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 …
Government response. 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 …
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 …
Government response. 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.
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 …
Government response. 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.
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 …
Government response. 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.
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. …
Government response. 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.
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 …
Government response. 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.
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 …
Government response. 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 …
HM Treasury