The Home Office will offer grant funding up to the value of £3,000,000 to provide direct support to vulnerable customers as they transition from physical immigration documents to eVisas. Successful organisations will be required to provide direct support to vulnerable customers when creating their UKVI account and accessing their eVisa. Organisations will also need to provide support to vulnerable customers who need to share their digital status to prove their rights (e.g. using the ‘View and prove your immigration status’ service) and to maintain their up-to-date information, documents and images using the ‘Update my details service' accessed via their UKVI account.
The Home Office plans to complete the roll-out of eVisas, which are an electronic record of immigration status accessible via GOV.UK, for most immigration products, by the end of 2024. All Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) and most Biometric Residence Cards (BRCs) are due to expire on 31 December 2024, and where these BRP/BRC holders, whose leave extends beyond this date, do not transition to an eVisa before 31 December 2024, they may experience difficulties proving their rights after this date.
For customers to access and use their eVisa, they will need to create a UKVI account, which will allow them to access and maintain their eVisa.
The Home Office will provide grant funding to organisations, with which they will provide direct support to those vulnerable customers with the most complex needs, when transitioning from a physical immigration document to an eVisa. Successful organisations will be those well-placed to provide trusted, community-based support for vulnerable and hard to reach customers.
The eVisa transition fund would seek to support a wide range of vulnerable and hard to reach groups, (non-exhaustive list below) in completing their transition to an eVisa, including but not limited to:
- People with a disability
- People with severe learning difficulties
- Adults with severe mental health conditions
- Victims of domestic abuse
- People who are rough sleeping, hidden homeless, statutory homeless, in temporary accommodation or at risk of homelessness
- Older/Elderly people
- People with poor literacy or English language skills
Organisations will be required to detail their geographical coverage which will be considered as part of the evaluation. Funding is expected to be distributed through multiple organisations who are geographically spread across the four nations of the United Kingdom. The Home Office will be funding organisations to directly support customers in accessing and maintaining their eVisa.
Deadline: 19 June 2024, 12pm