Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 46
Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme
Published 24 Nov 2021
Paragraph 156
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee The Windrush Compensation Scheme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We are not yet convinced that the Home Office has done enough to embed a light touch approach to evidence: for example, we note that the revised caseworker guidance provides no detail as to what the changes made to the standard of proof in October 2020 mean in practice. We urge Ministers and senior officials to examine a sample of individual cases to understand how the ‘on the balance of probabilities’ standard of proof is being applied and to establish what further training and guidance is needed to ensure a fair and empathetic approach to the use of evidence. While it is encouraging that the Home Office has launched the new Ethical Decision-making Model, in its response to this report the Department must clarify how it intends to embed and monitor the performance of the new model within the compensation team. The Department should provide regular updates to this Committee on issues raised by decision-makers and how these are being resolved.
From: Home Affairs Committee, Fifth Report - The Windrush Compensation Scheme (HC 204), paragraph 156, 24 November 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 7 February 2022 (deadline 24 January 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's Windrush Compensation Scheme report sets out mixed positions, declining a transfer to an independent body while describing changes already made to the scheme and some further work it is taking forward.
- On moving the scheme to an independent organisation, it says this would bring "more delays in issuing payments", and points instead to the Adjudicator's Office review process and an Independent Person advising on the scheme.
- It does not widen the historical cases review, calling that approach "costly, inefficient" and unlikely to locate affected people, and says it has focused on outreach and engagement instead.
- On the £10,000 preliminary award, it says it will process and offer it where "it is clear that the Home Office has wrongly enacted an immigration enforcement action", and that it cannot identify those who have not made contact with it.
- On caseworker capacity, it says the team has 80 caseworkers, with 24 more due to join over January and external recruitment under way to reach 120.