UK Immigration News

The United Kingdom's Home Office has finally published a controversial report about immigration from the European Union. The Report, 'Review of the Balance of Competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union is said to have been suppressed for four months by senior members of the government.

The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has issued a report into the workings of the UK's asylum and immigration system and has found that, eight years after a massive backlog of 450,000 'lost' cases was discovered, the Home Office still does not know the whereabouts of 175,000 people whose applications to remain in the UK have been refused.

On Friday 18th July, Isabella Acevado, a Colombian national, was arrested on the steps of Haringey Town Hall in north London moments before her daughter was due to be married.

According to an eye witness, fifteen immigration officers and several police burst into the room where the marriage was due to take place. Mrs Acevado and her brother were then arrested and removed from the building.

The UK government has wasted £350m on a new IT system which was designed to manage immigration and asylum applications, according to a recently published report by the UK government's National Audit Office; which conducts value-for-money audits on public bodies.

The Immigration Case Work system (ICW) was commissioned in 2010. There were numerous problems with ICW. For example it did not interact with other government networks. It was abandoned last August. The government has since commissioned an alternative system which will cost a further £200m+ by 2017.

The UK's Home Office has announced a new visa for Chinese maths teachers. The government announced plans to bring around 60 maths teachers from Shanghai to work in the UK in March. The teachers will be expected to train British maths teachers in 'maths hubs'.

The government is concerned at the poor performance of UK students in maths and of the general level of innumeracy in the UK population. An educational lobby group, National Numeracy, warned earlier this year that poor numeracy among UK citizens is costing the country around £20bn per year.

The UK's passport service is in 'total crisis' according to an anonymous whistle blower who works for the service.

There have been concerns about the service since June this year when the BBC carried reports of delays in processing of applications causing some people to miss travel dates.

The UK Passport and Visa Service aims to process a first-time passport application within six weeks and a replacement passport application within three weeks.