It's just sadly a fact of life that many Government departments (and not just in the UK) still work with pen and paper. Sure they have computers and will use them for cross checking and to record results but generally everything else is done with pen, paper and rubber stamps.z18runway wrote:... But UKBA has one database if at all they are in different department.
Also, its likely that what database systems they do operate are holding information collected over a number of years. Some of the older stuff (eg past applications) might not record the same detailed information collected more recently. Put simply, they don't trust computerised information which may be incomplete or entered incorrectly.