Summary
The Points Based System for immigration which considers workers for their level of skill was designed well overall but could be vastly improved, especially in regards to value for money.
The report 'Immigration: the Points Based System - Work Routes: Home Office - UK Border Agency’ (HC 819) highlights the system’s shortfalls and makes a number of recommendations on how it could be improved.
The Points Based System was introduced by the UK Border Agency in 2008 and scores migrants against a number of assessment criteria, including their skills.
The System considers three levels of skill with conditions of entry to the country and assessment criteria based on qualifications. It appears to have attracted skilled applications, although the evidence is not robust.
The system has so far worked effectively to meet the needs of employers although a third of sponsoring employers surveyed wanted to recruit more skilled foreign workers than they were able to.
Sponsors and migrants often struggle to get the information and assistance they need and one-fifth of all sponsors would pay an additional charge to receive better customer service.
The Agency needs to improve its management of information. At present, it lacks the ability to identify easily individuals whose visas have expired and it does not do enough to check that migrants leave the UK if they have no right to remain. While it has some contact details for an estimated 181,000 failed applicants overall, the Agency cannot be sure how many have left the UK.
Poor information systems are also undermining the ability of the Agency to manage the risk that sponsors are failing to comply with immigration rules. It rates as compliant some 96% of its 22,000 sponsoring employers but is unable to say how many it has visited to confirm this.
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