New EU Settlement Scheme stats out today

1,400 refusals in June, which represents a monthly increase by... 700%
Another increase in applications void, invalid and withdrawn
1 in 10 applications decided in June get no status under the Scheme

Thread <1/9)

The rise in refusals is the biggest shock. Untill Brexit day we heard "nobody is being refused" on eligibility criteria. There was just a dozen of suitability refusals. But between February end May 900 applicants were refused. In June alone we had 1,400 refusals. Buckle up! <2/9>

Another shock is this: 'other outcomes' climb up again. These applicants too get no status under the Scheme. Taken together refused, void, invalid and withdrawn applications represented almost 10% of all applications decided in June. <3/9>

Just over 100,000 applications were received in June, which is likely linked to the Scheme getting back to normal operations after many of its key aspects were suspended due to covid-19. We still have no idea how many of those are repeat applications though... <4/9>

In better news, the backlog of unprocessed cases is down but still over 250k. This will take time to clear, and might mean more refusals and more void or invalid applications. <5/9>

Last month we were warned the Home Office will no longer give us a breakdown by nationality, but other figures are gone:

Applications numbers by month
Application outcomes by month

It's still possible to work these out, but it's interesting why no longer published. <6/9>

Overall though, the grants of pre-settled status have just reached 1,423,300. That's more than the high estimate of 1.4mn, and much more than the low estimate of 0.9mn anticipated in the EUSS Impact Assessment HO-0333 published in March 2019 (see: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2019/74/pdfs/ukia_20190074_en.pdf). <7/9>

Overall, in June 2020:

5 in 10 applicants got Settled Status
4 in 10 applicants got the temporary Pre-Settled Status and will have to apply again to stay permanently
1 in 10 applicants got no status at all

<8/9>

And all of us, interested in how the EU SettlementScheme is working, got less information about it than before. The long and short of it:

More refusals of status
Fewer grants of status
Less transparency

One year to go, and things are getting tricky. <9/9>

By the way, these statistics are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/eu-settlement-scheme-statistics

Unlike with previous editions, we do not get a PDF document or tables. Just info on the website...