Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee

37th Report - Immigration: Skilled worker visas

Public Accounts Committee HC 819 Published 4 July 2025

Report Status

Government responded

Conclusions & Recommendations

40 items (6 recs)

Source

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Government Response

AI assessment · 39 of 40 classified

Accepted 25

Acknowledged 3

Deferred 1

Not Addressed 3

Rejected 7

Recommendations

2 results

6 Rejected

Improve visa customer service, publishing performance scorecard for all applications and setting stretching targets.

Recommendation

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 … Read more 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 Show less

Government Response 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 system, but these are not framed as fulfilling the specific requests of the recommendation.

HM Treasury

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40 Rejected

Home Office significantly delayed sponsorship system transformation, necessitating IT operational issue resolution.

Recommendation

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 … Read more

Government Response 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 system.

HM Treasury

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Conclusions (5)

Observations and findings

33 Conclusion 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 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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34 Conclusion 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 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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35 Conclusion 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 Summary

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36 Conclusion 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 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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38 Conclusion 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 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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