Home Office signs £3m assisted digital deal as immigration transformation ‘may exclude customers that are not online’ – PublicTechnology

As campaigners have reignited calls for government to reverse plans to wholly digitise the immigration status system, the Home Office has signed a contract to help offline users make applications

The Home Office has signed a multimillion-pound contract covering the delivery of digital support for those applying for immigration status that might otherwise be excluded from online services.

The department is in the process of delivering a wholesale digitisation programme, with the ultimate aim being to eliminate all physical immigration documents by the end of next year.

As more and more elements of the immigration system move to digital provision, the Home Office “has an obligation to provide an assisted digital service that ensures its online services are accessible to everyone”, according to a newly published procurement notice.

To provide such a service the department has signed a three-year deal with specialist provider We Are Digital. The training and support firm has previously worked with the department to support applications for the EU Settled Status (EUSS) scheme and the Windrush compensation programme.

In this new and expanded engagement, will “help non-digital applicants make a visa or EUSS application online” via UK Visas and Immigration digital tools.

“Applicants must still be able to apply for a visa, whether they are online or not,” the procurement notice added. “As UKVI digitises more products and services, it is acknowledged that this process may exclude customers that are not online and that these customers will need support to ensure that the services remain accessible to them.”

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The contract between the department and We Are Digital comes into effect on 1 September and is expected to be worth about £3.4m over the course of its 36-month term.

The Settled Status programme – which received more than six million applications – was the first part of the immigration system to provide recipients with solely digital status. By the end of this year, the Home Office plans to phase out all physical biometric residence cards by the end of 2024 – and all other immigration documents within a further year.

Throughout the process of implementing the scheme for EU nationals, onlookers including parliamentary committees and civil society groups have repeatedly counselled government against the dangers of an entirely digital regime – including multiple warnings that such a system risks creating “another Windrush”.

Last year, further “grave concerns” were raised about the functioning of the settled status system, after it was discovered the Home Office might have wrongly issued benefits payments to tens of thousands of people as a result of a data error.

With a new government having taken power, a group of 76 organisations – including human rights charities and expert lawyers – last week issued an urgent call for the Labour administration to reverse plans to equip the UK with an entirely digital system of granting and demonstrating immigration status.

“EU citizens and family members under the EU Settlement Scheme were treated as guinea pigs, as the first to be issued with digital-only status. The planned roll-out to all migration routes by the end of 2024 must be halted,” said a joint letter to prime minister Keir Starmer. “This system is not fit for purpose and chaos will ensue in 2025 if changes aren’t made now. Digital status is inaccessible to many, and recent media reports have shown that the underlying Home Office data systems are seriously compromised.”