Part 2: How can the UK make better asylum policy?
How asylum policy be made more effectively in the future.
The problems identified in the first part of this report point to the ways asylum policy has been frustrated and, in many cases, rendered ineffective in recent decades. Part 2 turns to how asylum policy be made more effectively in the future.
Managing the system
Many of the problems with asylum policy cannot be separated from the challenges of managing its complex system of front-line public services. For instance, the government’s own analysis found that relocating asylum seekers to third countries such as Rwanda would be significantly less cost-effective than just cutting the average waiting time for an asylum decision. 398 Walsh PW and Sumption M, ‘Why the government’s economic Impact Assessment of the Illegal Migration Act tells us little about the Act’s economic impact’, The Migration Observatory, 26 July 2023, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/why-the-governments-economic-impact-assessment-of-the-illegal-migration-act-tells-us-lit…
This means that some of the answers to how asylum policy can be made more effectively lie in how the asylum system is managed operationally. Some of these system reforms could improve asylum policy just by managing the government’s resources better, such as by changing the make-up and processes of asylum decision makers. Others could improve asylum policy by mitigating operational problems and enhancing the government’s control of the issue, but inherently entail political and policy choices by the government – such as how to use ‘safe and legal’ routes to asylum.
Asylum decision makers could work more efficiently
The rate of decisions made by asylum caseworkers did increase through the asylum transformation programme and the Home Office’s push in 2023 to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog, reaching an average of 7.3 initial decisions per caseworker in November 2023.* This is a result of several factors: the simplified process for asylum seekers from countries with high grant rates, the retention allowance introduced to reduce churn and encourage the building of expertise, and wider efforts to speed up decision making such as with improved screening and better access to training and support for caseworkers. This is good progress that should be built on.
However, the rate of decisions being made is not a perfect representation of productivity or efficiency and masks some problems. Chief among them is that it does not indicate the quality of those decisions. Decision making accelerated in the second half of 2023 also because the rate of cases ‘implicitly’ withdrawn from consideration – often because an asylum seeker has not met a deadline or provided the right information – rose sharply, from 8% of all initial decisions made in 2021 to 12% in 2022 and 18% in 2023, covering nearly 25,000 people in those three years. 399 Home Office, ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets, year ending March 2024’, GOV.UK, 13 June 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables While the Home Office does need to be able to close cases where asylum applicants leave the country or fail to engage with their claim, the broadening of the criteria for withdrawing claims in 2023 400 Home Office, Statement of changes to the immigration rules, HC 1496, The Stationery Office, 17 July 2023, www.gov.uk/government/publications/statement-of-changes-to-the-immigration-rules-hc-1496-17-july-2023 means there is a good chance that many of these 25,000 people will have otherwise had legitimate claims to refugee protection.
There has also been a sharp increase in costly and time-consuming appeals cases against the government – in part due to the increase in the number of refused claims – with over 12,000 appeals from October to December 2023. In recent years, a high proportion of appeals have been allowed – including more than half of those determined in the last quarter of 2023. 401 Ministry of Justice, ‘Tribunal statistics quarterly: October to December 2023’, GOV.UK, 14 March 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2023 It would be more efficient for the Home Office to make higher-quality decisions the first time round, rather than effectively reassigning a portion of its backlog to the appeals tribunal.
Staff turnover also remains a problem. While the turnover of asylum caseworkers fell from 46% to 25% between 2021/22 and 2022/23, in part because of the use of retention allowances to incentivise staff to remain in post longer, this remains well above the Home Office average of 5% and above comparable front-line decision making roles in other parts of government. 402 Comptroller and Auditor General, The asylum and protection transformation programme, Session 2022–23, HC 1375, National Audit Office, 2023, www.nao.org.uk/reports/the-asylum-and-protection-transformation-programme/ 3 High turnover remains a symptom of problems with morale, pay, the seniority and experience of decision makers. 403 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework (August 2020 – May 2021), The Stationery Office, 18 November 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-asylum-casework-august-2020-may-2021 Almost two thirds of decision makers reportedly intend to leave their role as soon as possible or within the next year (63%), compared to 18% of Home Office staff and 20% of all civil servants. 404 Civil Service, ‘Civil Service people surveys’, GOV.UK, updated 7 March 2024, www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-people-surveys; Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework, June-October 2023, The Stationery Office, February 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e06d45f1cab36b60fc47ad/An_inspection_of_asylum_casework_June_to_October_2023.pdf
Since 2014 asylum decision makers have been hired – and paid – at the relatively junior EO (executive officer) level. A senior manager told the ICIBI that the high rate of staff churn was due to it being “one of the toughest EO jobs in government” – and a 2019 Home Office review found that increasing the seniority of the role would help recruit and retain staff. 405 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework, June- October 2023, The Stationery Office, February 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e06d45f1cab36b60fc47ad/An_inspection_of_asylum_casework_June_to_October_2023.pdf Prior to this, the role was graded at the higher executive officer (HEO) level, reflecting the fact that it involved undergoing a 55-day training programme to prepare for the job and defending asylum decisions in court. And as the former Home Office permanent secretary Philip Rutnam told the Institute, 406 Institute for Government event, ‘Is the Home Office fit for purpose?’, 12 October 2022, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/online-event/home-office-fit-purpose other countries recognise the complexity of asylum cases in their staffing structures: decision makers in Switzerland are equivalent to a ‘grade 7’ civil servant in the UK – that is, three levels higher than the EO grade – and often come from a legal background or have previous experience working with refugees or migrants. 407 Affolter L, ‘Getting in Line with the Office’, in Asylum Matters: On the Front Line of Administrative Decision-Making, Palgrave Macmillan, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-61512-3_5 Likewise, case officers in Sweden often have benefited from academic training in law. 408 UNHCR, ‘Effective processing of asylum applications: Practical considerations and practices’, March 2022, www.refworld.org/policy/opguidance/unhcr/2022/en/124059
“We’re dealing with human beings here and the stakes are very high … I used to think that about the task faced by asylum decision makers, relatively junior staff who had this incredibly weighty decision that they were responsible for.” – Sir Philip Rutnam, former Home Office permanent secretary, speaking at an Institute for Government event in 2024.
The decision to downgrade decision makers to EO has been a false economy. The money spent to more fully resource these teams would be much less than the ongoing cost of accommodating those who have been waiting long periods of time for an initial decision on their asylum claim, which more experienced decision makers could contribute to addressing. The growth of the asylum backlog in recent years means that the Home Office has been forced to use expensive contingency accommodation – the cost of housing asylum seekers in repurposed hotels has been around £6m a day. 409 Home Office, Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023, HC 1355, The Stationery Office, 2023, www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023; Letter from the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for LUHC on data on asylum seekers, Home Affairs Select Committee, 13 March 2023, https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/34480/documents/189914/default Asylum decision makers at executive officer level are paid between £25,750 and £31,950, while their colleagues at higher executive officer (HEO) level earn between £32,000 and £39,600. 410 Home Office, ‘Junior staff salary and structure information’, GOV.UK, 18 August 2023, www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-structure-and-salaries-2023 If new decision makers were hired at the more senior HEO level, eventually covering a full workforce of 2,400 asylum caseworkers, it would cost approximately an additional £19m annually, equivalent to just over three days of the asylum hotel bill.** But these more senior, experienced staff could help to deal with complex asylum decisions more quickly and efficiently, potentially mitigating the requirement for as much emergency hotel accommodation in the first place.
