"…the strength, robustness and thoroughness of a sponsor's recruitment will largely dictate how many of its prospective students are refused by UKBA. The link between a rigorous recruitment policy and a low refusal rate is clear and logical. The fundamental expectation that a sponsor will undertake a rigorous recruitment process links to the core principles of sponsorship, in that those who benefit most from immigration should play a vital role in making the system work for everyone involved." 36. The alternative would have been to increase the amount of checking done by UKBA staff. This would have had cost implications and would have been liable to delay the process for genuine applicants. 37. Moreover, there would be serious practical problems if UKBA had to investigate in the case of every refusal whether the sponsor could be shown to have failed in its duties. 38. It was recognised, however, that even with a high level of due diligence there might be refusals in situations which an educational provider could not have been able to anticipate, for example, where a person's financial circumstances had changed after the issue of a CAS but before attempting to enter the UK. Data showed that the average refusal rate across Tier 4 (General) in the year to May 2011 was 15.3%. Mr Shirley explained, in paragraphs 56 to 57, the reason for setting the refusal rate at 20%: "
“3.31 At the time of the inspection, the Visa Section in New Delhi, which is part of the South Asia region of International Operations and Visas, was receiving in excess of 30,000 applications for Tier 4 visas each year and was ranked 4th overall in terms of the volume of Tier 4 applications the agency received in both 2010/11 and 2011/12. It also had a relatively high refusal rate, 53% in 2010/11 and 42% in 2011/12.”
“1.15 Detected forgeries give a partial picture of the level of abuse. In 2010, the Agency detected forged documents in 2.5 per cent of Tier 4 visa applications, accounting for 41 per cent of all forgeries detected overseas. Most forgeries were supporting evidence, such as college visa letters, bank statements and educational certificates. Before 2010, the Agency did not collect data on the number of forgeries detected by type of visa, so we cannot compare Tier 4 forgeries with earlier years. We found, however, some significant swings in forgeries detected at particular overseas posts in 2009 and 2010 (Figure 4), which are likely to be associated with Tier 4. For example, the Agency detected more than 6,000 forgeries at New Delhi in 2010, a 124 per cent rise on 2009; 70 per cent were discovered through the Agency’s extra scrutiny of Tier 4 applications at that post (see paragraph 1.11). The Agency considers that the Points Based System allows it to detect more forgeries, as it requires applicants to submit educational certificates as an extra control to combat abuse. […] 2.16 Where a sponsor is not meeting its sponsorship requirements, the Agency can suspend the sponsor licence pending revocation or reinstatement. Figure 9shows the numbers of Tier 4 licences suspended, revoked and reinstated by month. The Agency suspended 80 sponsor licences in January 2010, in response to intelligence and compliance visits but reinstated 65 after further representations by sponsors and further visits. In May and June 2011 the Agency investigated colleges associated with a surge in applications before implementing new English language”