it’s interesting to see how the first day has played out given all the warnings that have been issued over the last 10 days or so . I totally agree the impacts of all the planning and work into making these contingencies work has been immense . Much started two months ago. Also not to forget the staff that have been brigaded from other non striking parts of BF to help , notwithstanding that local staff with non immigration roles that have been re-deployed which lessons border security in other non immigration functions . With the assistance of the military and other civil servants it appears immigration backlogs have been adverted. It would be interesting post events to look at effectiveness of the drafted cohorts and measure the actual referrals , casework , refusals and other safeguarding work indigenous staff usually create - I suspect the two will not be comparable .
as for own goal , you can look at this from two perspectives , however as numbers deployed probably amount to much the same BF had during the 2012 olympics it’s no surprise that recent current staffing levels meets less than 50 percent of this 10 years ago. It should come as no real surprise that normal service levels are poor as experienced over the last 12 months . Attrition and recruitment is very difficult with getting new staff through the door. What has been highlighted , provide correct staffing levels and have correct expertise in case workers can deliver an effective and expedient border process that the UK should be able to deliver to the majority of legitimate travellers .