The Labour Party has committed to recruiting additional caseworkers to those hired by the former administration. 411 Labour Party, Change, Labour Party Manifesto 2024, June 2024, https://labour.org.uk/change/ Those new decision makers should also be taken on at this more senior grade, with more stringent experience requirements, and given the training needed to do their jobs effectively. This increase in seniority should be accompanied with clear frameworks outlining the knowledge and skills caseworkers require. 412 Tomlinson J and Thomas R, Reforming the UK’s Immigration System: The Case for an Administrative Fairness Agenda, Administrative Fairness Lab, February 2023, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/197029/1/_Publication_Reforming_the_UK_s_Immigration_System.pdf
Recommendation: As far as the Home Office budget allows, new asylum decision makers should be hired at the upgraded HEO level, recognising the complexity of the role and the efficiency more experienced staff could bring to the asylum system.
As part of the asylum transformation programme, the Home Office aims to introduce “clearer career pathways” for caseworkers, which is an opportunity to boost morale and improve caseworking among asylum operations staff. Upgrading many of these staff would help with that, by increasing the scope to deepen career progression pathways within these roles – rewarding decision makers who build experience and expertise.
We agree with the case made by Professors Joe Tomlinson and Robert Thomas for further ways in which the Home Office, and the wider civil service, can professionalise asylum decision making in order to improve efficiency. 413 Bowie J, ‘“These are almost impossibly difficult issues to grapple with”: Matthew Rycroft on Rwanda, Windrush and transforming the Home Office’, Civil Service World, 20 March 2023, www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/matthew-rycroft-rwanda-windrush-transforming-home-office-interview. Comptroller and Auditor General, Management of Asylum Applications by the UK Border Agency, Session 2008–09, HC 124, National Audit Office, 2009, p. 10. This begins with improved training and support for caseworkers, including better and faster feedback loops so that officials can learn from problems with their cases to prevent similar issues – as identified in appeals – in the future.
Previous Institute for Government research found that improving learning and development opportunities, and ensuring effective management and leadership, can help to retain public sector staff. 414 Fright M, Davies N and Richards G, Retention in public services, Institute for Government, October 2023, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/staff-retention-public-services The Home Office should continue to work with the UNHCR to develop training modules for staff, drawing on models from other countries with high-skilled decision makers.
The civil service should also establish a ‘front-line decision maker’ profession, to allow similar parts of government to the Home Office’s asylum decision making function, such as DWP’s welfare decision makers and HMRC’s tax staff, to exchange expertise, share common training and career pathways. These steps would also help to improve the interoperability of Home Office and other government caseworkers, to add to the progress made by the introduction of the Customer Service Group.
Recommendation: As part of phases 2 and 3 of the asylum transformation programme, the Home Office should develop and publish a workforce management strategy for its asylum caseworkers, setting out its approach to improving professional development and support, management and feedback loops.
The civil service should create a ‘front-line decision makers’ profession to add to the existing range of professions, including Home Office immigration caseworkers. This profession should develop a career progression framework to help recruitment, development and retention.
Asylum caseworkers must also be supported to challenge the ways of working they see in the department. Wendy Williams suggested this was crucial in the wake of the Windrush scandal, after officials reported feeling unable to flag problems in how policy was being enacted through casework. Even now less than half of staff feel ‘safe to challenge’ the way things are done in the department (42%), well below the civil service benchmark (51%) and the lowest among main government departments.
This is particularly important for asylum decision makers because of the need for them to be able to see, as the department has put it, “the face behind the case” of asylum applications – take the time and work flexibly enough to understand applicants’ experiences and their implications for their applications.
Ministers and senior officials should also consider this in their efforts to speed up decision making by focusing on the initial decisions being made at the expense of the quality of those decisions. While long waiting times are clearly a problem, there are also obvious risks in making decisions in haste, which opens the door to appeal and being potentially overturned, incurring extra cost to government in the future.
People with experience of the asylum system who spoke to us for this paper emphasised how interactions with the Home Office could feel dehumanising, particularly in relation to the high burden of proof to support their claim. It is therefore welcome that the department introduced ‘lived experience events’ for asylum caseworkers in 2023, building on the previous ‘face behind the case’ training designed for staff processing visa applications.
Ministers should clearly and consistently communicate that asylum decisions are ultimately a matter of administrative justice, and the responsibility of expert officials who are supported to undertake their responsibility fairly and well.
Previous Institute for Government research also identified a related problem that the home secretaries and immigration ministers can become overly involved in operational decisions in the immigration system. This can be a poor use of ministers’ time and a potential barrier to ensuring decision making staff have the resource and support needed to make fast, high-quality decisions.
Achieving culture change in decision making roles is difficult, but ministers and senior officials can draw on the lessons of the Syrian resettlement scheme, which balanced a need for rapid delivery with high-quality decisions. Refugees minister Richard Harrington, who oversaw the programme, suggested that part of the Home Office was a “good place to work” when contrasted with the broader culture of the department “where a lot of the stuff they have to do is quite negative. It’s basically saying no. No immigrants, no this and that.” Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has recognised the need for culture change in the Home Office to move on from a “bunker mentality”, particularly in the aftermath of the Windrush scandal. 415 ‘Keynote speech: Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary’, Institute for Government event, 16 February 2023, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/yvette-cooper-shadow-home-secretary
Recommendation: The immigration minister and home secretary should consistently and clearly communicate the approach they expect asylum decision makers to take to their casework.
This should define and model the organisational culture ministers and senior officials expect from this workforce.
‘Openness to challenge’ feedback loops should be maintained to ensure that front-line decision makers always have a means by which to flag concerns to senior managers, including anonymously.
*This was partly achieved by making decisions without the need for substantive interviews – and the average rate of decisions in March 2024 fell to 3.8 per caseworker.
** This is an indicative comparison to demonstrate the lack of efficiency derived from downgrading decision making staff. In practice, there are many factors which contribute to demand for hotel accommodation beyond the experience of decision making staff, including the rate of applications being made and government policy on admissibility.
Triaging could make decision making more efficient
It is not just the asylum caseworkers that could help to make decision making more efficient, but also the processes by which those decisions are made. The Home Office recognised the importance of effectively triaging cases to efficiently allocate resource through its ‘streamlined asylum processing’, introducing questionnaires for people from countries with very high grant rates (more than 95%) and allowing grants to be made without a substantive interview.
