Post
by Jeff Albright » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:33 am
The suggestion was based personally on my own experience from the three different situations. I shall explain why.
MPs have to follow specific channels for their enquiries. These are usually slow due to too many MPs writing and too few workers allocated to deal with MPs enquiries at MP correspondence section. The 2005 statistics was that 30 days minimum waiting before the MPCS would look into the correspondence. MP address their correspondence to "FAO Section Manager" etc, i.e. they have no clue where they are writing to. It means that their correspondence will end up in a pile of letters, which will be waiting its turn to be allocated to someone to deal with.
When dealing with this yourself, you decide how to act and you are not limited by any instructions. You can write to one department, to another or contact any person at BIA including Assistant Directors. All of them will willingly help you and deal with your enquiry. It has been confirmed. They ACTUALLY DEAL with it personally or pass it on to their assistants for immediate action.
Furthermore, if you deal with your problem yourself, you get more respect from the BIA staff because you show that you are actually committed yourself in resolving the matter rather than waiting for someone to do it for you. It is another reason why your enquiry is dealt with quicker.
Very few people know about Customer Focus Team of Appeals Directorate, which has just been recently formed separately from the main BIA Complaints Unit. The people who work there address matters very fast.
To my knowledge, MPs have no clue about it.
My recommendations are therefore in the order of decreasing efficiency:
1. Deal with it yourself by approaching the relevant unit directly, contact the Assistant Director or SEOs of the unit or their secretaries.
2. Write to Customer Focus Team (former INDCU) with non-appeal related complaints, and to Customer Focus Team of the Appeals Directorate with all the queries regarding appeals.
3. Involve MP
