Immigration: Overseas Students
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce data gaps and time-lags in information sharing between universities and UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI); and what assessment she has made of the impact of those delays on the ability of higher education institutions to monitor compliance and intervene in a timely manner ahead of the implementation of Business Case Analysis (BCA) changes.
Answered by Mike Tapp
The Home Office works closely with higher education institutions to support compliance with the Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA), which is an annual assessment of sponsor performance. Sponsors have been responsible for monitoring their own in-year performance against the BCA metrics since its introduction in April 2015, when it replaced the “Highly Trusted Sponsor” status.
Two of the three metrics that form the BCA are based on data sponsors report directly to the Home Office and can therefore use to monitor compliance and identify where recruitment practices may need to improve. The Home Office continues to explore opportunities to enhance GDPR-compliant data-sharing with sponsors, and in 2025 introduced new mechanisms relating to refusal data.
The Home Office continues to explore further opportunities to strengthen data sharing in line with data protection principles and support sponsor compliance.
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