The triaging process should be expanded to a broader range of nationalities and case types with a likely outcome. 416 UNHCR, Effective processing of asylum applications: Practical considerations and practices, March 2022, www.refworld.org/pdfid/6241b39b4.pdf It would be effectively supported by more defined career pathways as well as the Home Office’s ongoing efforts to build the expertise of decision making units around particularly kinds of cases 417 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Oral evidence: The Asylum Transformation Programme, HC 1334, 10 July 2023, https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13500/pdf, Q13. – more experienced, specialist staff would be better equipped to handle complex claims. 418 UNHCR, Effective processing of asylum applications: Practical considerations and practices, March 2022, www.refworld.org/pdfid/6241b39b4.pdf, p. 19.
One model for expansion could be that of Canada, where short hearings can be used to resolve minor issues in cases with a relatively high likelihood of being granted (more than 80%). 419 UNHCR, Effective processing of asylum applications: Practical considerations and practices, March 2022, www.refworld.org/pdfid/6241b39b4.pdf The new government can also learn from past efforts by the Home Office to reform the case management process. For example, the UK Border Agency’s ‘New Asylum Model’, introduced in 2007, involved specialist ‘case owners’ who would oversee cases from application through to grant or removal. It aimed to improve joinup between different parts of the system and improve the quality of decisions, as case owners would have to defend their decisions in cases of appeal.
Triaging does not work effectively if the government cannot access the right information about asylum claims – as seen in 2023 with the low proportion of questionnaires returned correctly. 420 Syal R, ‘Home Office to tell refugees to complete questionnaire in English or risk refusal’, The Guardian, 22 February 2023, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/22/home-office-plans-to-use-questionnaires-to- clear-asylum-backlog The government should evaluate the streamlined asylum process and work with asylum organisations to ensure resources are in place to verify asylum applicants’ identity and collect the necessary information about their cases in screening interviews.
Properly ‘front-loading’ the process in this way, as has been done in Switzerland, can improve the quality of decisions being made by allowing for cases to be triaged correctly and helping ensure there is enough staff resource elsewhere in the system. 421 UNHCR, Effective processing of asylum applications: Practical considerations and practices, March 2022, www.refworld.org/pdfid/6241b39b4.pdf, pp. 21–22. This will require strengthening country guidance, ensuring it is updated regularly and developed in tandem with Home Office users of the guidance. 422 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of the production and use of Country of Origin Immigration, April – August 2017, GOV.UK, 30 January 2018, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection- of-country-of-origin-information
Recommendation: The Home Office should expand and improve the streamlined asylum process to further triage cases as far as possible on the basis of the likelihood of outcome, and explore other models for improved case-handling.
The Home Office has said it would consider reintroducing a service standard – metrics by which to judge if it is making decisions fast enough and to a high enough standard. This is a welcome move. It was after the service standard was dropped that productivity fell in the late 2010s, though the department should be aware that risks may emerge. Previous Institute for Government research has highlighted the potential for ‘gaming’ created by targets 423 Davies N, Atkins G and Sodhi S, Using targets to improve public services, Institute for Government, June 2021, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/using-targets-improve-public-services – and in 2017 a large number of asylum cases were incorrectly marked as non-straightforward to avoid having to meet them within the target time frame. 424 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum intake and casework, April – August 2017, GOV.UK, November 2017, www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspection-report-on-asylum-intake-and-casework
Triaging should be reviewed regularly to ensure there are no such unintended consequences, or redesign its processes accordingly. The Home Office should ensure it meets its target to quality assure 3.5% of its decisions, which it failed to meet in 2023 – and it should set a specific requirement for quality assurance of implicit withdrawals.
Recommendation: Once the existing backlog has been cleared, an asylum service standard should be reintroduced to guide the expected length of time until an initial decision is made. Gaming should be mitigated by also using metrics to judge the quality of decisions, such as the rate at which decisions are overturned at appeal.
The new government’s move to amend the Illegal Migration Act to allow it to process the claims of asylum seekers previously prohibited from being granted leave will also help to make the decision making process less complex and more efficient. This could form the first step in a wider approach to consolidating and simplifying the immigration rules, as suggested in the Williams Review.
Recommendation: The Home Office should deliver its post-Windrush commitment to simplify the immigration rules, including all legislation covering asylum.
Better technology will improve the asylum process
Poor technology has undermined asylum caseworking, and the implementation of policy, for a long time. 425 Somerville W, ‘Digital borders?’, Bright Blue, 2020, https://brightblue.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BB49CWDD__Digital-disruption__Magazine_Spring-2020_AWK_web2.pdf, pp. 28 –29. In 2009 the National Audit Office (NAO) found that details of asylum claims were written by hand before being inputted into the caseworking database (itself dating back to 1995) and information was often transmitted via fax. 426 Comptroller and Auditor General, Management of Asylum Applications by the UK Border Agency, Session 2008– 09, HC 124, National Audit Office, 2009.
The Home Office’s answer to these problems is Atlas, its new digital casework system intended to “eradicate the use of paper”, automate large parts of casework and ensure caseworkers “can easily access all the data they need”. 427 Thompson R, ‘Digital transformation at the Home Office’, blog, Home Office Digital, Data and Technology, 12 July 2023, https://hodigital.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/12/digital-transformation-at-the-home-office These are sensible aspirations that will also help to improve asylum policy making by improving the digital capabilities of the systems through which that policy is implemented.
Delivery of Atlas has been delayed and complicated by system-design and technical problems 428 Comptroller and Auditor General, The asylum and protection transformation programme, Session 2022–23, HC 1375, National Audit Office, 2023. and a reprioritisation of resources towards delivering the Illegal Migration Act 429 Markson T, ‘Home Office replacement for “defective” IT system delayed again’, Civil Service World, 13 June 2024, www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/home-office-atlas-it-system-delay-windrush-cid – in the meantime caseworkers have had to input the same information multiple times. 430 Comptroller and Auditor General, The asylum and protection transformation programme, Session 2022–23, HC 1375, National Audit Office, 2023, p. 9. Asylum decision makers have identified that ongoing problems with technology have been a huge barrier to processing claims efficiently and concerns have been raised that Atlas’ data entry limits do not allow for detailed information to be recorded, a particular problem given the complexity of asylum cases. 431 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of asylum casework, June- October 2023, The Stationery Office, February 2024, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e06d45f1cab36b60fc47ad/An_inspection_of_asylum_casework_June_to_October_2023.pdf
It is important that the asylum and protection system is digitised and integrated as effectively and quickly as possible. In particular, the Home Office should ensure it is making the most of this integrated digital capability to hone its trend analysis and modelling capabilities.
Recommendation: The Home Office should regularly review its caseworking technology to ensure it meets the needs of asylum decision makers and analytical teams. It should maintain the capacity to deliver technological change initiatives efficiently and on time.
