Given that it is an election year and that immigration is high on the public agenda, there is a good chance that "good character" requirements will be considerably tightened in the New Year. His recommendations include citizenship interviews and getting a police report from the home country of the applicant.
The full report is available to read at http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/w ... rt-web.pdf. Page 7 lists the recommendations, which look highly likely to be accepted.
The press have gone to town on this report.
Daily Mail - Revealed: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants 'waved through' UK border with no checks... including convicted KILLERS
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... LLERS.html
The Telegraph - The 'unacceptable' mistakes made by border officials http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... crats.html
As an aside, page 9 of the report above has this extremely revealing paragraph
3.6 In the calendar year 2013, Nationality Casework had an income target of £127m and achieved in actual income of £152m. Due to the value of British citizenship to the successful applicant, the application fee (£906) was significantly higher than the associated administrative costs to the Home Office (£144). This also helped to reduce fees for other application types, to support wider government objectives.
but okay thanks for that information.
But the worst case scenario is if these records are denied to them for whatever reason. I hate thinking about this...