UK’s refugee visa civil servants still
HOME Office officials have denied that Ukrainian refugees are facing delays in receiving visas because of the number of civil servants still working from home.
It has been claimed the hold-ups are also being made worse by Covid-related absences among staff managing the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
So far, 20,100 UK visas have been given to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian onslaught.
The Home Office is operating two visa routes – the Ukraine Family Scheme, which permits refugees with relatives in the UK to enter, and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. This allows households to offer to host a bed to the exiled not previously known to them.
But the projects are reportedly suffering from “serious delays”.
A source alleged: “These are caused largely by staff shortages and working from home.”
The Home Office insists no UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) staff managing the family scheme are working from home.
Sickness
But it refused to deny officials on the wider scheme were not working in Government offices and insisted home working had “no impact on processing speeds”.
The Home Office did confirm UKVI was hit by “Covid-related absences”.The source also told the i News website: “I understand several hundred of the 7,500 UKVI staff continue to work from home.
“The staff shortage issue has not been tackled since before the pandemic and has just got worse because of Covid sickness, which has increased at just the wrong time for the refugees.
“When it comes to working from home, which lots of officials still want to do, there’s just not the full resources at home to allow the efficient processing of visas.
“Staff working from home are having to email colleagues in the office with queries and the response can be slow. These visas should be being processed in days. They are taking weeks.”
People opening their homes to refugees will receive a monthly Government payment of £350, while local councils would receive £10,000 for each Ukrainian sponsored by a household in their area.
Latest figures show 34,500 households have applied to bring refugees to the UK via the Ukraine Family Scheme, while more than 150,000 have applied to offer Ukrainians shelter under the
Homes for Ukraine Scheme. Those sponsoring refugees through the uncapped Homes for Ukraine need to commit to offering accommodation for a minimum of six months and – in England – to find people they wish to help independently.
The Welsh and Scottish governments have pledged to act as a “super-sponsor” which removes the need for applicants to be matched to a named individual before they are cleared to come to the UK.
The UKVI, which has 7,500 staff around the UK and overseas, processes around three million visa applications a year. But many families hoping to provide a room to Ukrainians have complained about the length of time the department is taking to grant visas.
A Home Office spokesman said: “All staff working to process the Ukraine Family Scheme visas are working from the office, so to suggest otherwise is completely false.
“Working from home also has
no impact on processing speeds. Our staff have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic and have continued to manage capacity, even with Covid absences. We are moving as quickly as possible to ensure those fleeing horrific persecution in Ukraine can find safety in the UK. We have streamlined the application process for Ukrainians so valid passport holders no longer have to attend in-person before
‘Papers should be processed in days – but take weeks’
arriving – and made changes to the forms to help people through the process as quickly as possible.”
US President Joe Biden met his troops in Rzeszow yesterday as part of a two-day visit to Poland.
He shared pizza and chatted with members of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division stationed at the airport. He said: “If you’re starting to eat, I’m going to sit down and have something to eat.”
Mr Biden – who has promised to take in up to 100,000 refugees – met Poland’s Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak and was due to have talks with President Andrzej Duda, whose country has welcomed two million. Mr Duda was delayed after his orignal plane returned toWarsaw with a fault.
The UK will provide £2million of food supplies to parts of Ukraine encircled by Putin’s forces. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “This will help support the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia’s barbaric invasion.”
Typhoon jets and RAF personnel will be deployed to Romania for a fourth year to join the Nato air policing mission for the Black Sea.