Speed must not undermine sound policy making on asylum reforms

The Home Office’s planned asylum reforms, ⁷ Asylum and immigration briefing note, https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2025/09/02/asylum-and-immigration-briefing-note/  first shaped under Yvette Cooper and now the responsibility of newly appointed home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, have been landing thick and fast. They include a new appeals body, expanded detention facilities, and a suspension of new applications for refugee family reunion visas. Building on the UK-France agreement announced in the summer as well as measures announced last year, these initiatives aim to regain control of the asylum system amid growing public discontent, political pressure and operational challenges. 

Making policies at a fast pace is a way for a government to demonstrate it is gripping a situation and can help maintain public trust and confidence. It can also encourage innovation and better collaboration between teams, overcoming the usual shortcomings of Whitehall policy making. But making policy at rapid speed also brings serious risks.

The pressure to act quickly is real – but so are the risks

Good policymaking requires a clear definition of the problem, use of evidence, engagement with stakeholders, planning for implementation, and robust evaluation. These fundamentals help ensure that policies are not only reactive but also effective and sustainable – and developing policies without adequate structures or scrutiny increases the likelihood of compromising the core principles of good policy making. As former home secretary Amber Rudd, who found herself under scrutiny when news of decade-long mistreatment of members of Windrush generation broke, warned: “(a)ll of this ‘Speed up, speed up, Home Office’ – that is what leads to Windrush-type consequences… If you go too fast, that is when you make mistakes.”  ⁸ Yvette Cooper risks ‘Windrush-type’ scandal by rushing asylum response, says Amber Rudd https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/02/yvette-cooper-risks-windrush-type-consequences-asylum-migration-amber-rudd

Her warning reflects a broader pattern beyond migration and asylum policy. Across successive governments, ‘quick and dirty’ policy-making can have serious consequences. The Coalition government’s probation reforms were pushed through ahead of the 2015 general election, resulting in unsafe, poor-quality services and increased rates of reoffending. The 2020 Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme was launched in just 12 weeks, with ambitious goal of supporting economic recovery post-pandemic but insufficient delivery capacity, which led to underspending, delays and eventual closure of the scheme just 15 weeks after its launch. And the Windrush scandal remains a stark reminder of the human cost of poorly developed policy.

The Home Office needs to ensure its policies are robust and workable 

The Institute for Government has been exploring how civil servants can deliver rapid yet robust policy advice under pressure. The resounding message from the civil servants we have talked to is that the system is not currently geared towards providing officials with the necessary support nor incentives to balance speed with rigour – which is a challenge for the new home secretary as she seeks to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Our forthcoming research highlights practices that underpin good policymaking under pressure – some of which are used in crises response. These include a ‘test and learn mindset’, by piloting interventions, understand what works, before scaling, bridging the policy-operational divide through co-location of policy and delivery teams, and embracing red-teaming, a process of inviting adversarial critique of a plan or proposal, to surface blind spots and stress-test proposals. 

Other effective notable practices – many of which proved effective during the pandemic - involve co-designing solutions with specialists and those with lived experience of the issue at hand, accessing and embedding external expertise, and using new tools and technologies to rapidly synthesise evidence and citizen insight. And it means acknowledging risk of burn out for officials tasked with rapidly delivery policies, and recognising their work through meaningful rewards, protected recovery time and development opportunities.   

Together, these practices may appear to add time, but in the long run they will save it by ensuring policies deliver their intended outcomes for government, the taxpayer and the people they affect to avoid the pitfalls of her predecessors at the Home Office.