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Rebuilding Confidence in our Immigration System

25 July 2006

Fair, Effective, Transparent and Trusted: Rebuilding Confidence in our Immigration System, a paper setting out the Home Secretary’s vision of how the Government can work to improve the way the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) tackles immigration in the 21st Century, was unveiled today.

The document sets out four key objectives, which will build on the Government’s five year strategy for asylum and immigration and develop proposals to strengthen our borders, fast track asylum decisions, enforce our immigration law and remove the most harmful people first, and boost Britain’s economy.

The objectives are designed to:

• strengthen our borders, use tougher checks abroad so that only those with permission can travel to the UK, and ensure we know who leaves so that we can take action against those who break the rules;
• fast track asylum decisions, remove those whose claims fail and integrate those who need our protection;
• ensure and enforce compliance with our immigration laws, removing the most harmful people first and denying the privileges of Britain to those here illegally; and
• boost Britain’s economy by bringing the right skills here from around the world, and ensuring this country is easy to visit legally.

Key proposals include:

• introducing exit controls (embarkation) year by year until everyone is counted in and out by 2014;
• extending border checks on people before they travel to this country, targeting high risk routes;
• strengthening the powers of the borders service and make it a more visible uniformed presence, doubling spending on enforcement by 2009/10;
• implementing ID cards, starting with biometric residence permits for foreign nationals in 2008;
• requiring non-EEA nationals to have unique, secure IDs to be able to travel to Britain by 2011, to allow criminality to be checked;
• granting or removing 90 per cent of new asylum claimants within six months by 2011;
• increasing removals and deportation by effective use of detention, tagging and monitoring of asylum claimants;
• improving the effectiveness of deportation arrangements by removing in-country rights of appeal;
• implementing fines for employers, seizing assets of persistent offenders, disbarring company officers who knowingly employ illegal workers and working across Government to stop fraudulent access to benefits;
• establishing IND as an agency on a shadow basis from April 2007;
• radically reforming and simplifying immigration laws, rules and guidance;
• consulting on establishing a new Migration Advisory Committee to advise on migration issues;
• consulting on a new single immigration regulator; and
• introducing regional directors by 2007.

The Government plans to send a clear signal to those living in this country and overseas that the UK will not tolerate abuse of its immigration system.
 
Home Secretary John Reid said:
 
“Today I have set out plans to reform the Immigration Nationality Directorate with the aim of making it fair, effective, transparent and trusted and to allow it to meet the global challenges ahead in the 21st Century. We have already made significant progress: increasing the removal of failed asylum seekers, reducing unfounded applications by 72 per cent since their peak in 2002, cutting illegal immigration and speeding up asylum decisions.
 
“The Immigration and Nationality Directorate needs to be more visible and equipped with the right skills and powers to conduct its work effectively. The valuable views of frontline staff have helped shape this reform and I want to bring together the resources, increased powers, new technology and increased visibility required to transform our border service. We will take away the barriers currently preventing deportation of those who should no longer have the right to call the UK home. I want to see asylum claims dealt with more quickly and effectively and ensure that Britain continues to be able to attract people to work here who have the skills we want and the skills we need.
 
“There is no overnight solution, but work has begun and we are already taking action to improve our services and restore public confidence. These are outline proposals, some of which will require consultation in the coming months. I hope that with the continued hard work and commitment of the Directorate, we will be able to deliver a more effective, efficient and robust service - that the public and Parliament rightly expect.”

Director General of IND, Lin Homer said:

 “The proposals we have published today are the culmination of a thorough examination of the immigration system. The input from staff has been invaluable, we have consulted several thousand and have talked directly to more than 600 immigration officers, caseworkers and managers.
 
 “I am committed to helping steer IND through this exciting new chapter in its history and look forward to implementing the objectives set out here for improving our processes, developing information and management system, strengthening our regional and international links and becoming a more visible presence of reassurance to the public.

 “It is important to remember that one of the most important inputs to the review of IND has been the views of staff across the organisation and I want to acknowledge all the effort that has gone into the review alongside all the other challenges facing the directorate. Across IND, a large number of people have been working extremely hard - and continue to do so - addressing some of the difficulties we face and helping shape our plans for change.”

Notes to Editors:

1. The Immigration and Nationality Directorate’s reform plan, Fair, Effective, Transparent and Trust: Rebuilding Confidence in our Immigration System, is available at: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/ind-review-250706 (new window)
2. An external audit of progress in delivering the reform will be conducted in December and annually thereafter.
3. In his letter to the Home Secretary of 15 May, the Prime Minister set out a number of priorities for the Home Office. The Home Secretary, in his statement to Parliament on 23 May, identified five key areas for improvement in the Home Office: performance; services; leadership and skills; problems of fragmentation and silos, exacerbated by weak communications; and systems and processes.

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