This idea that the State, the all encompassing government, can aid and help us in these complex moments of life? That they’ve got the power, the will and even the ability, to solve difficult things?
A “completely unacceptable” UK Border Agency backlog of more than 16,000 applications from migrants for permission to stay in Britain, some of them dating back almost a decade, has been uncovered by the chief inspector of borders and immigration.
John Vine says the backlog includes 14,000 people who are married to British citizens but whose appeals were put on hold while UKBA sorted out a policy to deal with them. The chief inspector says this marriage backlog was rising at the rate of 700 a month when he carried out his inspection last September.
He also raises “particular concern” over an extra 2,100 cases of temporary migrants in Britain who have not even had an initial decision on their applications to extend their stay in the country.
Vine says the files in these “complex” cases, which go back to 2003, were discovered in boxes that had been transferred last March from a UKBA unit in Croydon to their offices in Sheffield where they had not been dealt with at the time of the inspection.
They’re not actually capable of getting a bureaucrat to read a file. Something which should be about as difficult as persuading a pig to rootle in the mud. I mean, this is what they are for, this is what bureaucrats do. Read files.
So the argument in favour of letting these fuckwits run our health care system, education system, economy, is what?
20 responses so far ↓
1 bloke in france // Jan 24, 2013 at 11:25 am
It must be pretty easy to check on how many of these 14,000 couples are kosher. Some of them must be drawing multiple child benefit by now.
2 Arnald // Jan 24, 2013 at 11:29 am
Weren’t alot of the processes outsourced?
3 roym // Jan 24, 2013 at 11:56 am
how long since the border control/immigration function of the home office was deemed ‘not fit for purpose’?
how many re-organisations have there been in response to hysterical shrieks from the media/commentators?
4 Emil // Jan 24, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Arnald: the boxes are in the UKBA’s care, even if the process of reading them had been outsourced it must still be the work of the UKBA to get the files to the people that should read them
Not to talk about the fact that outsourcing seems to work pretty well for a lot of companies and when it doesn’t things will be brought back in-house ASAP. Just shows how poor the government is even at running tenders for outsourcing stuff. (something that will be confirmed by anyone who has ever been involved in responding to government tenders, in the UK or elsewhere)
5 Tim Almond // Jan 24, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Boxes? That’s hilarious in this day and age.
6 SimonF // Jan 24, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Arnald // Jan 24, 2013 at 11:29 am
Weren’t alot of the processes outsourced?
By bureaucrats and just because something is outsourced it doesn’t absolve the organisation doing the outsourcing from overall responsibility.
It shouldn’t have needed the inspector to spot this problem.
7 Arnald // Jan 24, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Yep, not denying the points. It’s just the more times you pass on the ‘too difficult’ boxes, the longer they get left. Regardless of who it is.
It’s not peculiar to the public sector though. I do agree it’s pathetic.
8 Mr Ecks // Jan 24, 2013 at 3:31 pm
Much more common in the public sector tho’. If private companies screw up they tend to get shit-canned(unless they are contracting for the state, when they get “extensions” and “renegotiations” from the senior bureaucrat who gave them the contract ’cause the said bureaucrat doesn’t want any heat on his/her arse).
9 cuffleyburgers // Jan 24, 2013 at 6:32 pm
Good god, I agree with Arnald – I’d better go and lie down.
Or perhaps he should.
10 CJ Nerd // Jan 24, 2013 at 9:06 pm
“Some of them must be drawing multiple child benefit by now.”
And some of those might even have children.
11 Philip Scott Thomas // Jan 25, 2013 at 12:00 am
@Arnold
Seriously, mate, you could have a career as a comedian. The laugh quotient is enormous.
Weren’t alot of the processes outsourced?
Really? “alot”? At what school were you educated?
And, of course, the other day you actually used the word “imagineering”. And yet you think we should trust you as a judge of literary quality.
I’m still laughing, so well done you.
12 John Galt // Jan 25, 2013 at 8:05 am
@Philip Scott Thomas:
Please don’t pick on Arnald’s language skills, it most be remembered that Arnald is a foreigner on Guernsey’s fair shores, so English probably isn’t his first language, it’ll be French, German, Italian or (highly unlikely I would have thought) Romansh.
That’s what happens when you allow dodgy foreigners on our shores, dependencies, dominions and Bailiwick’s.
No doubt I will now be subject to an offensive riposte from our itinerant Channel Islander. Such is life…
13 Arnald // Jan 25, 2013 at 9:58 am
PST
alot is a simple typo
imagineering, however, is a word
“the implementing of creative ideas into practical form. ”
And you can’t spell my name.
14 Arnald // Jan 25, 2013 at 11:02 am
Galt tried, “..it most be remembered..”.
15 John Galt // Jan 25, 2013 at 11:25 am
Indeed it most be Arnald, must definitely.
You’re being very polite today I notice. Is it that Friday feeling?
16 Arnald // Jan 25, 2013 at 11:34 am
I am polite alot of the time. Mustly.
17 John Galt // Jan 25, 2013 at 11:49 am
Well I will avoid trying to antagonise you then. Have a nice day Arnald, whatever it may bring.
18 Arnald // Jan 25, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Thank you very much, and to you too.
19 CHF // Jan 25, 2013 at 12:58 pm
The boxes probably contain the ton of detailed documentation that’s demanded, especially since they related to appeals; in order for it not to be read, apparently.
Why are we paying for all this?
They should simply repeal the Nationality Act provision that stopped automatic citizenship on marriage.
20 john77 // Jan 25, 2013 at 9:24 pm
@ CHF
That was a consequence of a previous error that effectively abolished the insurance bit of “National Insurance”: if NHS, unemployment benefit, old age pensions etc reverted to being conditional on the guy’s (i.e. claimant’s or husband’s) contribution record, Labour would never have had a reason for all that racist legislation.
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