Ukba Number Crunching

[7by7]

Asylum and immigration cases which a parliamentary committee has accused the UK Borders Agency of “dumping”

Number of UK Borders Agency staff the government is “dumping” because of cuts

Bonus which suspended UK Borders Agency boss Brodie Clark got last year anyway

Private Eye

[bobrussell]

At least the £15K bonus was tiny compared to other organisations! It suggests a lot of targets were missed!

[theoldgit]

Certainly an above average bonus for a Civil Servant, it's more than 10% of his salary.

There are many myths about Civil Service salaries an pensions.

I suspect we have not heard the last of Brodie Clark,

[bobrussell]

I think Mr Clark is going to say quite a lot of uncomplimentary things about his ex-boss!

The UKBA is in a mess, has always been in a mess and will remain in a mess until a government is willing to spend sufficient money on good staff, good IT. How can a country have safe borders if we don't know who is coming in and who is leaving?

Much of the work at the borders can be done before a passenger lands. There are lists available from the minute a plane takes off! High risk flights can be targeted but how difficult can it be to scan passports on arrival and departure? I have never understood the need for landing cards when all the details can be on a computer even before checking in!

I suspect there have been a lot of IT consultants being paid large amounts of money to create computer systems that need consultants to keep running! Supermarkets process people very rapidly, control thousands of items and get amazing amounts of sales data from the information. This is real number crunching and the UKBA should learn a few labour saving lessons to allow their staff to concentrate on dealing with high risk situations.

The UKBA and subsidiary the UK Border Force are still unfit for purpose and I pity many of those working for them!

[theoldgit]

I think you are right Bob, Brodie will have a lot to say about the various Minister and maybe even the new CEO of the UKBA, who has only been post five minutes.

I don't know the full circumstances behind this latest issue, but I know Brodie to be a very maticilous and risk averse individual, and I doubt very much if he shoulder all the blame.

The UKBA have spent millions of Pounds on IT, think e-borders, the trouble is it's not a joined up system. They had similar IT problems years ago when, as the Immigration Service, everything was computerised, that system was abandoned.

I also pity many of the staff still in post, it's a very unhappy place to be right now, job cuts, pay freezes and the like. Another googlie is that many of the managers are ex HMRC from when the UKBA were formed, very good with Customs issues but no idea about Immigration.