The most recent meeting with the UK Border Authority (UKBA) on the implementation of the points based immigration database took place this morning. It has been over a year since I was first involved in discussions about the implementation and although there have been several meetings with the Border Authority in the intervening time, this was the first one I had attended where progress has been made.
The higher education sector will be the biggest users of the system processing the largest volume of migrants. In spite of this, the initial proposals from UKBA did not include any bulk upload facility for the sector. This has now been addressed with a proposal now on the table. The discussions focused on this proposal and the possibility of two other interfaces emerged during those discussions.
There is still plenty of work to be done. The interfaces between systems need to be specified and the suppliers need to be brought on board. There are still issues that require addressing and some of these have the potential to be showstoppers. However, progress is being made.
Tags: immigration, MIS