But Atlas may not solve other problems that better use of technology should resolve. The immigration rules set out the home secretary’s responsibility to be able to provide asylum seekers with an update on their case and, specifically, the “timeframe within which the decision on their application is to be expected”. 432 Home Office, ‘Immigration Rules part 11: asylum’, para. 333A, www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-part-11-asylum
This is not the experience of many asylum seekers, who are either unable to get an update on their case or often receive a generic, ultimately inaccurate response. The lack of a user-friendly digital system by which asylum seekers can access information about their cases, including their status and expected time frames, is a problem that goes beyond the technocratic functioning of government. In research for this report, asylum seekers and refugees explained how the uncertainty while waiting long periods of time for an asylum decision was detrimental for their mental health. The government has begun work on a digital portal for the Home Office and immigration advisers to communicate with each other about individual cases 433 Home Office, ‘Response to an inspection report on contingency asylum accommodation’, GOV.UK, 24 October 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/response-to-an-inspection-report-on-contingency-asylum-accommodation – it should learn from its improvements in passport processing to inform the use of technology in the asylum system in order to address this problem. 434 Gatens K, ‘Passports in just five days – how a broken system was fixed’, The Times, 8 July 2023, www.thetimes.co.uk/article/passports-in-just-five-days-how-a-broken-system-was-fixed-bpn8jvnsq
A similar system is needed with which to communicate with local authorities about asylum seekers expected to receive decisions in particular places in the near future. The uncertainty created by the inability to do this has undermined councils’ support for refugees leaving Home Office accommodation, and contributed to the rising numbers of those presenting to local authorities as homeless. 435 Wallis W, ‘Rishi Sunak’s bid to clear the asylum backlog backfires, say lawyers’, Financial Times, 31 January 2024, www.ft.com/content/0f148bc5-2088-4564-b6be-9b4e9a5b288b
Recommendation: An outward facing digital communication system should be developed as part of the Home Office’s wider asylum transformation, to enable asylum seekers to access an online dashboard with updates on their cases and a function to submit documents and information. Other public services including local authorities should be able to use the system to access data about case flows in their areas.
Standing interdepartmental structures should be used to design policy
Like other aspects of migration policy, asylum is dependent on effective co-ordination and brokering between departments (as well as co-ordination with other tiers of government, more on which below). Beyond the Home Office, that includes FCDO on international diplomacy and country guidance, MHCLG on liaison with local authorities and aspects of integration policy, the Treasury and DBT on budgets, asylum seekers’ economic rights and labour market policy, and DHSC and DfE on access to health care and education.
Too often policy makers, including ministers, find it difficult to co-ordinate asylum policy effectively between these departments. There are various reasons for this, not least the political reality in which policy makers find themselves – where departments may come into conflict over contradictory priorities for the same policy area.
But policy makers also struggle because of a lack of standing interdepartmental apparatus designed to support better cross-government policy making. Too much policy is left to ad hoc brokering between departments and conflicting lobbying of the prime minister by his cabinet colleagues. There are various ways more coherent cross-government asylum policy could be supported. Joint ministers have been used to address similar problems in the past, but can result in the minister failing to have enough authority in one of their departments. 436 Gash T, Reshaping government: Strengthening Whitehall’s top-level structures and processes, Institute for Government, 2015, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/reshaping-government, p. 26. Cabinet committees and other boards are at the heart of how government co-ordinates policy between departments, and ostensibly asylum policy falls within the remit of the existing Home Affairs Committee.
Recommendation: The prime minister should agree with the home secretary how asylum policy is to be developed between departments and ministers, where decision making power lies and how issues are to be escalated through cabinet committees and to No.10.
That agreement should include some form of inter-ministerial group through which asylum policy can be developed and discussed before collective agreement is formally required. This group, or a related forum, should broker the Migration Plan recommended above. And it should also have oversight of performance reports from different aspects of the asylum system under the direction of the Home Office, MHCLG and other departments, to inform evaluation and policy making.
Local support services should be integrated to improve access
It is not just in Whitehall that policy should be better co-ordinated between different parts of government. At the local level, asylum seekers and refugees experience disjointed support from a range of public services under the direction of local authorities, the NHS, schools, the Home Office, DWP and civil society groups.
People with experience going through the asylum system reflected to the Institute for this research the damaging effect this confusing and disconnected patchwork of public services had on their physical and mental health, or that of their children – particularly when required to change their place of residence at short notice.
It was also suggested that joined-up support was especially important in the early days of people’s application, before screening interviews. This is a crucial time for asylum seekers to understand the application process and their rights, as well as how they can access public services, legal aid and other social and volunteering opportunities.
The ‘welcome hubs’ established for people arriving from Hong Kong, 437 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) Welcome Programme – information for local authorities’, GOV.UK, 8 March 2024, www.gov.uk/guidance/hong-kong-uk-welcome- programme-guidance-for-local-authorities co-ordinated by regional strategic migration partnerships, offer a potential model for providing a range of services in one place. These welcome hubs could also support access to English language conversation clubs, sporting and cultural activities. 438 Katwala S, Rutter J and Ballinger S, Control and compassion: A new plan for an effective and fair UK asylum system, British Future, February 2023, www.britishfuture.org/publication/control-and-compassion, p. 31. The Home Office should ensure that strategic migration partnerships can share with local areas information about what works well – the Greater London Authority’s ‘asylum welcome toolkit’ includes a range of guidance and case studies about London boroughs’ approach to asylum. 439 Greater London Authority, ‘Asylum Welcome Toolkit’, (no date), retrieved 23 August 2024, www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/communities-and-social-justice/migrants-and-refugees/asylum-welcome-toolkit This would also help the government to improve the longer term outcomes of those who are eventually granted protection in the UK.
“There’s so many benefits to accommodating people within communities: the sense of integration, the sense of connections, accessing support. You don’t want to stigmatise people” – Alvina Tamara Chibhamu, VOICES network
Recommendation: Local authorities should be given resource and support to coordinate migration hubs in partnership with other public sector and civil society organisations, to integrate access to local support services for asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants.
Eventually deliver accommodation and support services through local or regional government
One barrier to better co-ordination across government over asylum is the tier at which various aspects of the system are managed. In particular, the Home Office’s direct responsibility for accommodating and supporting asylum seekers while they wait for a decision on their case is inefficient and leads to problems with local authorities.
It makes sense for the Home Office to process people arriving in the UK, as it is responsible for border control, public safety and the visa and asylum systems, and so is a department with expertise in casework decision making. It also makes sense for the Home Office to be responsible for fairly distributing those asylum seekers around the country while they wait for a decision – a function which rightly sits at a national level so that particular parts of the country do not (or should not) have to support a disproportionate level of migration without the resources to do so.
But there is less reason for the Home Office to hold the responsibility to accommodate and support asylum seekers in those localities; it is not, to take just one example, best placed to understand local property markets and so be able to effectively source and maintain accommodation. Nor does it have other social support services comparable with those they maintain for asylum seekers – unlike local authorities and DWP, which do in the form of local employment, housing and homelessness, health and social services.
The Home Office’s own evaluation has identified the benefits where local authorities have drawn on their expertise in housing services to support people arriving through protection schemes. 440 Home Office, ‘Qualitative Evaluation of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and the Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS)’, GOV.UK, 30 March 2023, www.gov.uk/government/publications/qualitative-evaluation-of-the-vulnerable-persons-resettlement-scheme-vprs-and-thevulnerable-childrens-resettlement… The same is true for wider support services, where again local authorities are better positioned in their localities than the Home Office is to connect asylum seekers more efficiently with other services they need.
