Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many UKVI applicants have waited longer than the estimated 10 days to receive their biometrics residence permit after a positive decision in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.

While a delay in receiving the Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) may make accessing public services more difficult for all customers, since 20 January 2021 the standard pre-delivery email to customers has included their BRP number and guidance on how to use the online right to work and right to rent services to prove their entitlements.

We are also investigating the possibility of including National Insurance Numbers in the same message to further assist customers.

Data relating to correspondence performance is published here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-november-2020

We are currently unable to break this down into complaints specifically related to BRP delays.

UVKI does not hold figures relating to the number of customers who have waited longer than 10 working days to receive their BRP after a positive decision between 2018 and 2020.

However, it does have service level agreements with its production provider the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) and its secure delivery provider FedEx which took over the contract in February 2020. Prior to this, DX held the contract.

The DVLA has a target of producing 90% of BRPs within 24 hours of receiving the production request and 100% within 48 hours. It achieved the following:

FedEx and DX both had a target to attempt first delivery for 99% of BRPs within 48 working hours of collection of the BRP from DVLA.

DX consistently met this target during the years it had responsibility for the contract. For financial year 2020 to end December 2020 FedEx were achieving 94.4%. UKVI is working closely with FedEx to improve this performance and an improvement plan is in place to achieve this.