Heathrow delays: Queues too long and immigration checks falling, watchdog warns The number of suspects who disappear before they can be deported rose while fewer were caught. The highly critical report by John Vine, who documented the scandal of relaxed checks that led to the resignation of borders chief Brodie Clark last year, is a fresh embarrassment to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, as it covers a period last year before the recent problems with excessive queues at Heathrow. Mr Vine said: "This was far too much organisational change during Heathrow's busiest time of the year. I remain concerned that this lack of planning has affected the agency's ability to maintain an effective and efficient border control. It comes amid fears that people traffickers will try to exploit a strike by border staff today in order to smuggle in illegal immigrants. Volunteers are to man the desks as members of the traditionally moderate Immigration Service Union walk out in protest at the Government's pension plans. Around 400,000 public sector workers will take part in protests including college lecturers, civil servants, members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and health workers, while thousands of off-duty police officers will march through Whitehall. But senior immigration officers fear that the two to four-day training given to relief staff will not equip them to detect forged travel documents. "Information received by the ISU strongly suggests that people traffickers are planning to exploit the strike action on 10th May to smuggle people into the UK," said Lucy Moreton, the union's deputy general secretary. The new study focuses on operations at Terminal 3, the second-busiest hub at Heathrow which handled some 20million passengers arriving on more than 100,000 flights in a year, between August and November 2011. The Border Agency had to manage "significant challenges" because of "increasing passenger numbers and decreasing staffing numbers," made worse by the fact that most arrivals were from outside Europe and so needed visas to get into Britain. Figures show that its staff levels fell from 322 to 277 by last summer, and the number of people refused entry at the border fell by 19.5 per cent between 2009-10 and 2010-11. The number of instances where border officials detain passengers who need to be questioned before being allowed into the country fell by 58 per cent in just 18 months, which could be down to improved technological checks but also may be a result of job cuts and poorly planned reforms. Border Force statistics show that in just two weeks last September, the waiting time target of 25 minutes for European passengers was breached three times and the 45-minute goal for non-Europeans was breached 62 times. Some passengers had to wait as long as 2 hours 15 minutes. But these figures are likely to be an underestimate as the times are calculated in an "arbitrary" manner that does not "provide a true reflection" of the number of passengers in the arrivals hall. Border officials just time the queues every hour on the hour, even if a packed plane was due just a few minutes later. A new "inflexible" shift system meant that the number of officials on duty fell when passenger numbers rose, and vice versa. Since 2008 European passengers with new "chipped" passports can use a face-recognition system called eGates but inspectors found that one gate was often out of order, they could not read Scandinavian IDs and even allowed a husband and wife through when they had accidentally swapped passports. It was claimed that the sensitivity of the eGates could be "tuned down" to stop them refusing as many passengers, while figures show that the new system processes half as many people as the old staffed desks. Specialist Forgery Officers were not always on duty and there was a "reluctance" to consult them, so the number of checks on documents fell from 105 in February last year to 66 in July. The number of "absconders" who leave the airport without permission or breach entry conditions has "increased significantly" in recent years and is likely to reach a record high of 350 for 2011, while only 16 per cent are expected to be caught. A system to alert officials to known criminals who may be arriving at Heathrow relies on "slips of paper" with their names on being handed to officers at passport desk, raising "risks that some targets could be missed." In 67 per cent of cases, searchers were not justified. Meanwhile information about complaints was "virtually non-existent" apart from a single small poster on a crowded corridor, which advertised a phone line that does not take messages. A separate report on Gatwick's North Terminal found that one in seven decisions to allow a passenger entry was not supported by evidence, including some with "clear attempted deception." The Immigration Minister, Damian Green, said: "This report covers the period before the Border Force was split from the UK Border Agency and since then we have taken action to tackle these issues. We now have more staff at the border during peak times, greater flexibility to man immigration and customs controls, clearer guidance for staff on when vital checks are required and a national training programme with more emphasis on mentoring. A culture change is underway to make Border Force an organisation that effectively tackles illegal immigration, protects the UK from terrorism and detects crimes like drug trafficking and weapon smuggling.