A Fine Example of a Letter of Complaint

What follows is not my own work but that of a friend writing to the UK Border Agency. The basis for his complaint will become evident. I have posted it here as I think it's a wonderful piece of writing and a perfect example of the incresingly threatened species that is the complaint letter.

Application for Certificate of Approval of Marriage

Your ref: CA ----------

Case ID ---------

My complaint relates to the incompetence of the UK Border Agency staff responsible for processing my application and to the disregard by those staff of the published requirements and guidelines of the UK Border Agency.

I applied for a certificate of approval for marriage on 20 October 2010. This was acknowledged by return letter from the Border Agency dated 21 October 2010. No progress was made on my application until 22 February 2011, when I received a letter of that date from the Border Agency, stating that those applicants who were originally granted less than 6 months' leave to remain or only have 3 months of valid leave remaining must submit a statutory affidavit in support of the application. As I pointed out in my reply dated 3 March 2011, I was originally granted a three year working visa (No. ---------) which was extended and reissued until 15 October 2012.

This is the first instance of incompetence (or contempt, for if it is not incompetence it can only be contempt for the very own guidelines of the Border Agency) of which I now complain. Despite not being required to do so by the Border Agency's published requirements, I nonetheless enclosed statutory affidavits as requested in an effort to accelerate the determination of my application, which had now been outstanding for 19 weeks, well in excess of the Border Agency's published service targets.

I then waited. Despite numerous calls to the Border Agency's information line - a singularly useless service, I might add, given the complete absence of contact between the people staffing the service and the people determining the applications. You would surely be doing a greater good to the taxpayers of the United Kingdom by cancelling this information line entirely - not one of your staff had the decency to inform me of a bill before the Parliament which would cancel the certificate of approval scheme. I discovered the passage of the bill into legislation by a chance visit to your website in late April. I thus set out to wait patiently for the return of my application.

What I did not expect, and what has moved me to make this complaint, is the rank opportunism taken by the UK Border Agency to put its thumb in my eye one last time, and to remove utterly any doubt that would otherwise remain regarding the contempt with which the Border Agency holds those who apply for its permission to marry. Instead of simply returning my application for a discontinued permission, your staff have once again demonstrated their incompetence or contemptuous disregard for guidelines by stating in their letter dated 5 May 2011 that my application has been discontinued on the basis that my fiancée does not live in the United Kingdom and has not on that basis also submitted an application for a certificate of approval for marriage.

The guidelines of the Border Agency were clear. Only those settled in the United Kingdom must submit an application for a certificate of approval. Those who wished to enter the United Kingdom for the purpose of marriage but not to reside thereafter need only obtain an entry visa endorsed for marriage.

I am a decent, law-abiding person. I work hard and contribute to society. I understand and respect the need for the United Kingdom to protect its borders against the abuse of the institution of marriage for the purpose of gaining entry through illegitimate relationships. However, I could never have imagined that the civil service of any civilised government would take seven months to determine an application of this nature, to fail - disingenuously in my mind - to inform an applicant of a bill then before the legislature to remove the scheme, and then, on two separate occasions, to act with contemptuous disregard for their very own published guidelines and requirements.

I look forward to the day when the cold winds of economic change finally sweep through the British civil service, whereupon a good number of its staff will find themselves thrust out of the warm comfort and protection of the taxpayers' bosom and have to find real jobs that produce and contribute to the society in which they live. I am sure that such incompetence and contempt as has been meted out to my application will not make the search for such employment an easy one.

I am available to submit copies of any documents you may need to support this complaint. I should emphasise this last point, just in case the very same individuals that processed my application with such a marked ability to see black as white are now in charge of complaints: this is indeed a complaint. It is not praise.

I wish to see my complaint acknowledged. I wish it to be acknowledged that this experience is not justifiable on any grounds, be they of public policy or otherwise. I wish the past seven months of uncertainty and expense and frustration to be acknowledged. I wish the fact that I have been callously prevented from marrying the woman whom I love because of the unaccountable incompetence or contempt of individuals in the employment of the UK Border Agency to be acknowledged. I wish to receive an apology.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Postcript; the author and his beloved were married last Friday.