More efficient operations without compromising quality
Annual Report 2012 of the Finnish Immigration Service
The active development work the Finnish Immigration Service has been carrying out in recent years continued in 2012. These efforts began to show results, with the decisions made during the year clearly outnumbering submitted applications. However, steps have also been taken to ensure that quality is never compromised in the decision-making process.
Our personnel played a key role in our operational development work, with each employee contributing to better and more efficient work processes. The electronic case management system for immigration matters, UMA, which had been in use for two years by the end of 2012, greatly facilitates application processing.
E-Service available to customers
Since the beginning of 2012, customers have been able to submit some applications electronically. The system covers services provided by the Finnish Immigration Service and the police. The e-service is part of the UMA system in which residence permit and nationality issues are processed, allowing customers to monitor the processing status of their applications.
Customers have been satisfied with the e-service. In summer 2012, approximately one third of residence permit applications for students were submitted through the e-service.
Compared to the summer period a year earlier, decision-making was much faster, with electronic applications arriving at the Finnish Immigration Service without delay, even from geographically distant countries. Furthermore, the e-service instructs customers to fill in all of the necessary information and to include attachments. This leads to the fuller completion of the applications received and reduces the need to request additional information from applicants.
Expanding expertise through job rotation
Although, owing to the many uncertainties involved, it is difficult to predict the future in immigration issues, it appears that immigration is growing.
The Finnish Immigration Service is continuously exploring various opportunities of responding to the increase in its workload. In addition to seeking improvements in work methods and processes, the agency has focused on personnel competence development. According to the competence vision finalised in 2012, the Finnish Immigration Service wants to be the leading expert, partner and service specialist within the immigration administration. This vision also specifies the types of expertise and competence the agency will need now and in the future.
The agency needs an even wider range of skills to achieve its vision. To address this need, a systematic job rotation system was introduced. The system was launched at executive level, with the Directors of the Immigration Unit and the Nationality Unit switching jobs in spring 2012, as an example to others.
The first time the Annual Report is published only online
This year marks the first time that the Finnish Immigration Service has only published a web version of its Annual Report. The Annual Report is available at www.migri.fi > About us > Publications.
A separate attachment including statistics will no longer be published; the statistics are available at www.migri.fi > About us > Statistics.
Further information for the media
Jaana Vuorio, Director, Legal Service and Country Information Unit (Deputy to Jorma Vuorio, Director General, as of 1 April 2013), tel. +358 71 873 0431, e-mail: firstname.lastname@migri.fi
