Cheat to the Top: UK Citizenship Now Brought to You by... the Cheating Scandal Experts!

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Title: “Cheat to the Top: UK Citizenship Now Brought to You by... the Cheating Scandal Experts!”

Subtitle: Because nothing says 'British values' like outsourcing national identity to a company busted for fraud.

You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when bureaucracy meets irony in broad daylight? No? Well buckle up, because the UK Home Office has done it again. In a plot twist straight out of a political sitcom, the Life in the UK test—a gateway to becoming a British citizen—is now in the hands of a company that previously failed the UK’s own honesty test.

Let’s meet our characters.

Enter: PSI Services

The £19.8 million contract to deliver Britain’s citizenship tests has been handed to PSI Services, which is owned by Educational Testing Services (ETS)—a name that might ring bells for anyone familiar with large-scale academic oopsies.

Flashback to 2014: The Cheaters' Olympics

ETS used to run English language tests for immigration. That ended when an undercover BBC investigation found that:

• Test answers were being read aloud by invigilators.
• People were literally paying others to sit the test for them.
• ETS staff had apparently warned managers, who allegedly said, “Shhh, it might hurt profits.”

The fallout?

• 36,000 student visas cancelled.
• 2,500 deported.
• A reputation that made even Ryanair look trustworthy.

And now? ETS is back in town, fresh from buying PSI Services. The Home Office, naturally, assures us PSI is “a separate entity.” Like buying a mouldy apple and saying, “It’s okay, the sticker’s new.”

So, What’s On the Test?

If you want to become a citizen, you now have to pay £50, take a 45-minute exam and score 75% on questions like:

• “Who was King in 1066?”
• “What is the name of the British national flower?”
• And apparently: “Do you solemnly swear not to use a wig and glasses to impersonate someone else during this test?”

Because yes, that happened.
A woman from Kent was arrested for dressing up and taking the test for other people—at least 12 times. She was basically the Daniel Day-Lewis of fraudulent test takers.

But Wait, There’s More:

Reed in Partnership has also been awarded a contract for the test. How this works, nobody knows. Maybe they flip a coin. Maybe they battle it out in a game of Citizenship Squid Game. The Home Office declined to comment, probably because even they’re not sure who’s in charge anymore.

Why This Matters (Yes, Seriously)

This isn’t just a quirky scandal. These tests decide who gets to stay in the UK, who becomes British, and who ends up on a deportation list based on the results of a test run by people previously caught enabling mass cheating. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of putting a fox in charge of the henhouse and giving it a clipboard.

Conclusion:

The UK is now outsourcing its immigration gatekeeping to a company whose parent brand was literally fired for incompetence and deception. If that’s not British irony, what is?

So next time someone passes their Life in the UK test, just remember: they didn’t just learn about Magna Carta and roast dinners. They survived the ultimate British challenge—navigating a broken system with a straight face.