Capot wrote:
The places are awful, especially, but not only in BAA airports, which is not the fault of the UKBA. It is up to the airport to supply the place in which UKBA personnel work. It can supply a pleasant, cheerful, well-lit, spacious environment, capable of handling large variations in flow without seriously incoveniencing the airport's customers provided that UKBA does its job well and supplies sufficient staff when required.
UKBA does do it's job, it is legislatively bound to it's role and there's no getting out of it with all the oversight that it is applied from the Agency Inspector, the IPCC and prison inspectors amongst others. Where it does not do it's job, it is a matter of public record and that record is easily searchable by anyone who cares to look.
Here's one for you:
Heathrow Detention Facilities Criticised
Here's something else from an open source in direct response to a queuing criticism;
Manchester Airport aims to reduce passport queues
Such articles and reports are easily available, they show the oversight and response we are required to give and submit to. The example are endless.
What they do not cover is the
lack of communication from the operator to the UKBA, new routes introduced with minimum notice, an ongoing lack of attention to the working environment that IO's work in and a general level of contempt towards the apparent inconvenience that the lawful execution of an essential national security strategy seems to cause to the commercial operation of the port.
There are things that should be self evident to some of the port management 'professionals' that purport to know what they are doing;
1) Nothing from international can land without a border control facility in place.
2) The law says you need to provide a space in which to do border control.
3) And this is separate to every other bit of your operation, your operation fails without this in place ergo you build your operation around it.
I've lost count of the number of times people have tried to re-enter immigration halls I've worked in to complain to us that baggage has yet to appear an hour after they've passed through. All your apparently 'overqualified' management course attendees have legged it. The contempt with which airports treat their 'customers' is obvious to us.
You keep mentioning better management and management courses, to what end though?
We know what we must do lawfully, we know how to do it, we are more than happy to work with you but you need to engage honestly and for the long term. You need to be mindful of our REQUIREMENTS.
This is an ongoing issue.
*The responses that purport to show a lack of tolerance with my position are becoming rather tiresome too, I have debated this in good faith and all I get is several people alluding to the fact that I must be stupid not to understand the points several people have made here. Let's be very clear here, I work in this field and all I've given is a subjective view. If you can't handle the opinion then don't bother to engage with me and crack on with your view, tolerance is a two way process and I'm still trying despite some of the nonsense being written here.