As Lin Homer wrote in her letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee on 18 February 2008, the
“need to remove the most harmful people first is reflected in the Case Resolution Directorate’s priorities and processes”
All applicants and their dependants aged 10 and over are checked against the police national computer (PNC) to establish whether these individuals have criminal convictions in the UK before a decision is made. Where it is identified that the individual has been guilty of serious criminality, we prioritise consideration and seek to deport them in accordance with the Agency-wide criteria.
As at the end of November 2007, we had concluded 52,000 backlog cases, of which, around one third (16,000) were removals. A detailed breakdown of the reasons for these removals, including whether they related to evidence of serious criminality could be obtained by examination of individual case records, only at disproportionate cost.