Mr P's request for confirmation of his indefinite leave to remain in the UK
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Background to the complaint
Mr P (a Jamaican citizen) was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in May 1990. He obtained a new Jamaican passport in 2004 (as his previous one had been destroyed), and in July he asked the UK Border Agency (the Agency) for a No Time Limit (NTL) stamp on his passport to confirm that he held indefinite leave to remain. He enclosed the fee of £155. The Agency asked Mr P for confirmation of his indefinite leave to remain, but he replied that he had lost all the correspondence about that. He asked the Agency to sort matters out quickly as he wished to visit his mother who was ill in Jamaica. The Agency rejected Mr P’s NTL application, as he had provided no evidence of having been granted indefinite leave to remain and the Agency held no record of it either. They returned his passport and papers, but not his £155 fee.
In February 2005 Mr P submitted a new indefinite leave to remain application, on the grounds that he had resided in the UK for 14 years. The Agency returned it, saying that he had not paid the £155 fee. Mr P resubmitted the application with proof that he had paid the fee in 2004. In May 2005 the Agency wrote to Mr P, noting that he had not paid the £160 fee (which had just increased from £155). He promptly resubmitted the application and paid the increased fee. Also in May, the Agency told Mr P that they aimed to decide his case promptly, at most within 13 weeks, and finally refunded the fee of £155. In July 2006 Mr P asked the Agency to return his passport duly stamped. He said he still wanted to visit his mother who remained ill, and that he had been unable to attend the funerals in Jamaica of his father and sister because the Agency had his passport.
In January 2007 the Agency apologised to Mr P for not updating him sooner on the progress of his indefinite leave to remain application. Mr P replied that he had not applied for indefinite leave to remain, but for a stamp on his passport to confirm the leave he had been granted in 1990, and stressed again the urgency of his case. In April and May 2007 the Agency asked Mr P to complete a questionnaire to help them to determine his lawful entry to the UK, and also asked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office if they held an overseas visa application for Mr P. In July the Agency told Mr P that they had rejected his applications for the NTL stamp and for indefinite leave to remain, and served him with a notice that he was liable to be detained and removed from the UK. He unsuccessfully appealed this decision. In October Mr P’s solicitors submitted a new indefinite leave to remain application, on the basis that Mr P had lived continuously in the UK for more than 19 years, and enclosed the £750 fee.
In November 2007 an Agency official emailed another seeking a ‘brief look’ for any file holdings on Mr P. These enquiries uncovered Mr P’s original Home Office paper file which contained clear evidence of his entitlement to indefinite leave to remain. In February 2008 the Agency finally returned Mr P’s passport, endorsed with his indefinite leave to remain status.
What our investigation found
While it was not the Agency’s fault that Mr P had no proof of his indefinite leave to remain status, they ought to have dealt with his case far better. From the beginning the Agency failed to ‘get it right’. While they may have followed their own procedures in checking their computer database and checking with UKvisas, they did not take the obvious step of checking their paper records. That small error ultimately led them to threaten Mr P with removal from the UK.
The Agency lacked customer focus in their dealings with Mr P. They did not always pay attention to the details of his correspondence, failing to appreciate that he was applying not for a grant of indefinite leave to remain, but for confirmation that it had already been granted. They also failed to respond appropriately when Mr P described to them the impact of their delay on his normal family life. The Agency’s attempts to ‘put things right’ were particularly poor: they did not recognise their errors until Mr P had been put to the trouble of approaching his Member of Parliament, writing to the Prime Minister, and complaining to the Ombudsman. The Agency’s errors were so stark that they ought to have recognised them far earlier.
The injustice to Mr P
For three-and-a-half years Mr P was unable to exercise the rights that the indefinite leave to remain gave him. He missed two family funerals, was unable to visit his mother when she was ill, and was wrongly threatened with removal from the UK, which caused him and his family considerable distress and anxiety. The impact of being told by a government agency that you have no right to reside in the country that is rightfully your home must have been immense. The Agency also caused Mr P unnecessary expense in that he felt compelled to engage a solicitor, and paid £750 for an application that should not have been necessary.
How we resolved the complaint
We upheld Mr P’s complaint. The Agency apologised unreservedly to Mr P for mishandling his case and for the distress and inconvenience caused. They also offered to consider compensation and agreed to refund the £750 application fee. However these measures did not, in our view, recognise the full impact of the Agency’s maladministration on Mr P. We recommended that the Agency also: refund all the legal fees Mr P incurred after he first approached them in 2004; refund his £750 fee, with interest; refund the £5 difference in fees (as they had not dealt properly with his first application); consider any other expenses that Mr P incurred as a result of their maladministration on production of supporting evidence; and pay him £2,500 in recognition of the severe distress, inconvenience, great uncertainty and embarrassment they caused him and his family.
