Case study

UKvisas - iVisas programme

IT programme enhances UK security worldwide

UKvisas (the body responsible for the issue of visas to enter the UK) chose PA Consulting Group to help update its business processes and IT infrastructure and meet new security challenges after 9/11. PA’s partnership with UKvisas helped improve national security while saving £2 million a year in administration and a further £3 million in reducing asylum claims.

The programme tightened the vetting of visa applications worldwide. It created a new central database holding data about all visa applications anywhere in the world, to make it much easier to detect and intercept suspicious applications. UKvisas’ customer service has been streamlined and the central database enables customer enquiries to be answered more quickly.

Given the short timescales and global reach of the programme PA had to build on what was already working well rather than take the technically less challenging route of starting from scratch. Working closely with civil servants, PA deployed a multi-skilled team who understood programme delivery and the global visa business. Unusually for a public sector assignment, they presented ‘try-before-you-buy’ programme options, allowing Ukvisas to make fully informed choices about where to spend its money.