An informant working for the British Home for Ukraine scheme revealed that he and his colleagues “do not know what we are doing” and said the scheme was “designed to fail” to limit the number of people entering the UK.
Amid criticism of the number of Ukrainians so far in the UK, an insider revealed that confusion, poor morals and a lack of guidance mean that employees recruited under the scheme often resort to “fabricating” their response to cases.
Employees working on the aid line for the scheme – introduced after widespread outrage from the UK government’s initial response to Ukraine’s refugee crisis – revealed they had received only three hours of training without further assistance and said any complaints or suggestions for improving the system she was greeted with silence.
“We don’t really know what we’re doing,” said the source, who works for a private company responsible for processing Ukrainian refugees’ documents. “The system seems to be designed for people to fail. They want to keep the numbers. Everything they do feels as if they are doing it. I even had a lawyer and lawyers on the phone who said they couldn’t understand the system.
The informant questioned official government figures on Ukrainian refugees, saying the statistics gave the impression that ministers were more generous than they really were.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had dealt with a number of cases in which UK visas had been issued to an entire Ukrainian family, with the exception of one child who had virtually stopped the family from traveling to the UK.
“This allows the government to say that we have issued many visas. However, since they detained one, this is a guarantee that Ukrainians will not travel, “the source said.
The informant said he had encountered four or five cases each day in which one child in the family had not been allowed to travel, a model he thought was “too much of a coincidence” not to be encouraged.
A government source said family applications were “usually processed together”, but the cases varied in complexity and that there were protective processes in place to protect children from trafficking.
The latest government figures show that 40,000 visas to the UK have been issued under the Homes for Ukraine scheme since it was launched five weeks ago – but in fact only 6,600 Ukrainians have arrived.
A sponsor who offered a place in his home for a mother and daughter from Borodyanka, a small town north of Kyiv that was devastated during the Russian invasion, told the Observer that the child had not yet received his visa a month later.
Katerina Lysenkova, who is also a volunteer helping Ukrainians arrive in the UK, said they applied for a visa for the couple on March 21 and although the mother received one “quickly”, the daughter was not and both were blocked in Poland.
Hours after the Observer brought the case before the government last Friday, the daughter was allowed to travel to the UK. On Saturday, British sponsors described being “out of their minds” after a Ukrainian mother who was due to stay at home received a visa, but her children, including a four-year-old daughter, were left to wait.
Protesters in Trafalgar Square this month. The government has been criticized for the number of Ukrainians it has admitted to the UK so far. Photo: Vuk Valčić / Shutterstock
Lysenkova said she was aware of 700 applications under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which have not yet been answered, many of them since the scheme was launched.
The revealer was hired by the Paris-based multinational company Teleperformance, which also owns consular services company TLScontact. The latter was criticized for promoting paid services for Ukrainians applying for visas.
The source, who has been working on the scheme’s hotline for a month, said: “So far, I have had two phone calls from crying Ukrainian women who say their experiences have made them feel unwelcome by the UK government and that’s why they don’t want to come here anymore. It’s hard when you hear that. “
He claims that calls from potential sponsors and candidates for the Home for Ukraine scheme rarely appear to have been recorded.
“I’ve received a call since I’ve been here, out of hundreds, probably thousands, that said ‘record’ before the man came in,” the source said. “I worked on the lines of Covid 119, where everything was recorded.
“The Covid line was much more structured: there was a very fixed set of rules, with a lot of information about us. We have no information on the Ukrainian line.
However, he said Teleperformance was not entirely to blame for the problems with the Ukrainian scheme, as the company essentially operates according to UK government specifications.
“Teleperformance is the customer. Just do whatever is asked of them. “
But he said all the complaints to the company’s management seemed to have been ignored: “We get a zero response and if there is an attempt to change or improve it, we are certainly not told about it. Communication does not exist. “
The result of the mood among the staff, the source said, is disappointment.
“Colleagues I spoke to feel the same way. We all feel quite irritated, “he added.
The scheme’s hotline aims to guide applicants through the sponsorship process and help them enter the data needed for a successful outcome. However, the government has the final say on who will receive a visa and will be allowed to enter the United Kingdom.
A government spokesman said a total of 71,800 visas had been issued in combination with Ukraine’s family scheme, with 21,600 Ukrainians arriving in the UK.
They added: “We process thousands of visas a day – this shows that the changes we have made to streamline the service are working and we will continue to build on this success so that we can speed up the process even more.”
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