HO on planned changes to nationality casework process (!)
Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 3:37 am
Must-read for anyone applying for citizenship in 2015: Home Office published their responce to the Chief Inspector's criticism of naturalisation casework, which received so much media coverage before Christmas.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... sework.pdf
From reading this document, we can see what can change in HO's "back office" processing of naturalisation applications in the coming months. Some notable changes would really be changes in caseworking procedure, and not require any legislative process -- yet, they may have significant impact on individual outcomes, depending of course on each applicant's circumstances.
The original report (http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/w ... rt-web.pdf) which was subject to so much speculation, critisized HO naturalisation casework on five major points, some of which Home Office promised to address:
(1) that a huge reliance was placed on self-declaration, eg -- apparently -- in the present procedure, unless applicants declares financial problems, CCJs etc, checks are not made to detect them;
***********HO responds with promise to introduce credit history checks on pilot basis within 6 months. This can have potentially disastrous consequences, first of all of course because credit bureau data is full of mistakes, duplicates, inconsistencies and utter falsehood -- because that system was never designed to carry out government functions. Second, nothing good ever comes of outsourcing any bits of government functions to private companies (think G4S etc). ***********
(2) That no attempt is made to verify applicants' criminal history in "home country". Certificates were not required and self-admissions were never followed up to verify circumstances.
This is of course a reference to the fact that generally, unlike US and many others, UK does nto require criminal hstory certificates from countries of prior residence at any point during immigration process.
This is a policy problem rather than application problem -- Daily Mail reports about "100,000 murderers receiving citizenship in error" make it very hard to understand, but there is no suggestion here that any error has occurred, really. Vine's report is full of emotional but legally un-qualified remarks, such as "one applicant previously admitted fleeing his country after stabbing a man, which is absolutely unacceptable". There is no mention of reasons and circumstances in which the stabbing occurred (which could have been in self-defense etc).
***HO responds by saying that , while they do not intend at this stage to start requiring foreign criminality certificates, **ANY** self-admission by an applicant of a foreign conviction or trouble with the law will now trigger a refusal, even if it cannot be verified **** AND **
*** applicants' original paper files from previous applications will now be recalled to be reviewed manually during citizenship consideration, in recognition that CID -- the caseworking database -- contains incomplete and often inaccurate information about contents of those files. This can spell major delays IMHO. ***
(3) That referees were never checked.
**HO responds by saying that they will within a few months introduce automatic PNC -- eg criminal history checks -- for referees. This means that any referees that have court fines etc may become disqualified. This can have major impact on ability to find referees and of course you do not really know many of your potential referees history to be able to predict what can turn up!*****
(4) That some applicants who have "poor immigration history" and particularly "history of non-compliance with immigration rules, illegal working etc" were given citizenship. This is a ridiculous complaint of course, as people who are given citizenship at that stage already have permanent residence and so all their prior immigration history problems will have been resolved at ILR stage.
****However HO now says that
(a) where people have history of illegal residence, overstaying, illegal working that will, if within qualifying period, mean that they will not meet the residence requirements, Previously, it would have been possible to meet party of qualifying period with irregular residence, plus of course there are people who violate rules inadvertedly, for instance who filed an application for extension and it was rejected as invalid, or whose asylum claims were denied unjustly and who were later granted DL. These people will all have to wait longer. Those where immigration non-compliance was historic, it will have impact on their character suitability profile.
(b) new risk profile system will be develop to target some naturalisation applicants for character suitability interviews. historic non-compliance with immigration rules will cause applicant to be so targeted ******
(5) that, in cases where deception was later "detected" that had been successfull on original application and citizenship was granted , decisions have been often made afterwards to not pursue cancellation or deprivation of citizenship, allegedly out of embarassment --as Vine thinks -- that HO had been originally deceived. The real reason of course may lay in that HO has most often no proof of any kind of such deception in most cases, and certainly not enough to sustain a major action such as de-naturalisation.