The Home Office’s centralised control of accommodation and support services is not leading to good outcomes and is a contributing factor to the multimillion-pound-perday hotel bill. Councils have also taken the UK government to court over the poor choice of sites and lack of communication over their use. The use of repurposed hotels has also been criticised for failing to meet the needs of the vulnerable people they accommodate for long periods of time, particularly as asylum seekers are moved from one hotel to another often in different parts of the country. 441 Independent Commission for Aid Impact, UK aid to refugees: A rapid review, March 2023, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/review/uk-aid-funding-for-refugees-in-the-uk/review
And different parts of the Home Office offering different protection schemes have even competed for the same hotel contracts, further driving up the cost of accommodation. 442 Independent Commission for Aid Impact, UK aid to refugees: A rapid review, March 2023, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/review/uk-aid-funding-for-refugees-in-the-uk/review The previous government tried to reduce the reliance on hotels by using large sites, such as former military bases and barges. But the NAO has found that this approach may well have cost the government more than hotels. 443 Comptroller and Auditor General, Investigation into asylum accommodation, Session 2023–24, HC 635, National Audit Office, 2024, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/investigation-into-asylum-accommodation.pdf
The most direct way of reducing problems in accommodation and support services would be to reduce the demand for them, by making faster decisions on asylum cases and reducing the chances of asylum seekers experiencing destitution (more on which below). But there must be greater recognition of the fact that local councils in practice increasingly provide support for asylum seekers waiting for a decision on their claim, 444 Local Government Association, Moving on from asylum accommodation: The impact and learning from councils on the asylum backlog clearance, 11 September 2024, www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Moving%20on%20from%20asylum%20accommodation%20-%20Report%20Final.pdf though without a clear remit or funding this remains a ‘patchwork’ approach. 445 Weihmayer M, ‘How councils can help with asylum policy’, British Politics and Policy at LSE, 27 March 2024, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/government-vs-councils-on-asylum-policy
There is a strong case that accommodation and support services would, in the long term, be better managed at a local level, under the co-ordinated direction of strategic migration partnerships and, where they exist, combined authorities.
Fully decentralising accommodation and support services should not be done immediately, while there remains a backlog and problems to be addressed – not least the response to far-right violence targeted at hotels accommodating asylum seekers over the summer. But, as the IPPR think tank has highlighted, the 2026 break clause in asylum accommodation contracts provides an opportunity for the government to decentralise this service to a small number of ‘pathfinder’ regions. 446 Mort L and Morris M, Transforming asylum accommodation, Institute for Public Policy Research, 24 October 2024, www.ippr.org/articles/transforming-asylum-accommodation The Home Office should evaluate these pilots and use them to inform the decentralised provision of accommodation once contracts expire in 2029.
Recommendation: UK government should delegate responsibility for accommodation and support services to combined or local authorities, along with the equivalent resources needed to manage the service, beginning with a number of regional pilots once accommodation contracts expire in 2026.
Strengthen the oversight of asylum accommodation and support services
The Home Office currently uses external providers to deliver two main contracts: asylum accommodation and support (AASC, delivered regionally by Clearsprings, Mears and Serco) and advice, issue reporting and eligibility (AIRE, delivered nationally by the charity Migrant Help). Both have faced failings in recent years, partly exacerbated by the rise in asylum backlog.
The AIRE helpline has been rated as ‘inadequate’ for its call waiting times, attributed to the number of asylum cases 447 Cabinet Office, ‘Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for government’s most important contracts’, GOV.UK, 25 July 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-performance-indicators-kpis-for-governments-most-important- contracts – and interviewees waiting for an asylum decision reflected that, once they do get through to the call service, there is little sense that feedback loops with the Home Office work properly and action will be taken as Migrant Help cannot track complaints after it has referred them. There have also been several safeguarding breaches in hotels repurposed to house asylum seekers, with, for example, considerable variation in contracted staff’s vetting and training between accommodation sites. 448 Independent Commission for Aid Impact, UK aid to refugees: A rapid review, March 2023, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/review/uk-aid-funding-for-refugees-in-the-uk/review, p. 28.
The Home Office has made attempts to address problems since these contracts started in 2019. It introduced a safeguarding framework to set expectations for the department and its providers, 449 Home Office, ‘Asylum support contracts safeguarding framework’, GOV.UK, 9 May 2022, www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-support-contracts-safeguarding-framework set up an intelligence function to oversee asylum accommodation and support contracts, 450 Home Office, ‘Response to an inspection of contingency asylum accommodation (hotels)’, GOV.UK, 12 May 2022, www.gov.uk/government/publications/response-to-an-inspection-of-contingency-asylum-accommodation- hotels and has begun fully reviewing the key measures of providers’ performance. 451 Home Office, ‘Response to an inspection report on contingency asylum accommodation’, GOV.UK, 24 October 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/response-to-an-inspection-report-on-contingency-asylum-accommodation
These are useful steps to improve the handling of contracts, though the government needs to rethink more radically the provision of asylum accommodation and support to close gaps in accountability. When the previous contracts expired in 2017 (and were then extended to 2019), the Home Office did consider redesigning the service, though did not allow enough time to undertake a full review. 452 Comptroller and Auditor General, Asylum accommodation and support, Session 2019–21, HC 375, National Audit Office, 2020, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Asylum-accommodation-and-support.pdf Since then, those contracts have had to stretch to deal with the rise in the number of asylum applications and the considerable growth of the backlog of cases, and the Home Office encountered challenges in overseeing how contracts were delivered across a large number of accommodation sites. 453 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation November 2023 – June 2024, GOV.UK, 24 October 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of- contingency-asylum-accommodation-november-2023-june-2024
Whether procured at a national or local level, the government needs to re-examine the provision of asylum support services. Where services are delivered by external providers, contracts should be designed to meet the needs of users, including ensuring that providers are able to deal with fluctuations in the number of asylum applications 454 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation May 2021 – November 2021, GOV.UK, 12 May 2022, www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-contingency-asylum-accommodation and that problems with service provision can be escalated and followed up appropriately. 455 Refugee Council, Lives on Hold: Experiences of people living in hotel asylum accommodation. A follow-up report, July 2022, www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Lives-on-hold-research-report-July-2022.pdf; Mort L and Morris M, Transforming asylum accommodation, Institute for Public Policy Research, 24 October 2024, www.ippr.org/articles/transforming-asylum-accommodation The Home Office’s internal review of key performance indicators (KPIs) should ensure that they are more closely aligned with what the government wants to achieve, to prevent suppliers from being incentivised to focus on meeting metrics rather than outcomes – for instance, measuring asylum seekers’ ability to understand their entitlement to support services, rather than the delivery of a session to deliver those services. 456 Independent Commission for Aid Impact, UK aid to refugees: A rapid review, March 2023, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/review/uk-aid-funding-for-refugees-in-the-uk/review, p. 24.
