Date – 10th June 2009
To:
Amit Kapadia
Executive Director (Chairman)
HSMP Forum
From:
Jonathan Sedgwick
Deputy Chief Executive, UKBA
Dear Mr Kapadia
Thank you for your correspondence of 29 May and 1
June, regarding the implementation of the High Court judgment of 6 April
2009 .
You wrote to me about the fact that the remedies do
not make provision for those who applied for their initial HSMP approval
between 3 April 2006 and 7 November 2006 . I will come back to you
regarding this group in due course.
With regard to the difficulties that individual
applicant’s may be experiencing in obtaining appointments for our Public
Enquiry Offices, I’m afraid that this is due to a high level of demand
for the premium service which is affecting all types of applications. As
previously highlighted we have two dedicated teams dealing with postal
applications submitted under the ILR policy document which should allow
these applications to be considered promptly. I will continue to keep
this under review.
As you have highlighted, the terms set out in the ‘HSMP
Forum Ltd Judicial Review: Policy Document’ make it clear that any time
spent outside the UK directly as a result of the November 2006
Immigration Rules changes will be treated as contributing toward the
continuous leave requirement providing that individuals access the
remedies provided in this document. This is explained in the Immigration
Directorate Instructions,
Chapter 6a. Caseworkers will be able to
identify anyone covered by this provision from our own records and
because of this a separate letter was not considered essential. We took
the decision to issue letters to individuals for the purpose of deeming
ILR under the second set of remedies because these could not as readily
be identified from our electronic records.
It is the intention of the existing policy that any
application fee paid by an HSMP participant that would have not been
necessary but for the April 2006 Immigration Rules change will be
reimbursed. Where it is possible for these to be identified in the
course of considering new applications this will be done automatically.
However, where this is not possible an individual should raise this
through the proforma available on the UK Border Agency website. A number
of cases have been raised with us already and caseworkers have been
advised on how to handle these. It is anticipated that these numbers
will be small so we will continue to deal with them as they arise.
You have separately raised a couple of issues at
Heathrow and Glasgow and we would like to discuss these with you
directly. I have asked the Head of Border and Visa Policy, Andrew
Jackson, to get in touch with you.
Yours sincerely
JONATHAN SEDGWICK
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