Recommendation 4

HM Government Accepted

The Government has a long-standing relationship with the UNHCR through the Quality Protection Partnership (QPP), which has existed in one form or another since 2004. Its aim is for the UNHCR to assist the Home Office to develop better processes, operational policies and instructions to ensure high quality first-instance decision making through the monitoring of refugee status determination procedures and the application of the 1951 Refugee Convention criteria. This includes supporting the Home Office’s continuing development and integration of quality assurance mechanisms relating to international protection and improving the quality of first instance asylum and other relevant decision- making. Under the QPP, we have an annual workplan addressing various aspects of the end-to- end asylum process. One of the large workstreams in the last couple of years has been entitled ‘Screening, Intake and Triage’. For this workstream, UNHCR produced a detailed desk review which considered a large volume of guidance, policy, caselaw and practice as well as the various Standard Operating Procedures relating to screening. UNHCR also conducted nine observational visits to eight screening locations, which included direct observation of many live screening interviews, as well as individual interviews and focus groups with a full range of personnel. Further, UNHCR conducted a casefile audit. Following on from this, the Home Office and UNHCR have agreed to include a ‘screening’ workstream on this year’s (2022/2023) QPP Workplan. We are currently undertaking inception meetings to discuss and agree the Terms of Reference. More broadly, we have also agreed that UNCHR will work in close conjunction with Asylum and Protection collaboration will be included as a specific Workstream under the QPP. Again, we are currently in the process of agreeing the terms of this. In May 2021 the Department established two dedicated case working Hubs for deciding children’s asylum claims which are now fully operational. One in Solihull (with responsibility for Local Authorities in the Midlands, East of England and the Southwest of England), and one in Liverpool (with responsibility for Local Authorities in the North of England, Croydon and Kent). Both sites share responsibility for London and Southeast England Local Authorities. The hubs have established improved focus on and greater control of cases to build expertise, identify efficiencies and provide a consistency of decision making (and quicker outcomes). to do so. We continue to work collaboratively with Local Authorities nationally on the remote interview process for Accompanied and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and young people utilising digital interviewing video capabilities to complement in person interviews. Since May 2021 we have increased Local Authority opt in for digital interviewing to 108 Local Authorities helping to speed up processes, reduce delays and the numbers of children and young people who have an outstanding claim. More Local Authorities are expected to sign up to the remote interview process, given the tangible benefits it provides. We are continuing to recruit additional decision-makers who will be trained to process children’s asylum claims. processing children’s asylum claims will have an impact on the time taken to make final decisions in individual cases. This means that prioritisation does not necessarily reduce the overall case handling times.