Paper Application Refusals under the EU Settlement Scheme

The request was refused by Home Office.

Dear Home Office,

Please provide the number of

-refusals
-cancellations
-withdrawals

for settlement under the EU Settlement Scheme fir paper based applications since 1 April 2019 to 20 October 2019.

Yours faithfully,

R.Brown

FOI Requests, Home Office

R. Brown,

Thank you for contacting the Home Office with your request.

This has been assigned to a caseworker (case ref 56130). We will aim to send you a full response by 25/11/2019 which is twenty working days from the date we received your request.

If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you,

P. Zebedee
FOI Requests
Home Office

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FOI Responses, Home Office

3 Attachments

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Dear Sir or Madam,

 

Please find attached a letter in response to your FOI request of 26
October.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

J Rushton

CCT FOI

Customer Performance and Improvement

 

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Dear Home Office,

I would be grateful if you could clarify it. Specifically, please can you explain what is meant by ‘cancellation’? It may also assist if you provide a brief explanation of your understanding of the term
‘withdrawal’.

Cancellation would result if a mistake in the application were found and not rectified. Also, the application could have been deemed incomplete by Home Office.

Withdrawal would result if the applicant asked the Home Office to stop considering the application prior to a decision having been made.

"In most cases, your outstanding immigration application will not be considered if you apply for the EU Settlement Scheme." https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-cit...

Yours faithfully,

R.Brown

FOI Requests, Home Office

Dear R Brown,

Thank you for contacting the Home Office with your request.

This has been assigned to a caseworker (case ref 56277). We will aim to send you a full response by 03/12/2019 which is twenty working days from the date we received your request.

If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you,

N McKenzie
Home Office

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Dear FOI Requests,

Per What do they know:

"Currently waiting for a response from Home Office, they should respond promptly and normally no later than 22 November 2019 (details)."

Yours sincerely,

R.Brown

FOI Responses, Home Office

3 Attachments

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Dear Sir or Madam

 

Please find attached a letter in response to your FOI request of 4
November.

 

Yours faithfully

 

J Slater

CCT FOI

Customer Performance and Improvement

 

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Dear Home Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's handling of my FOI request 'Paper Application Refusals under the EU Settlement Scheme'.

You have not addressed the following:
1.) Why it is not in the public interest
2.) Whether or not a fixed date has been set for publication
3.) Why you believe it is fair to exclude a group for which you have created separate application process, Zambrano carers.
4.) Whether or not you believe the public interest to be equally balanced or not. If not, why

To sum, in all the circumstances it is reasonable to withhold the information until its planned publication.

It is a qualified exemption and therefore public authorities must consider whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption is greater than the public interest in disclosing the requested information.

The intention to publish must pre-date the request. 

A general intention to publish some information will not suffice.

Your decision must be:
* sensible; 

* in line with accepted practices; and 

* fair to all concerned.

Where the public interest is equally balanced, the authority must disclose the requested information. 

In most instances public authorities will not be able to argue that information is too technical, complex or misleading to disclose, or that it may be misunderstood or is incomplete, because they can explain it or set it into context. 


A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Yours faithfully,

R.Brown

FOI Requests, Home Office

Dear R Brown,

 

 

Thank you for contacting the Home Office with your request for an internal
review.

 

This has been assigned to a caseworker (case ref 56277). We will aim to
send you a full response by 06/01/2020 which is twenty working days from
the date we received your request.

 

If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Thank you,

 

N McKenzie

Home Office

 

 

 

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FOI Responses, Home Office

1 Attachment

Dear R Brown

 

Please find attached our internal review response to your request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

 

Please accept our apologies for the delay in sending this response.

 

Kind regards

 

Information Rights Team

Knowledge and Information Management Unit

Performance, Assurance and Governance Directorate

Home Office | 2 Marsham Street | London SW1P 4DF

 

 

 

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Dear Home Office,

You write, "Thank you for your email dated 30 November 2019, in which you asked for an internal review of our response to your Freedom of Information (FOI) request for information on the EU Settlement Scheme."

Per What Do They Know, "If one takes longer than 20 working days then the authority should write and let you know, and it should never take longer than 40 working days (see this good practice guide). You will then either get the information that you originally requested, or you will be told that the review upholds the original decision."

You also write, "The Home Office response of 19 November 2019 explained that the information you have requested is intended for future publication and is exempt from disclosure under section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)...I can confirm that this exemption was correctly applied to withhold the requested data."

You then state, "My conclusion is that the original response was substantially correct, although in addition to section 22 it should have cited section 36(2)(c) for any requested information that will not itself be published."

You have not explained what information will not be published.

As such, your contention that, "This response has provided answers to the specific questions you have raised in your request for an internal review," is clearly false and misleading.

Is the requested information going to be published or not?

Why are you not going to publish some or all of the requested information?

What grounds do you rely on to not publish some or all of the requested information?

Why have you exceeded the response time by four months?

Why have you not responded to the earlier and currently outstanding internal reviews?

Furthermore with regard to not publishing the information earlier, you have not given adequate reasons. You explain why the results could not be published at the same time as the applicant data from EU citizens. You have not, however, explained the reason(s) for the extraordinary delay - even taking into account COVID-19.

Specifically, you write, "Zambrano carers are one of a number of cohorts of EU Settlement Scheme applicants who must apply using a paper application form rather than through the online application process. This is because by their nature they are more complicated cases which require a larger amount of supporting evidence."

The supporting evidence for Zambrano carers, is relatively straightforward.

For EU Settlement visas: "When you apply, you’ll need proof of: your identity and your residence in the UK, unless you have a valid permanent residence document, or valid indefinite leave to remain in or enter the UK."

For Zambrano carers: "When you apply you must provide: a current passport or other valid travel document, 2 passport size colour photographs of yourself and any dependants included in your application, birth certificates or other documents to prove your relationship to the person you’re the primary carer or child of, a passport size colour photograph of the person you’re the primary carer or child of, a certified translation of any documents that are not in English or Welsh.

Apply as a primary carer: If you apply as a primary carer, you also need documents about the person you care for. You must provide proof: of their current immigration status, for example their passport, birth certificate or adoption certificate they are dependent on you, for example court orders or care responsibilities, they are living in the UK, for example tenancy agreements, utility bills or bank statements, that ‘self-sufficient’ children who are European Economic Area (EEA) nationals are financially independent and have full health insurance in the UK."

Several groups complete immigration applications on paper. These individuals provide much more documentation than Zambrano carers. Those groups do not have to wait years to have their processing times reported.

As such, the extraordinary delay by the Home Office in releasing this data can not be viewed as rational or defensible. Your response letter is inadequate because it does not address basic questions nor does it deliver certainty that the information will be released by August 2020.

Yours faithfully,

R.Brown

FOI Requests, Home Office

Thank you for contacting the Home Office FOI Requests Mailbox.  

We will endeavour to respond within 2 working days.

If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to contact us.  

 

Thank you,  

FOI Requests Home Office

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FOI Responses, Home Office

Dear R Brown  

 

Thank you for your email dated 6 May regarding to the internal review
response for FOI 56277.

 

There is nothing further that we can add to the response we have already
provided.

 

If you remain dissatisfied with the response to your FoI request, you have
the right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as outlined in
Annex D of the internal review response.

 

Kind regards

 

Information Rights Team

Knowledge and Information Management Unit

Performance, Assurance and Governance Directorate

Home Office | 2 Marsham Street | London SW1P 4DF

 

 

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