Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Accepted
Home Office neglected oversight and assurance of asylum accommodation providers, over-reliant on self-reporting.
Conclusion
The Home Office has neglected the oversight and assurance of performance of providers delivering multi-billion pound contracts. The department has been over-reliant on self-reporting of performance by providers and failed to invest in the assurance capacity necessary to properly monitor performance. As a result, the Home Office has not been able to monitor effectively whether providers are delivering the standards required by the contracts. The department has strengthened its capacity more recently, and this increased resource is welcome, but we are still not convinced that the Home Office has sufficient oversight of the performance of contract providers to effectively hold them to account. (Conclusion, Paragraph 52)
Government Response Summary
The government is devising and implementing a subcontractor assurance framework to identify and rectify issues within supply chains, ensuring providers conduct due diligence and strengthening supply-chain visibility for the Home Office. It also reported that 93% of identified excess profits have been returned.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Home Office is committed to strengthening transparency and accountability across its asylum accommodation contracts. As a result, 93% of the excess profits identified by the auditors have been returned to the Home Office, with the validity of the remaining 7% still under discussion and negotiation is currently underway with the aim of swiftly agreeing the return of these remaining monies. To ensure subcontractors are regularly reviewed, a subcontractor assurance framework is being devised and implemented to identify and rectify any issues within supply chains. This will ensure Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract providers carry out adequate due diligence on their subcontractors. The framework will set out a consistent approach to subcontractor checks and controls and will strengthen supply-chain visibility for the Home Office. The Home Office publishes information about asylum accommodation contracts and related awards on Contract Finder, which provides public access to contract notices, award detail and associated documentation. We have written separately to the Committee as requested. Provider Profits