| Heavily criticised UK Border Agency to be scrapped Mar 26th 2013, 21:25 No-one thinks it's any good, but whether bringing its functions back within the Home Office will be an improvement is doubtful. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21941395 Quote:
Last year, Mrs May announced that the UK Border Force - responsible for day-to-day operations - would stop being part of the agency and become a separate law-enforcement body.
Addressing the House of Commons, the home secretary said the improvement in performance of the Border Force since the split showed the benefits of having smaller, more focused structures.
She said: "But the performance of what remains of UKBA is still not good enough. The Agency struggles with the volume of its casework, which has led to historical backlogs running into the hundreds of thousands.
"The number of illegal immigrants removed does not keep up with the number of people who are here illegally. And while the visa operation is internationally competitive, it could and should get better still."
Mrs May said: "UKBA was given agency status in order to keep its work at an arm's length from ministers. That was wrong. It created a closed, secretive and defensive culture."
She said a board would be formed to oversee all the organisations in the immigration system - immigration policy, the Passport Service, Border Force and the two new entities...
...The agency was created in 2008 by the merger of the Border and Immigration Agency, UKvisas and parts of HM Revenue and Customs.
This followed Labour Home Secretary John Reid's 2006 declaration that the Home Office's immigration directorate was "not fit for purpose".
The UK Border Agency is responsible for securing the UK border at air, rail and sea ports and migration controls, such as the issuing of visas.
It employs the full-time equivalent of 23,500 people across the world, including 13,100 in the UK.
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