Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-09-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the feasibility of processing applications for registration certificates and residence cards through an online system; and if she will estimate the potential savings in administration costs to the public purse of such a system.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Data on the total number of EEA related applications made by people in the UK is published on a quarterly basis as part of the Migration Transparency Data release. The latest published figures (Q2 2016) can be found in the table ‘Temporary and permanent migration data’. See tab InC-01a. This data can be accessed via the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-and-permanent-migration-data-august-2016

With regards to the online processing of EEA applications, UK Visas & Immigration is undertaking a programme of transformation of which digitisation is a core part. UKVI is working towards digitising all application routes from existing methods of applying by paper for applicants from within and outside of the UK. The intention is to enable customers to apply online across the services and immigration routes in a straight-forward and customer-focused way.

The online application service Access UK first launched for visit visa customers in China in June 2014, and has subsequently been rolled out to 180 countries globally for overseas visit routes in more than 15 languages. For those already in the UK, Access UK has launched for customers applying for tier 2 (work) and tier 4 (study) extensions and is preparing for further services to go online. UKVI is currently trialling the online service for some EEA applicants. As the programme matures we expect benefits to security, customer service and efficiencies to be identified and realised.