Given how the operating environment can change due to the number and needs of asylum seekers requiring support, there should also be greater support (at a central and local level) for officials to assess suppliers’ ongoing performance and ensure they improve where issues are identified. 457 Paxton B and Davies N, Improving accountability in government procurement, Institute for Government, September 2024, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/accountability-government-procurement And in light of the numerous problems the ICIBI has identified with the Home Office’s accommodation contract management, the Home Office should ensure the inspectorate can fully scrutinise the delivery of contracts.
Recommendation: Redesign new contracts for asylum accommodation and support to more accurately reflect the government’s desired outcomes, including an ability to adapt to changes in the number of asylum seekers needing support. Invest in commercial teams’ skills and capacity to oversee contracts and support suppliers in delivering against stated KPIs.
A regulated, standardised route for asylum applications from abroad would give government more control
The trend in asylum applications to western European countries is only set to rise. But many of those who seek asylum in the UK are unable to come to the country via existing ‘safe and legal routes’. More than 80,000 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2023 – the vast majority of whom were not eligible for protection through the Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan schemes and so would have had to arrive by irregular routes or overstay a visa. This is against just 632 people who were resettled and just under 10,000 who were offered family reunion. 458 Home Office, ‘Safe and legal (humanitarian) routes to the UK’, GOV.UK, 29 February 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2023/safe-and-legal-humanitarian- routes-to-the-uk This disparity is only set to grow.
The previous government’s approach was to establish dedicated protection schemes in response to humanitarian crises where it considered there to be support to do so, while categorising most other asylum seekers as inadmissible for protection in the UK – even where most of these cases would have resulted in protection being granted – and to try to remove them to a third country, namely Rwanda. This strategy contributed to a diversion in demand towards unsafe, uncontrolled routes into the country such as across the Channel – largely by people who are likely to be granted asylum, based on the grant rates for their nationalities. 459 Refugee Council, The Truth about Channel crossings and the impact of the Illegal Migration Act, October 2023, www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/resources/the-truth-about-channel-crossings-and-the-impact-of-the- illegal-migration-act/
And even where dedicated protection schemes have been established, Professor Tomlinson has argued that “bespokism” of this kind undermines the translation of policy into delivery, by requiring the government to set up whole new systems at little notice rather than expanding and using existing mechanisms, as was demonstrated by early difficulties in the Ukraine schemes in 2022. 460 Tomlinson J, ‘Bureaucratic Warfare: Administrative Justice and the Crisis of the “New Bespokism”’, Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, 2022, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/188010 The reactive nature of policy making also means these schemes offer different levels of support, which do not correspond to the needs of people who come to the UK through each scheme. 461 Independent Commission for Aid Impact, UK aid to refugees: A rapid review, March 2023, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/review/uk-aid-funding-for-refugees-in-the-uk/review
So policy makers will need to have a plan for how the UK intends to manage this rising asylum demand from beyond the narrow range of countries eligible for existing routes. One option, so far avoided by successive governments, would be to incorporate and replace the existing ‘safe and legal routes’ created for individual nationalities in response to current events and establish a consolidated route to apply for asylum in the UK from abroad. Experts have recommended different ways to do this. British Future has called for a new humanitarian visa issued from UK consulates, for people to travel to the UK and have their claim heard; 462 Katwala S, Rutter J and Ballinger S, Control and compassion: A new plan for an effective and fair UK asylum system, British Future, February 2023, www.britishfuture.org/publication/control-and-compassion the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has recommended that embassy staff could undertake initial assessments for refugee protection. 463 Redgrave H, Fixing the Asylum System: A Workable Plan, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, 15 July 2022, www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/fixing-asylum-system-workable-plan
A standardised ‘safe and legal route’ like this would have the significant benefit of giving the government greater control over the asylum system. While it is possible some people would still travel irregularly to the UK to claim asylum, it would mean the government would no longer unduly give preference to those who are able to reach the UK’s shores by unregulated means. People in need of protection would have less need to resort to unsafe, unlawful and uncontrolled routes into the country.
A safe route could include a parliamentary vote on the numbers of people who can access it, as well as the criteria for who would be eligible and the protection status they would be offered. 464 Katwala S, Rutter J and Ballinger S, Control and compassion: A new plan for an effective and fair UK asylum system, British Future, February 2023, www.britishfuture.org/publication/control-and-compassion This would give the government a way to recognise and respond to evolving humanitarian crises without establishing whole new services and decision making procedures. If the government wished, it could be integrated with community sponsorship (see below), learning from and improving on existing schemes.
But this strategy would be a political choice. It would mean pivoting away from the prevailing deterrent approach of previous governments. The argument against such a scheme is often that it would have a net increase on demand – those accessing a new safe route would do so, and those unable to (either because of the criteria or the total number permitted through the route has been reached) would continue to travel to the UK through irregular means. The evidence on ‘pull factors’, as noted above, is weak – decisions made by individual asylum seekers are complex and difficult to attribute to specific domestic policy changes.
But while such a route could mean fewer people travel to the UK through irregular means, it could also mean that total numbers seeking asylum in the UK increase. The Home Office should design any such scheme based on research into asylum seekers’ motivations to understand which groups of people might come via a regularised route, and model the expertise and resources required to process their claims.
Politics is a legitimate and inescapable part of policy making. This approach to asylum policy making could well prove more effective for a government willing to make that political trade-off and weigh up the benefits of introducing more order to the system. But that also depends on how government seeks to navigate the politics of asylum in its approach to policy making.
Recommendation: For a government that wants greater control of the asylum system, one option would be to establish a regulated, legal route to apply for asylum from outside the UK to replace and consolidate the multiple tailored routes for individual countries.
Parliament could vote on the cap and criteria that govern this scheme on an annual basis.
International agreements should be prioritised
Regardless of what reforms are applied to the domestic asylum system, even a well-run set of services would struggle if the government does not work closely with other countries. Re-establishing an agreement with the EU to facilitate returns, safe passage and fair distribution of asylum claims should be a priority. The new government’s desire to focus on international co-operation on asylum, including on returns, is sensible in this context.
Any new agreement would have to reflect the developing realities of asylum demand across Europe, including intra-EU negotiations, and allow for greater security cooperation to prevent organised gangs from trafficking and exploiting vulnerable people.
Navigating the politics of asylum
All policy is political and the best policy aligns and harnesses political leadership and values with evidence and delivery expertise. The politics of asylum presents a particular challenge to policy makers because it is a salient and divisive subject that is also complex and difficult to manage.
But the political debate on asylum has hardened around often simplistic assumptions about the attitudes of the public. Various policies have been deemed beyond what is politically acceptable even when they could stand to make the asylum system more effective, restricting politicians’ room for manoeuvre.
A more nuanced understanding of what voters expect of the asylum system could enhance the options available to policy makers in this and future governments. And a different attitude towards parliamentary scrutiny and debate could strengthen government’s control of the asylum system in the long term.
