The UKBA (United Kingdom Border Agency) have been facing critism for their performance in the past month. Attached below are 3 news articles from the BBC alone making mention of large queues at London Heathrow for the pending Olympics, unfairly dismissing African visa applications, tourist visas being a deteriant in UK tourism.
As a consultancy that offers solutions to UK visa needs, we would like to clarify that it is not the UKBA to blame for this poor performance. The current ruling party, lead by Damian Green, are in a tough position not being able to turn the table on their open door policy with the EU (which is really where Brits are really loosing out on their “job” opportunities).
Instead all Mr Green can focus his attention on is the non EEA members (nationals from South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand are now facing the rejecting of this first world country). Applying consistent changes with strict qualifying criteria to our nationals is all that has been done to try show the people of the United Kingdom that he is trying to create job opportunities for them. Another false political promise one might wonder?
Our limited interaction with the UKBA here at Move Up has only exposed us to interaction with Pretoria’s Entry Clearance Officials. In our experience, we have found the UKBA to be fair and consistent in their decision making on our South African applications. Further to this we realise that the consistent visa changes have processing implications on their staff members which is not being taken into consideration.
“More importantly, we would like to point out to South Africans that there are currently major processing delays in Settlement visa applications at the moment. I am pretty sure the new Settlement changes are to blame.” says Ryan Rennison, Move Up’s Director. “Point based and birth right applications are slightly delayed, when compared to 2011’s average 7 working day processing time. At the moment visiting South Africans are faced with an average of 10 workings days, Ancestry has slown down to 15 working days and Settlement applications are practically on hold increasing their time to an average of 45 working days.” Ryan continued.
If you are looking to find out more about UK visas, please feel free to contact Move Up.