***HO now says they will return to these cases and pursue deprivation. This is quite major, as many people involved in "these cases" may potentially have no idea, especially if allegations were made anonymously against them or inferred from public domain etc etc. ****
My further analysis and answers to your questions at http://www.noadvertisingspammer.org.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... sework.pdf
From reading this document, we can see what can change in HO's "back office" processing of naturalisation applications in the coming months. Some notable changes would really be changes in caseworking procedure, and not require any legislative process -- yet, they may have significant impact on individual outcomes, depending of course on each applicant's circumstances.
The original report (http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/w ... rt-web.pdf) which was subject to so much speculation, critisized HO naturalisation casework on five major points, some of which Home Office promised to address:
(1) that a huge reliance was placed on self-declaration, eg -- apparently -- in the present procedure, unless applicants declares financial problems, CCJs etc, checks are not made to detect them;
***********HO responds with promise to introduce credit history checks on pilot basis within 6 months. This can have potentially disastrous consequences, first of all of course because credit bureau data is full of mistakes, duplicates, inconsistencies and utter falsehood -- because that system was never designed to carry out government functions. Second, nothing good ever comes of outsourcing any bits of government functions to private companies (think G4S etc). ***********
(2) That no attempt is made to verify applicants' criminal history in "home country". Certificates were not required and self-admissions were never followed up to verify circumstances.
This is of course a reference to the fact that generally, unlike US and many others, UK does nto require criminal hstory certificates from countries of prior residence at any point during immigration process.
This is a policy problem rather than application problem -- Daily Mail reports about "100,000 murderers receiving citizenship in error" make it very hard to understand, but there is no suggestion here that any error has occurred, really. Vine's report is full of emotional but legally un-qualified remarks, such as "one applicant previously admitted fleeing his country after stabbing a man, which is absolutely unacceptable". There is no mention of reasons and circumstances in which the stabbing occurred (which could have been in self-defense etc).
***HO responds by saying that , while they do not intend at this stage to start requiring foreign criminality certificates, **ANY** self-admission by an applicant of a foreign conviction or trouble with the law will now trigger a refusal, even if it cannot be verified **** AND **
*** applicants' original paper files from previous applications will now be recalled to be reviewed manually during citizenship consideration, in recognition that CID -- the caseworking database -- contains incomplete and often inaccurate information about contents of those files. This can spell major delays IMHO. ***
(3) That referees were never checked.
**HO responds by saying that they will within a few months introduce automatic PNC -- eg criminal history checks -- for referees. This means that any referees that have court fines etc may become disqualified. This can have major impact on ability to find referees and of course you do not really know many of your potential referees history to be able to predict what can turn up!*****
(4) That some applicants who have "poor immigration history" and particularly "history of non-compliance with immigration rules, illegal working etc" were given citizenship. This is a ridiculous complaint of course, as people who are given citizenship at that stage already have permanent residence and so all their prior immigration history problems will have been resolved at ILR stage.
****However HO now says that
(a) where people have history of illegal residence, overstaying, illegal working that will, if within qualifying period, mean that they will not meet the residence requirements, Previously, it would have been possible to meet party of qualifying period with irregular residence, plus of course there are people who violate rules inadvertedly, for instance who filed an application for extension and it was rejected as invalid, or whose asylum claims were denied unjustly and who were later granted DL. These people will all have to wait longer. Those where immigration non-compliance was historic, it will have impact on their character suitability profile.
(b) new risk profile system will be develop to target some naturalisation applicants for character suitability interviews. historic non-compliance with immigration rules will cause applicant to be so targeted ******
(5) that, in cases where deception was later "detected" that had been successfull on original application and citizenship was granted , decisions have been often made afterwards to not pursue cancellation or deprivation of citizenship, allegedly out of embarassment --as Vine thinks -- that HO had been originally deceived. The real reason of course may lay in that HO has most often no proof of any kind of such deception in most cases, and certainly not enough to sustain a major action such as de-naturalisation.
***HO now says they will return to these cases and pursue deprivation. This is quite major, as many people involved in "these cases" may potentially have no idea, especially if allegations were made anonymously against them or inferred from public domain etc etc. ****
My further analysis and answers to your questions at http://www.noadvertisingspammer.org.uk
plus 20 for biometric we need an extra 120 ....