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Enough is enough! Theresa May breaks up 'troubled' UK Border Agency and returns power to Home Office after immigration backlog which would take 24 years to clear
- Home Secretary Theresa May condemns 'troubled organisation'
- Two new bodies to deal with visas and immigration law enforcement
- But leaked memo reveals all the same staff will do 'same job for same boss'
- A backlog of more than 320,000 immigration cases has built up
- Home affairs committee says hardly any progress made to clear backlog
- Chairman Keith Vaz backs putting 'UK Backlogs Agency' out of its misery
By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor
PUBLISHED:09:21 EST, 26 March 2013| UPDATED:12:02 EST, 26 March 2013
The dysfunctional UK Border Agency is be be broken up after a string of scandals, Theresa May announced today.
The Home Secretary told MPs she was returning responsibility for controlling immigration to the heart of the Home Office after a backlog of 300,000 immigration cases built up which would take 24 years to clear. She said performance of the agency was 'still not good enough' and has been a 'troubled organisation' since it was set up in 2008.
But the impact of the shake-up was undermined when a leaked memo revealed the two new unites would be in staffed in 'the same place with the same colleagues for the same boss'.
Theresa May told MPs the UK Border Agency had been a 'troubled organisation' since it was set up
The move comes after a damning report yesterday branded the agency 'not fit for purpose' and expressed astonishment that its former head Lin Homer had been promoted to run HM Revenue and Customs despite overseeing a huge backlog in asylum cases.
The Home Affairs select committee revealed it had been given incorrect information about the scale of the crisis for six years.
Mrs May said: 'The agency has been a troubled organisation since it was formed in 2008 and its performance is not good enough.
'In truth the agency was not set up to absorb the level of mass immigration that we saw under the last Government.
'This meant the agency has never had the space to modernise its structures and systems and get on top of its workload.'
She said its 'sheer size' meant it had conflicting cultures and it suffered from a 'lack of transparency and accountability'.
'It will take many years to clear the backlogs and fix the system, but I believe the changes I have announced today will put it in a much stronger position to do so.'
UK Border Agency has been heavily criticised after it emerged backlog would take 24 years to clear
Two new bodies, one dealing with immigration and visas and the other with immigration law enforcement, will replace the UKBA but both will be based in the Home Office instead of being arms' length agencies.
Keith Vaz, the Labour MP who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, said: 'The Home Secretary has done the right thing in putting the UK Backlog Agency out of its misery.
Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill told staff they would be doing the same job for the same boss
'The organisation is not fit for purpose. However, this cannot be an excuse not to clear the backlogs, which stand at a third of a million cases.
'Ministers are now on the front line. Proper accountability and scrutiny of our immigration system must continue, and it will need effective and strong leadership if the Home Office is serious about having a fully functional immigration system.'
The committee yesterday warned that border officials require 24 years to clear their backlog of 320,000 immigration cases. Incompetence and foot-dragging was blamed for the sheer number of claims – the equivalent of the population of Iceland.
However, the head of the Home Office has played down the significance of the changes, telling staff they will 'still be doing the same job in the same place with the same colleagues for the same boss'.
In a leaked internal memo, Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill said: 'We are a complex organisation, but we need not be quite so complicated or bureaucratic.'
He added: 'Most of us will still be doing the same job in the same place with the same colleagues for the same boss and with the same mission to keep Britain's streets safe and our borders secure.'
Surprisingly there was no mention of the shake-up in David Cameron's keynote speech on immigration yesterday, when he instead focussed on curbing benefits, health and housing rights for migrants arriving in Britain.
Mrs May said she had been planning a shake-up for some time, despite not being mentioned in David Cameron's keynote speech on immigration yesterday
FIVE MISERABLE YEARS OF FAILING TO GET TO GRIPS WITH IMMIGRATION
The UKBA was created in 2008 to replace the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in the Home Office, a department which was already in chaos, with asylum claims piling up, and staff badly demoralised.
It emerged some 450,000 asylum cases had not been dealt with but left in boxes at the Home Office.
The shake-up that led to the creation of UKBA was meant to clear up the mess and stop similar scandals happening in future.
But history repeated itself: Nearly 400 of the 1,000 foreign prisoners were told they could stay in Britain and dozens remained untraced.
More than 100,000 of the 400,000 asylum seekers were allowed to stay, which MPs said in effect amounted to an ‘amnesty’.
Around 500,000 Eurostar passengers boarded trains in France and arrived in the UK without being checked against the warnings index of suspected terrorists.
Border security checks were also suspended regularly and applied inconsistently from 2007 onwards.
In February last year, Theresa May hived off the UK Border Force, which is responsible for frontline controls at air, sea and rail ports, from the wider UKBA.
But in November last year, John Vine, the independent chief inspector of the UKBA revealed that thousands of immigrants were allowed to stay in the UK without undergoing proper checks because of a mountainous backlog of cases.
At one point 100,000 pieces of post were unopened and some 14,000 applicants had already been refused the right to stay but were still pleading with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to reconsider.
An additional 2,100 cases - shipped in a box from an office in Croydon to Sheffield - were still waiting for an initial decision at the time of the inspection with some dating back a decade.
In a scathing report, the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday said it would take the UKBA 24 years to clear through a backlog the size of the population of Iceland of asylum and immigration cases.
