If you are in India and wish to travel to United Kingdom, you will need to apply for visa through an organisation called VFS. They are basically an outsourcing agency who act as a front office for British High Commission by collecting all the paperworks from the visa applicants and forwarding them to the High Commission. I have heard from people that the staff over there used to be commanding and have a not-so-professional attitude towards the visa applicants, although I have never had that experience first hand (Back in 2000 when I first arrived in UK, we applied directly to the High Commission).
Recently my sister applied for a tourist visa to visit United Kingdom for about 10 days. The idea is that she will pay the air fare while I will provide her the accomodation and take care of her expenses in UK. To support the fact that I will be able to meet the above expenses, I provided her copies of my payslips for the last six months, my bank statements for the last six months, letter from my employer assuring that I am indeed employed, few utility bills to prove that I live in the address stated and what not. I sincerely hope that all of the above documents will be more than sufficient for the visa officer to make a decision on whether or not I will be able to support my sister (the visa applicant) for ten days. However, the guys in VFS have insisted that they need to see the last three year’s of my P60 (P60 is akin to Income Tax Department’s Form 16 in India). P60 is considered to be a confidential document due to the nature of information contained within. As I didn’t want to take a chance with my sis’ visa application, I complied with their request only to discover afterwards from their website that they have never mentioned about producing P60. I will definitely be writing to the Border and Immigration Agency regarding the above.
Coming to think of it, isn’t it a fact that pay slips and bank statements are confidential documents as well? I feel that it shouldn’t be a bare-all approach, just because you would like your friends/relatives to stay over at your place. It would be beneficial to everyone if there is a system where by you (the sponsor) supply your National Insurance (NI) number to the visa applicant using which the visa officer can make a decision if the sponsor’s earning power is good enough to host another person/s for a few days. While NI numbers doesn’t expose your salary or any other sensitive details, it might give an idea of the income level to the visa officer (assuming that he has got the rights to such details). On the other hand, they could resort to some sort of credit checking system, where they could check the credit history of the sponsor – just like how the banks/mobile companies do.
I am aware that the requirement of Border and Immigration Agency is vastly different from that of a bank/Inland Revenue/mobile company, but given a bit of will it shouldn’t be difficult to get away with the system that requires people to broadcast their supposedly sensitive details out to everyone.