The public want an asylum system the government can control
There is a risk that politicians’ understanding of public sentiment on asylum is boiled down to reducing numbers, to simply ‘stop the boats’ or to ‘let fewer people apply’. Both of these are, to varying extents, true. A large majority of those polled by YouGov over the course of the last parliament have consistently thought that total immigration has been too high over the last 10 years; 487 YouGov, ‘Do Brits think that immigration has been too high or low in the last 10 years?’, (no date), retrieved 23 August 2024, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/do-brits-think-that-immigration-has-been-too-high-or-low-in-the-last-10-years more people want asylum seekers arriving on small boats to be removed from the country with no recourse to appeal than think they should have access to appeal or have their cases processed. 488 English P, ‘MRP: attitudes to small boats migrants in England & Wales constituencies’, YouGov, 16 January 2024, https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/48399-mrp-attitudes-to-small-boats-migrants-in-england-wales-constituencies In another poll, more people (37%) thought that asylum seekers’ immigration to the UK should be made more difficult than thought it should remain the same (26%) or become easier (25%). 489 Richards L, Fernández-Reino M and Blinder S, ‘UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern’, Migration Observatory, 28 September 2023, retrieved 23 August 2024, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and- level-of-concern And the most frequently cited reason for dissatisfaction with the former government’s handling of immigration was the failure to do enough to stop small boat crossings. 490 Rolfe H, Katwala S and Ballinger S, Dilemmas of control: What does the public think about immigration and how should politicians respond?, British Future, September 2023, www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Immigration-attitudes-tracker-report-2023-final.pdf, p. 27.
These insights are useful but can oversimplify public sentiment. They do not shed light on how people would weigh different priorities for the asylum system, or how they believe these objectives should be met. In particular, research by Ipsos Mori and British Future has found that “since 2021 significantly more people see it as important that UK government has control over who can or can’t come into the UK, whether or not that means numbers are significantly reduced”.***, 491 Rolfe H, Katwala S and Ballinger S, Dilemmas of control: What does the public think about immigration and how should politicians respond?, British Future, September 2023, www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Immigration-attitudes-tracker-report-2023-final.pdf, p. 15.
People will have different views about what it means to ‘control’ the asylum system – some may assume that means a reduction in the number of arrivals. And politicians are right to identify that a large part of the population believe small boat crossings are an urgent problem that needs to be fixed.
But this demonstrates two things that politicians should consider when developing asylum policy. First, there is a political cost to ineffective policy. And second, while there could be a short-term political cost to effective policy if absolute numbers of arrivals do not fall, there may be more sustainable support for a fairer, safer, more orderly and controlled system.
***For this research, respondents were asked: “When thinking about the government’s immigration policy, which of the following best describes what is most important to you?: (a) The government should prioritise reducing overall immigration numbers, even if that means turning down some people who might have otherwise been offered visas to work in business or public services. Or (b) The government should prioritise controlling and selecting who it wants to come to Britain, even if that means overall immigration numbers may remain bigger”.
There is a political cost to policy failure
The percentage of those polled who think the government handled the issue of immigration well fell over the course of the last parliament, averaging 16% from 2019–24 and falling as low as 8% in April 2024.*, 492 YouGov, ‘How the government is handling the issue of immigration in the UK’, (no date), retrieved 23 August 2024, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/how-the-government-is-handling-the-issue-of-immigration- in-the-uk Even if policy makers believe recent governments’ attempts to stem small boat crossings and address the mounting asylum backlog were in line with public sentiment, this declining confidence in the government’s competence must reflect, at least in part, the failure of these policies to tackle the problem. Public approval of the government’s performance has declined as large numbers of people continue to cross the Channel, despite multiple attempts at policy interventions since 2018 – and has contributed towards the success of Reform UK’s campaigning on this issue.
And the delivery problems with asylum policies are often predictable before they are put into practice. It was immediately and widely foreseen that the Rwanda scheme would be delayed by successive, complex legal challenges that would reduce the time the government had to make headway before the general election. It was similarly clear that the government would be unable to implement the Illegal Migration Act’s duty on the home secretary to remove those deemed inadmissible for asylum from the country, owing to the lack of places to which UK government could remove them.
Pursuing knowingly unworkable policy is not just a problem for policy makers and operational leaders trying to enact that policy. It can and does create political problems for ministers, too.
Ministers should reconsider the case for policies that could make the asylum system more controlled, fair and efficient
It is the role of politicians to decide which political trade-offs are worth making. But given the importance many voters place on having a controllable asylum system, and the political cost of policy failure that adds to an uncontrollable, ineffective and inefficient system, there are several policies politicians could build a case behind which would make the system more manageable and which may work with the grain of public sentiment.
The previous chapter of this report already set out the rationale for why a universal, regulated route to asylum from abroad could be such a policy. Three other policies arose frequently over the course of this research as other examples where reform could make the asylum system more effective without the political dissatisfaction of recent years.
Community sponsorship
The ‘Homes for Ukraine’ sponsorship scheme showed that there can be public appetite to support greater numbers of people fleeing persecution than might otherwise be eligible for protection in the UK. And that this can be achieved by harnessing community support – a large majority of hosts have been found to have had a positive experience of the scheme. 493 Tryl L and Surmon T, Welcoming Ukrainians: The hosts’ perspective, More in Common, March 2023, www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/welcoming-ukrainians
However, experienced staff were reallocated from other parts of the Home Office to work on the scheme, 494 Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, A reinspection of family reunion applications September – October 2022, GOV.UK, 21 February 2023, www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-reinspection-of- family-reunion-applications-september-october-2022 highlighting the pitfalls of needing to set up a ‘bespoke’ scheme in response to a crisis, rather than adapting an existing universal scheme. 495 Tomlinson J, ‘Bureaucratic Warfare: Administrative Justice and the Crisis of the “New Bespokism”’, Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, 2022, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/188010
The Home Office does already maintain a universal community sponsorship scheme. But only those already eligible for protection – either through the UK Resettlement Scheme or the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme – are able to be resettled with community sponsorship and support.
The government should commission an independent evaluation of Homes for Ukraine and review the prospects of building on the model to create a universal, demand-led community sponsorship scheme, rather than setting up separate ‘bespoke’ systems in response to each crisis. It should also draw on the good practice identified during the Syrian resettlement programme. Such a scheme could be incorporated into a regulated route to protection from abroad in the deciding of eligibility criteria and caps on different routes in each year, so that the government can identify the maximum numbers of people eligible for protection using state resources, and the extra numbers of people who could be supported with community sponsorship.
Right to work
The UK’s right to work policy for people seeking asylum is more restrictive than in many other countries. People waiting for an asylum decision in the EU, Canada, Australia and the US are able to work sooner than the 12 months they must wait in the UK. 496 Migration Advisory Committee, MAC Annual Report, December 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisory-committee-annual-report-2021 And in the UK they are only able to work in a limited range of occupations where it has been considered practical to fill labour shortages with workers from abroad.
This policy is intended to act as a deterrent, preventing those who are not in need of protection from using an asylum claim as a means to work in the UK. But it is unclear that this deterrent is effective. As noted above, asylum seekers tend to have relatively little knowledge of the welfare and employment policies of the countries they set out for. While it is possible that some would apply for asylum in the UK due to relaxed working rights, research indicates that in western European countries there is little to no link between the number of asylum applications and right to work policies. 497 Valenta M and Thorshaug K, ‘Restrictions on Right to Work for Asylum Seekers: The Case of the Scandinavian Countries, Great Britain and the Netherlands’, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 2013, vol. 20, no. 30, pp. 459–482. People without a visa in the UK may choose to work in the informal economy and remain unknown to the authorities, rather than formally enter the labour market and risk being removed from the country if their asylum claim is rejected.
