Customers making immigration applications can no longer use Post Office branches to enrol their biometrics in the majority of cases. Most customers now enrol their biometrics at a UK Visas & Citizenship Application Service (UKVCAS) centre.<\/p>
The previous service offered by the Post Office was biometric enrolment only, whereas the new UKVCAS service brings together multiple services to make the application process more streamlined.<\/p>
The UKVCAS service is run by our commercial partner, Sopra Steria Ltd (SSL), who undertook market research to identify service locations; their research included the impact on customer travel time, cost and accessibility. The results of this were that 62% of customers will, on average, have to travel less than 25 miles to visit a core service point, with 78% travelling less than 50 miles.<\/p>
SSL can also cater for customers who wish to have more flexible, on-demand, mobile application services, for example at university campuses, employers\u2019 offices or individual customers\u2019 homes.<\/p>
As part of this contract SSL continuously captures and analyses customer feedback and reviews customer demand to ensure there is sufficient capacity. During May and June SSL opened six additional sites: Manchester, Cardiff, Exeter, Leeds, Sheffield and Edinburgh, with the view to open more.<\/p>