Home Office response to report on inspection of visit visa operations
Published 20 April 2023
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The Home Office response to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report: An inspection of visit visa operations
The Home Office thanks the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) for his report “An inspection of visit visa operations”.
Work is already underway to take forward the recommendations in this report to ensure that relevant changes are made, and the recommendations are incorporated into the operational approach of the Department.
Four recommendations (2, 3, 4 and 5) of the five recommendations have already been implemented, with recommendation 1 due to be implemented by the end of April 2023.
The Home Office is grateful for the recognition that the Complexity Application Routing Solution (CARS) was generally accurate in routing work and that the Inspectors are satisfied overall with our approach to equalities, noting the high quality of the Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) and the good analysis of the available statistical data. The Home Office was also pleased the report recognised that ethical issues identified in the previous Streaming Tool have been ‘designed out’ in CARS and that Liverpool and Croydon were good places to work with staff who felt supported by their managers.
The Home Office also appreciates the flexibility of the ICIBI in reviewing the other concerns raised as part of the factual accuracy response.
The Department has accepted all five of the ICIBI’s recommendations.
Recommendation 1
Review the ‘interim’ status of the Complexity Application Routing Solution (CARS) and declare the Home Office’s long-term intentions
Accepted
This recommendation has been accepted and will be implemented shortly. The Home Office has now moved to implement the Complexity Application Routing Solution permanently and will update gov.uk to reflect this when the next iteration of the guidance is published which is anticipated by the end of April 2023.
Recommendation 2
Ensure that all components of CARS are routinely reviewed, particularly equality impact assessments and risk profiles
Accepted
This recommendation has been accepted and implemented. The Home Office undertook an analysis of the risk profiles and supporting Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) immediately following the inspection and identified no changes were required as the supporting evidence and analysis supporting the profiles justified all profiles remaining in place. As a result, all the review dates were refreshed. In January 2023, the Home Office reviewed its processes for reviewing risk profiles and EIAs to ensure these are completed in line with the recommended dates.
Recommendation 3 - Implemented
Conduct a review to ensure that the CARS tool reflects the full range of known immigration risks to the UK and that a mechanism exists to incorporate new and emerging threats into the tool in a timely manner
Accepted
This recommendation has been accepted and implemented. The Home Office has introduced a fortnightly CARS governance meeting to review the ongoing performance and effectiveness of the tool and critically the introduction of new profiles. Profiles are developed from harm data analysis and emerging risks identified by intelligence colleagues. The Home Office is also in the process of developing an emerging risk framework, to identify emerging risk much earlier in the process which is planned to be implemented by May 2023. The Home Office recently undertook a review of the existing CARS tool in December 2022 during which new immigration risks were identified and existing ones updated. We will continue to regularly review the CARS tool to ensure it reflects the full range of known and emerging immigration risks in a timely manner.
Recommendation 4
Cease the use of routing, decision-making and enrichment practices, including unassured information sources such as ‘Enrichment OneNotes’, that are not compliant with policy. Managers should provide decision makers with solutions that are compliant with policy
Accepted
The recommendation has been accepted and implemented. The Home Office is committed to following published policy. Reminders have been sent to all staff which highlight the importance of following only the published guidance and any local guidance intended to compliment published guidance must be sighted to and agreed with central policy teams prior to implementation to ensure they are compliant with current published policy. We will continue to regularly review local practices to ensure adherence to published policy.
Recommendation 5
Improve the existing first-line assurance regime to cover all operational grades and processes, with a focus on routing and decision quality
Accepted
This recommendation has been accepted and implemented. Since the inspection, the Home Office has refreshed the first line assurance framework for visits which was published to caseworkers under an operational instruction on 16 March 2023. We will continue to work with all stakeholders and operational teams to regularly review our approach and test current assumptions to drive further improvements in assurance.