The UK’s right to work restrictions are also expensive to the state. The government has a legal responsibility to support asylum seekers with accommodation and other forms of support if they are at risk of destitution – which naturally becomes much more likely if they are unable to seek paid employment. Even after receiving protection, the Migration Advisory Committee has found that long periods of economic inactivity can harm refugees’ prospects for long-term integration and employment outcomes. 498 Migration Advisory Committee, MAC Annual Report, December 2021, www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisory-committee-annual-report-2021
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has estimated that allowing asylum seekers the right to work could save up to £6.7bn per year (or £4.4bn per year if the 12-month restriction was lowered to six). 499 Aleynikova E and Mosley M, The economic and social impacts of lifting work restrictions on people seeking asylum, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, NIESR Discussion Paper No. 549, 25 June 2023, www.niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DP549.pdf The MAC has also contended that it would be beneficial for asylum seekers to be able to work in any job, or failing that, any role eligible for the skilled worker visa route. 500 Migration Advisory Committee, Review of the Shortage Occupation List, October 2023, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651557b86dfda600148e37ba/Review_of_the_Shortage_Occupation_List_2023.pdf
In 2021 the government reviewed the right to work policy and decided not to change it, after examining the additional tax and National Insurance contributions from asylum seekers and the savings from needing to pay out less in cash support. 501 Pursglove T, Asylum policy, Statement UIN HCWS452, 8 December 2021, https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2021-12-08/hcws452 It has also been dismissed on the grounds that it would undermine the government’s deterrence strategy.
But there is wider support for reformed right to work than might be expected. Framed as part of wider efforts to make the asylum system cheaper, more effective and efficient, easing working restrictions could receive public support.
Voluntary returns
A fair asylum system is not just about hearing claims and ensuring that those whose claims are accepted receive adequate support – it also involves ensuring that people who are not granted protection can safely return to their home countries. The government’s 2023 agreement with Albania, which included returns of people whose asylum claims were rejected, showed that it is possible to put in place the framework for returns and deliver them effectively. There were more than 3,000 returns of people from Albania who had claimed asylum, up from fewer than 500 in 2022. 502 Home Office, ‘Returns – Summary datasets, year ending Dec 2023’, GOV.UK, 29 February 2024, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/returns-summary-previous-data-tables Most returns in 2023 were done on a voluntary, rather than enforced, basis.
The Home Office currently runs an assisted voluntary returns programme for people who do not have permission to stay in the UK. In exchange for leaving the country, the people who opt for this scheme have their travel costs covered, may be supported with getting travel documents and can receive a £1,000–2,000 grant to help them settle into their country of origin. 503 Walsh PW and Cuibus MV, ‘Deportation, removal, and voluntary departure from the UK’, Migration Observatory, 14 February 2024, retrieved 23 August 2024, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deportation-and-voluntary-departure-from-the-uk Voluntary returns are cheaper and simpler than enforced returns because they do not require detention for long periods of time, nor do they require formal readmission agreements with source countries. They can also be more dignified for the people who choose to take them.
But despite this spike in returns in 2023 the broader trend is that voluntary returns are falling, from a peak of 4,085 in 2011 to just 346 in 2021, particularly since responsibility for the programme was taken over by the Home Office from the charity Refugee Action. 504 Katwala S, Rutter J and Ballinger S, Control and compassion: A new plan for an effective and fair UK asylum system, British Future, February 2023, www.britishfuture.org/publication/control-and-compassion, p. 30; Thomas J, Between a rock and a hard place, Social Market Foundation, December 2019, www.smf.co.uk/publications/rock-hard-place Previous research into assisted voluntary return programmes has emphasised the importance of strong communication with people whose asylum claims are rejected, including through community groups. 505 Black R, Collyer M and Somerville W, Pay-to-Go Schemes and Other Noncoercive Return Programs: Is Scale Possible?, Migration Policy Institute, April 2011, www.migrationpolicy.org/research/pay-go-schemes-and-other- noncoercive-return-programs-scale-possible; Comptroller and Auditor General, Returning failed asylum applicants, Session 2005–06, HC 76, National Audit Office, 2005, www.nao.org.uk/reports/returning-failed-asylum- applicants; Comptroller and Auditor General, Immigration enforcement, Session 2019–21, HC 110, National Audit Office, 2020, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Immigration-enforcement.pdf For example, the current programme is only for those who had already made a decision to leave, whereas the service delivered by Refugee Action included advice about the different options people have after their claim is rejected.
The government should consider expanding its use of the voluntary returns programme and review whether it would be more effective to award it to an external provider that may be considered sufficiently independent of immigration enforcement and trusted by those who may consider using the scheme.
The Home Office should embrace and harness parliamentary scrutiny and debate
Debate can clarify the government’s aims, cohere its political support and policy proposals. Effective parliamentary scrutiny can strengthen legislation and ensure that policies can be implemented successfully.
The pitfalls of limiting parliamentary input have been clear in recent years. The government’s parliamentary timetable for the Illegal Migration Bill meant it received minimal scrutiny – its impact assessments were published after Commons debates, and there was little opportunity for detailed discussion or evidence taking. 506 White H, ‘Illegal Migration Bill highlights how expectations of legislative scrutiny have plummeted’, blog, Institute for Government, 13 March 2023, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/illegal-migration-bill-legislative-scrutiny Once passed, the Act left unresolved a number of questions about how this legislation would operate in practice 507 Clyne R and Savur S, The Illegal Migration Bill: seven questions for the government to answer, Institute for Government, 10 March 2023, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/illegal-migration-bill and the Home Office continued to face challenges due to its implications. 508 Dearden L, ‘Braverman’s “crazy” law costs £1.5m a day because 22k migrants can’t be removed’, The i Paper, 9 February 2024, https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/braverman-law-cost-migrants-removed-2898645; Home Office, Consideration of inadmissibility claims under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership, GOV.UK, 14 February 2024, www.gov.uk/government/publications/inadmissibility-claims-under-the-migration-and-economic-development-partnership
Introducing a new, annual Migration Plan, which is debated in parliament (described above) would help to improve scrutiny of the government’s asylum policy.
Immigration rules are particularly complex and depend on a range of legislation and government policy. There is real value in ensuring any legislative changes to the asylum system are subject to thorough parliamentary scrutiny, to maximise the chances of anticipating delivery problems. As well as ensuring asylum legislation receives adequate scrutiny during its passage, all migration-related legislation should also be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by the Home Affairs Select Committee (and other committees where relevant). The government should recognise that making that time available for scrutiny will improve the standard of the resulting legislation.
Recommendation: All legislation that affects the asylum system should be subject to pre-legislative parliamentary scrutiny.