The Unity Project shares analysis of the data on Change of Conditions (CoC) applications included in the UK Visa & Immigration Transparency Data, which is published quarterly.
In Q3 of 2024, CoC decision making has slowed to a crawl, meaning that applicants living in destitution face unprecedented and unlawful delays, while the case backlog has grown by 50% in just one quarter.
1046 applications were submitted in Q3 2024
- Application submissions have been gradually trending up since 2022 and this trend has continued: in Q3 there were 104 more applications made than in Q2.
- This is the first time since Q2 of 2021 that over 1000 applications were submitted in a single quarter.
1577 applications were pending at the end of Q4.
- At the start of Q4 the backlog was 954 applications, so it has increased by over 50%.
- The Home Office only processed 423 applications in total this quarter, or around 32 per week. At the start of the covid lockdown, in mid 2020, the Home Office processed over 2,000 applications per quarter.
92% of applications made in the quarter are still pending.
- This is dramatically worse than the figure from Q2 (80%), already a record low.
The current average decision time for applications made in 2024 is now 64 days.
- As we predicted, this is an increase on the figure from last quarter (59 days) and it will increase substantially once the application backlog has been processed.
- Decision times have doubled since 2018.
- This month, the High Court declared the Home Office’s system for deciding ‘Change of Conditions’ applications unlawful, finding that it breaches Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that the Home Office “does not have an adequate system in place to reduce, to a reasonable and proportionate minimum, the risk of inhuman and degrading treatment” caused by decision making delays.
The enormous backlog means that it is not yet possible to infer the actual success rates for the most recent quarters – we will have to wait until the applications have been processed. However it is clear that success rates are continuing to trend downwards.
Age of applicants – the number of applicants who are over 60-years-old has been steadily increasing, from around 4% of all applicants in 2020 to almost 9% in 2024. We have also noticed this trend in our casework. Age can create additional difficulties for those with NRPF, including the likelihood of health conditions or disabilities, inability to (find) work, technological barriers, reliance on younger family members for support and other factors.
