Immigration and asylum staff pay incentives and rewards
Published 7 January 2014
© Crown copyright 2014
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-and-asylum-staff-pay-incentives-and-rewards/immigration-and-asylum-staff-pay-incentives-and-rewards
In the Home Office, which includes former UKBA staff working in asylum and immigration, there are 2 reward schemes giving access to performance payments: a non-consolidated end-of-year performance related payment, and a special in-year one-off non-consolidated payment.
The end-of-year performance related payments are awarded to individuals at Grade 6 and below who have made an exceptional contribution throughout the year. This is linked to the annual appraisal process. At the end of the annual appraisal process, the performances of all members of staff are assessed against their peers at a series of validation panels. The guidance below is given to those assessing performance to establish if the achievement is sufficient to merit an award.
Special one-off non-consolidated payments can be paid to staff at Grade 6 and below at any time during the year for outstanding achievement on a particular project or piece of work. Additional annual leave can be awarded in the same circumstances as a special bonus.
In addition to the above, the Home Office also runs a ‘thank you’ voucher scheme in which staff can receive a £25 or £50 ‘thank you’ voucher. This is paid to recognise positive performance over a short period of time. An example might be successful delivery of a short term project, or someone exceeding their casework targets for a month.
Within UK Visas and Immigration and Immigration Enforcement, targets are used in the performance management process for case owners although they are obviously different in each business area. A range of performance measures, including the use of targets, are applied in business areas where appropriate to improve service delivery and performance and it is down to local management discretion to decide if, when these targets are met, a ‘thank you’ voucher is appropriate.
A new ‘employee of the month’ scheme was launched in August 2013 for Border Force, which recognises operational and non-operational staff of all grades who have made an outstanding contribution to delivering border security. Staff who are successfully nominated can receive £100.
Winners of awards will have demonstrated that they have played a key role in delivering either our strategic aim of securing the United Kingdom’s border and promoting national prosperity or our strategic objectives to:
- deter and prevent individuals and goods that would harm the national interest from entering the UK
- facilitate the legitimate movement of individuals and trade to and from the UK
- protect and collect customs revenues from trade crossing the border
- provide excellent service to customers
- provide demonstrable effectiveness, efficiency and value for money
In the interests of fairness, the reason for nomination should relate to action taken or events that occurred in the last 6 months. Nominations relating to historical activity will not be accepted.
It must be clear what role or action the person personally took, rather than work undertaken by an entire team. Multiple members of a team may be nominated if they can demonstrate that their individual actions within that team are deserving of recognition.