Cardiff University states student visa delays could cost £200,000

Delays in processing visa applications for international students could cost Cardiff University £200,000, the institution has claimed.

The University is concerned that 1,000 students’ applications may not be processed in time for the start of the 2019/20 academic year due to a shortage of available visa appointments during the summer.

Cardiff has been critical of a suggestion made by the Home Office that it should establish an additional visa centre on campus to facilitate the application’s made by Cardiff University students.

Concerns that visa applications for international students could be delayed until after the start of the new academic year are due to changes made to the process for completing the biometric element of visa applications.

The collection of biometric data – fingerprints and a passport-style photo – for visa applications must take place at government approved application centres.

Six new enhanced service were opened throughout May and June to provide extra capacity for customers

– Home Office

The Home Office-approved centre in Cardiff, Cardiff UK Visa and Citizenship Application Service, is one of six centres in the UK which provides free appointments. There are additional offices run by Sopra Steria on behalf of the Home Office in Newport, Llandudno and Cardiff which charge a fee.

The Home Office claims that the average waiting time for a free visa appointment in Cardiff is two days.

Many students, who are due to start English language courses in the autumn, now face the choice of upgrading their application to the more expensive “priority” option, or travel across the UK for an appointment elsewhere, the university said.

Cardiff University said that a Home Office official has suggested that it could pay a private organisation to provide the biometric service as an “in-house pop-up” provision to Cardiff students, which – it predicted – could cost the university between £150,000 and £200,000.

Jo Stevens, MP for the constituency of Cardiff Central, said that it was “obscene” for the Home Office to suggest that Welsh universities should “fit the bill” for a “problem of the Home Office’s own making”.

Any solution must come at zero cost to [UK] universities, or students themselves

– Jo Stevens MP

“Any solution”, Mr Stevens added, “must come at zero cost to [UK] universities, or students themselves.”

Cardiff University said that “international students will not receive the required visa until late into their studies unless they pay to upgrade their applications or the institution engages a separate outsource company at a significant cost”.

It said this was “a serious failure by the Home Office and Sopra Steria which needs immediate attention to rectify.”

In response, the Home Office stated to the BBC: “We continue to work closely with Sopra Steria to ensure appointments are available at sites across the UK – including two in Cardiff.”

It added that “six new enhanced service were opened throughout May and June to provide extra capacity for customers.”

Sopra Steria responded to the university’s claims that a pop-up service for Cardiff students would cost £200,000, saying that comments made by the university are “entirely unsubstantiated.”