Media report that private-sector “bounty hunters” win contract to find more than 170,000 overstayers listed on UKBA's Migrant Refusal Pool
Capita plc have won the contract to find more than 170,000 migrants who have overstayed their visas, news media have reported.
BBC News reports that the chief executive of the UK Border Agency Rob Whiteman told MPs at a Home Affairs Committee hearing yesterday that Capita would be paid by results in a deal worth up to £40m.
"Capita will be paid for the number of people they make contact with, and leave, and that's purely on a payment by results basis. If nobody leaves because they make contact with them, nobody will get paid," Whiteman was quoted as saying.
The Telegraph dubbed Capita "bounty hunters" and noted that the so-called Migrant Refusal Pool of 174,057 to be tracked down by the firm is a list of all of the workers and students who have been refused leave to remain in Britain after their initial visas expired, and who therefore may be living here illegally.
According to the Telegraph, the list does not include those who entered the country illegally or failed asylum seekers.
The Guardian reported that Capita was brought in after a pilot scheme with another private firm Serco found 20% of those migrants contacted left the UK within six months, according to Whiteman.
The Telegraph says that Capita will contact the people on the Migrant Refusal Pool list by letter, phone, email and text message, but will not visit them in person. Capita will then try to help them get the correct travel documents and flights to return to their home countries. If an overstayer refuses to leave, Capita will tell UKBA.
According to BBC News, Labour's Keith Vaz warned that Capita would be "laughing all the way to the bank" after apparently being awarded a contract with no actual performance targets.
MP Chris Bryant said: "The whole point of a payment by results contract is that you define success for it before it starts ... but UKBA doesn't seem to have any idea of what would constitute a success."
The asylum and immigration charity ASIRT says that UKBA’s record keeping is demonstrably inaccurate and warns that some people UKBA claims to be overstayers, with no legal basis to remain in the UK, actually have ongoing claims to remain in the UK under consideration by UKBA.
ASIRT says it is presently representing one such family of 5 from Pakistan who have been advised that there is no record of them having submitted any application for consideration since a refusal in 2004, and that they should take steps to leave the UK.
Yet ASIRT says it is in possession of 3 other pieces of correspondence from different departments within UKBA (from 2011 and 2012) acknowledging receipt of applications for leave to remain in the country.