, para 11 24
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the implied recommendation, stating that it publishes customer satisfaction scores, aims to maximise them, uses KPIs to benchmark performance, and embeds customer insight and experience to drive continuous improvement.
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HM Treasury
40
Recommendation
37th Report - Immigration: Skilled work…
Rejected
We asked the Home Office about progress with efforts to transform the sponsorship system, which include the development of IT systems. The Home Office has delayed replacement of the sponsorship system from 2023 to 2028 and accepted that its existing system is not as good as it should be.112 The …
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We asked the Home Office about progress with efforts to transform the sponsorship system, which include the development of IT systems. The Home Office has delayed replacement of the sponsorship system from 2023 to 2028 and accepted that its existing system is not as good as it should be.112 The Home Office told us that the planned transformation was delayed due to the lack of basic infrastructure, the large amount of transformation taking place across the department, and its prioritisation of competing demands, such as eVisas and launch of the Ukraine visa routes. It hopes to roll-out the sponsorship system over the next two to three years.113 The Home Office also needs to address operational issues with the IT system used for processing visa applications and make further changes to provide full functionality and management information.114 110 IMM0004; IMM0019; IMM0020; IMM0009; IMM0010 111 Q58; C&AG’s report, para 3.9 112 Qq 55-57; C&AG’s Report, para 3.12 113 Q 57 114 C&AG’s Report, para 12 25
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Government response AI summary
The government explicitly disagrees with the committee's recommendation to address operational issues with the visa application IT system and make further changes. It states it is committed to continuous improvement, testing a partial version of a new sponsorship system, and investing in maintaining its existing …
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HM Treasury