Suspension of immigration officials symptomatic of 'wider malaise'

7 Nov 2011 10:58 AM

Commenting on news the head of the UK Border Force and other senior immigration officials have been suspended, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said:

"These latest allegations of poor management, added to recent criticism of backlogs in casework, are symptomatic of a much wider malaise at an agency in disarray.

"The UK Border Agency seems to operate a culture of no dissent, with staff afraid to speak out about the damaging impact of politically-motivated cuts and the problems they're causing that are now bubbling to the surface.

"Rather than deal with the very serious issues we have consistently raised, senior managers and ministers have instead tried to silence the union. Two of our senior reps were sacked last year after leading the opposition to cuts in UKBA.

"We would welcome a wide-ranging inquiry, not just into the specific issues that have led to these suspensions, but also into the way UKBA as a whole is being run.

"It should now be obvious to everyone that the government needs to put an immediate stop to the cuts in UKBA and invest in staff and resources to ensure this pattern is not simply repeated."

Cuts in UKBA

Since October 2010, 2,300 jobs (around 10% of the workforce) have been cut from UK Border Agency, with another 3,000 planned to go by 2014/15. This includes 500 already cut from UK Border Force and plans to cut 500 more by 2014/15.
Between April 2010 and October 2010, 1,500 jobs were cut from UKBA, including 370 from the border force.

Read PCS's alternative to the cuts

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