Case study

Immigration and Nationality Directorate 

Project managing the implementation of a new fraud-resistant, biometric smart-card system for paying support to asylum seekers

By 2001, the provision of vouchers as a means of paying support to asylum seekers in the UK was widely regarded as being inefficient and open to fraud. The process also attached unnecessary stigma to asylum seekers, making them very visible at the retail outlets where their vouchers had to be exchanged for goods. These factors prompted the home secretary to announce, on 29 October 2001, that the voucher system was:

“too slow, vulnerable to fraud and felt to be unfair by both asylum seekers and local communities. That is why I will ensure that the voucher system will be superseded by early autumn of next year by more robust but less socially divisive alternatives.”  (David Blunkett).

In response to this, the Cash Payments to Asylum Seekers (CPAS) project was set up by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) within the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) of the Home Office. With PA’s involvement, NASS was able to determine the best option to take forward as a replacement solution and in support of that, to manage the roll-out of a new UK-wide electronic payment delivery infrastructure in under nine months. The solution is based on the ARC (Application Registration Card) which is a new biometric smart card introduced by IND primarily to combat identity fraud. The card features a digitised photograph of the holder and its encrypted computer chip also contains their fingerprint details.