However, Labour's Yvette Cooper said: 'The Home Secretary is right to say there are problems at UKBA and it has had a series of problems over many years.
'And we would have some sympathy with your proposals but the trouble with the proposals is you are simply refusing to recognise problems around enforcement and effectiveness at UKBA have got worse and not better on your watch.
'Enforcement has got worse, delays have got worse, 50% fewer people are being refused entry at ports and borders and you said the number of illegal immigrants removed does not keep up with the number here illegally - that's because you're letting rather more of them in,' the shadow home secretary added.
Last year the government hived off the UK Border Force, which is responsible for frontline controls at air, sea and rail ports, from the wider UKBA.
The move came after it emerged that hundreds of thousands of people had been let into the UK without being checked against a Home Office watch list.
Mrs May told the Commons: 'Since 2010 the Government has been getting to grips with the chaotic immigration system we inherited.
'We have introduced a limit on economic migration from outside the EU, cut out abuse of student visas and reformed family visas. As a result net migration is down by a third.'
She went on: 'But the performance of what remains of UKBA is still not good enough.
'The Agency struggles with the volume of its casework, which has led to historical backlogs running into the hundreds of thousands.
'The number of illegal immigrants removed does not keep up with the number of people who are here illegally.
'And while the visa operation is internationally competitive, it could and should get better still.'
But unions condemned the move as a kee-jerk reaction to recent criticism.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: 'As we saw yesterday from the prime minister, the debate about immigration has for too long been based on myths not facts, with staff used as a political football.
'Instead of burying their heads in the sand, ministers and senior managers should accept that they can not run important public services on a shoestring budget with so few staff.'
In a blistering report, the home affairs committee said the army of foreign criminals on the streets was growing, with the total now almost 4,000.
The audit into the work of the UK Border Agency, which was dubbed not fit for purpose six years ago, found 321,726 outstanding cases involving immigrants.
These include 28,500 current asylum cases, 4,000 immigration cases and 181,541 people placed in a so-called Migration Refusal Pool.
The pool comprises migrants who arrived legally but cannot now be found after their work or study visas expired. Officials say many of the migrants will have gone home – a view disputed by the MPs, who say the lack of proper border checks may mean ‘tens of thousands’ are still here.
They were highly critical of the slow pace at which officials are clearing the backlog. Between July and September last year, it was reduced by only 3,430 – or 1 per cent.
This is despite officials writing off 74,000 cases held in the separate ‘asylum controlled archive’ over that period.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, welcome the moved to close what he dubbed the 'UK Backlogs Agency' but shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed things had got worse under the coalition
Ms Homer was yesterday accused of a 'catastrophic failure of leadership' on securing Britain's borders.
Her disastrous tenure in charge of the UK Border Agency lead to a huge backlog of hundreds of thousands of immigration cases.
But astonishingly she emerged unscathed and was rewarded with promotion through the civil service and is now in charge of HM Revenue and Customs.
The powerful home affairs committee yesterday said they were ‘astounded’ she was considered suitable for the job of collecting the nation’s taxes.
Mr Vaz hit out at 'incompetent' Mrs Homer receiving £20,000 in bonuses despite leaving the UKBA in a 'worst position' than when she started.
There were also signs ministers were finally losing faith with the mandarin.
Criticism: Lin Homer went from the Border Agency to a £180k HMRC role
A senior Whitehall source said: ‘There are increasing concerns from ministers as to why there are no penalties for poor performance in the civil service. Instead what we have is a “promotions-all-round” culture.
‘There needs to be penalties for the worst performers and better career paths for those who are doing well. If someone has a terrible track record of delivery, should they really be being promoted?
‘The civil service does not do talent management properly.’ The select committee accused Mrs Homer of repeatedly misleading MPs and called for Parliament to be given greater say over appointing of top civil servants.
The MPs said: ‘It is shocking that after five years under Lin Homer’s leadership an organisation that was described at the beginning of the period as being not fit for purpose should have improved its performance so little.
‘Given this background, we are astounded Mrs Homer has been promoted to become chief executive and permanent secretary at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.’
In a damning indictment of her abilities, the MPs say they can 'have little confidence in her ability to lead HMRC at what is a challenging time for that organisation'.
It points out that the woman oversaw a huge backlog in immigration cases at UKBA has since admitted that her new department at HMRC left 1million letters unanswered throughout 2012.
Mr Vaz said that letters sent by Mrs Homer to the committee were 'frankly incompetent' and he had to 'introduce her to pie charts and graphs' to ensure the information was accurate.
Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘Taxpayers are sick to death of senior civil servants presiding over failure only to move on without being held to account for their past actions.
‘At worst Whitehall rewards the incompetent with payoffs or promotions, at best it just shuffles them sideways.’
But Mrs Homer has written to MPs saying: ‘It is wholly inaccurate and unfair to seek to ascribe responsibility to me for matters of concern that occurred long after I left the agency.’
The controlled archive was created to hold what remains of Labour’s asylum backlog. It was intended to hold cases that had not been concluded, so they could be reopened if the person was traced.
UKBA officials had been tracking them down – but decided to abandon those they couldn’t find. Critics say it amounts to have an effective ‘amnesty’.
The Border Agency has awarded a £30million contract to outsourcing firm Capita to help track illegals. It began work in October.
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