IT faults hit Pakistan visa service

Damian Green said the Home Office recorded six major IT faults so far this year. They resulted in interruptions to the Pakistan visa service ranging from one to 38 hours. In all of 2009, there were 13 such incidents, disrupting the service for between one and 28 hours. This was a decrease on 2008, when the service was affected by 20 major IT incidents, with interruptions lasted between 15 minutes and 29 hours. However, there had been fewer such incidents in earlier years, with 14 in 2007 and only one major IT fault, lasting four hours, in 2006. The Conservative minister was responding to a parliamentary written question from Labour MP Gareth Thomas on 21 July 2010. Green said: "None of the above IT faults would have would have caused any significant delay to applicants who had applied in good time." On disruptions not directly related to IT failures, Green said that in March 2007 the service in Pakistan was suspended for two or three days for the introduction of in-house biometric enrolment at the high commission in Islamabad and the deputy high commission in Karachi. There was a further suspension for a week in September to allow the introduction of the "new commercial partner contract", which included biometric enrolment.