Disappointing Independent Chief inspector report

[Obie]

A disappointing report on the UKBA European applications section was released today.

Only 20% of registration Certificate application were dealt with within their target of 20 days, when EU law says they should be issued immediately.

Also nearly 40% of residence Card applications were decided after 6 months.

It is quite a damning report indeed.

Independent Inspector report on European application

[Hubba]

It really tells something that the foreword of the document doesn't mention at all these breaches. Only the good ol' rethoric that there's a lot of abuse going on.

[rosebead]

Report says there are a high amount of refusals down to supposedly "sham" marriages. What the report doesn't tell you is how caseworkers come to such a conclusion and on what basis. I don't trust the judgement of caseworkers, not when I've seen so many laughable errors in law and mistakes in many refusals that I've read about. If you look at the bar graph in the report, it looks like nearly half of all registration certificate and residence card applications were rejected in the last 2 years. I am so sure that these extremely high numbers of rejections were all correct, of course (not).

[Hubba]

Report says there are a high amount of refusals down to supposedly "sham" marriages. What the report doesn't tell you is how caseworkers come to such a conclusion and on what basis. I don't trust the judgement of caseworkers, not when I've seen so many laughable errors in law and mistakes in many refusals that I've read about. If you look at the bar graph in the report, it looks like nearly half of all registration certificate and residence card applications were rejected in the last 2 years. I am so sure that these extremely high numbers of rejections were all correct, of course (not).

I do trust their judgement on such cases, but I don't trust the statistical relevance of their report. First, the sample size:

4.6 The 180 cases comprised 60 applications each for:

• • registration certificates split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office;
  • residence cards split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office where no marriage/civil
  partnership interview had been scheduled; and
  • residence cards split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office where a marriage/civil
  partnership interview had been scheduled

.

During the analysed period (April to September 2013), 29,442 applications were processed. This means that the sample corresponds to 0.61% of the total. Besides this, the sample is biased towards cases which where refused. For registration certificates, only 22% of the cases were refused, but the sample is composed 50% of refused cases.

For residence cards, the analysis is even more biased. Besides the unbalance regarding issued/refused applications (only 41% of the applications were refused, whilst the samples contain 50% of refused applications), there's absolutely no data regarding the total proportion of refused applications where a marriage/civil partnership interview had been scheduled. There's also no data whatsoever pointing out what is the Issued/Refused proportion for cases where a marriage/civil partnership interview had NOT been scheduled (these would also encompass cases where the Non-EEA family member is not a spouse).

The statistic relevance of the sample they have taken is simply ridiculous. For registration certificates, the sample size would only allow for a confidence interval of +/-13%.

No wonder the system was on shambles before more people were poured in. They don't even know how to evaluate it properly. Or this is just what they want, some misinformation to stir up anti-immigration sentiment agaist the EU.

[rosebead]

Nearly half of all Residence Card applications were refused/rejected between April to September 2013. I would be so bold as to extrapolate from that to say that basically nearly half of all RC applications are currently being refused/rejected. I think that is a disproportionately high number of refusals/rejections and I am certain not every single one of those decisions were correct. You only have to sift through the thousands of posts on this board to read about the laughable errors and omissions that caseworkers make. For example failing applications because EEA workers weren't earning enough or EEA worker didn't have much in his bank account (this is against EU case law) or failing Surinder Singh applicants because the British sponsor did not have a job in the UK (this is both against Home Office policy and EU case law). I certainly don't trust every judgement of every caseworker.

[Obie]

Report says there are a high amount of refusals down to supposedly "sham" marriages. What the report doesn't tell you is how caseworkers come to such a conclusion and on what basis. I don't trust the judgement of caseworkers, not when I've seen so many laughable errors in law and mistakes in many refusals that I've read about. If you look at the bar graph in the report, it looks like nearly half of all registration certificate and residence card applications were rejected in the last 2 years. I am so sure that these extremely high numbers of rejections were all correct, of course (not).

I do trust their judgement on such cases, but I don't trust the statistical relevance of their report. First, the sample size:

4.6 The 180 cases comprised 60 applications each for:

• • registration certificates split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office;
  • residence cards split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office where no marriage/civil
  partnership interview had been scheduled; and
  • residence cards split evenly between issue and refusal by the Home Office where a marriage/civil
  partnership interview had been scheduled

.

During the analysed period (April to September 2013), 29,442 applications were processed. This means that the sample corresponds to 0.61% of the total. Besides this, the sample is biased towards cases which where refused. For registration certificates, only 22% of the cases were refused, but the sample is composed 50% of refused cases.

For residence cards, the analysis is even more biased. Besides the unbalance regarding issued/refused applications (only 41% of the applications were refused, whilst the samples contain 50% of refused applications), there's absolutely no data regarding the total proportion of refused applications where a marriage/civil partnership interview had been scheduled. There's also no data whatsoever pointing out what is the Issued/Refused proportion for cases where a marriage/civil partnership interview had NOT been scheduled (these would also encompass cases where the Non-EEA family member is not a spouse).

The statistic relevance of the sample they have taken is simply ridiculous. For registration certificates, the sample size would only allow for a confidence interval of +/-13%.

No wonder the system was on shambles before more people were poured in. They don't even know how to evaluate it properly. Or this is just what they want, some misinformation to stir up anti-immigration sentiment agaist the EU.

I believe UKBA can do with your sophisticated statistical knowledge and expertise.

Speaking for myself, I can say without hesitation that the report is not the most impressive of reports I have come across.

[GMB]

The one positive thing I saw was that the report chided the UKBA/UKVI for regarding the 6 month deadline for EEA2 applications as the norm rather than the extreme.