Recommendations & Conclusions
7 items
3
Conclusion
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
The Home Office does not have a credible plan for ending the use of hotels to accommodate people waiting for a decision and the unacceptable cost this creates. The Home Office spent £2.3 billion on hotels in 2022–23 to accommodate people waiting for their asylum decision. In April 2023, there …
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The Home Office does not have a credible plan for ending the use of hotels to accommodate people waiting for a decision and the unacceptable cost this creates. The Home Office spent £2.3 billion on hotels in 2022–23 to accommodate people waiting for their asylum decision. In April 2023, there were 48,000 people waiting for a decision while living in hotels. To reduce its reliance on hotels the Home Office has sought ‘dispersal accommodation’ in local areas. But while it initially hoped to find 500 new beds every week, it found, on average, just 48 new beds a week in the year to April 2023. The Home Office has struggled to procure larger scale accommodation and has now told us it is “maximising the use of hotels” by increasing the number of people who share hotel rooms, though it could not set out how much money this would save. We were surprised to hear that the Home Office is paying for in excess of 5,000 empty hotel beds as a ‘buffer’ in case its initial accommodation sites, such as Manston, cannot cope with the number of people arriving. The Home Office has told us that to plan effectively it needs to estimate future demands on the UK asylum system, and that it uses several ‘scenarios’ to model how many people will arrive in the UK. However, it told us that it does not have a date for when it expects to stop using hotels under these scenarios. Recommendation 3: The Home Office should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out how and by when it intends to reduce its use of hotels, and when it intends to stop using hotels altogether, under its different planning scenarios about the number of people applying for asylum.
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, explaining that the use of hotels was a short-term measure and a plan is in place to reduce reliance, including closing over 50 hotels by January 2024. However, it states that modelling future demand is complex and uncertain, thus …
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HM Treasury
5
Conclusion
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
The Home Office does not have adequate safeguards to protect against the risks of vulnerable people having to share accommodation with strangers. The Home Office has written to councils informing them that the number of people staying in hotels will double. It plans to achieve this by making people share …
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The Home Office does not have adequate safeguards to protect against the risks of vulnerable people having to share accommodation with strangers. The Home Office has written to councils informing them that the number of people staying in hotels will double. It plans to achieve this by making people share rooms. The Home Office said an assessment would be carried out before people are moved into shared rooms, but it struggled to explain what that assessment would consider other than language and nationality. There was no clarity on whether the Home Office planned to consider the trauma that people claiming asylum might have faced and, while the Home Office said it would review health records when we asked about mental health, we are concerned that it does not have a robust process in place to make sure sharing arrangements will be safe. If the Home Office implements room sharing without proper safeguards there could be serious consequences. Recommendation 5: The Home Office should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out in detail the measures it will take to identify any vulnerabilities individuals waiting for a decision have, and how it will manage the risks to the individual that these may present.
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, explaining that it already has a comprehensive safeguarding approach in place, with existing strategies, trained staff, collaboration with stakeholders, robust processes, and a Safeguarding Hub to identify vulnerabilities and manage risks for asylum seekers.
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HM Treasury
6
Recommendation
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
The Home Office failed to convince us that it understands the full implications of its programme on the wider asylum system, affecting the ability of others to plan. The current business case for the asylum and protection transformation programme is incomplete and unrealistic. The Home Office acknowledged that it has …
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The Home Office failed to convince us that it understands the full implications of its programme on the wider asylum system, affecting the ability of others to plan. The current business case for the asylum and protection transformation programme is incomplete and unrealistic. The Home Office acknowledged that it has not looked broadly enough at the impact of rapidly clearing its asylum backlog, and that its business case ignores the challenges and costs that bodies such as Immigration Enforcement and the courts will need to overcome to avoid creating new backlogs. The Home Office will not be updating its business case until early 2024, at least six months later than it had told the NAO and after the date it expects to have made decisions on all of the older, ‘legacy’ cases. This delay means other organisations in the wider asylum system cannot make informed plans and makes it more likely that new backlogs will appear elsewhere in the asylum system. Recommendation 6: The Home Office should publish its updated business case so the intentions and impacts of the Programme are clear and transparent to Parliament, the public and other organisations. In its Treasury Minute response, the Home Office should set a date by which this business case will be published. 8 The Asylum Transformation Programme 1 Working through the backlog of asylum decisions
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Government response AI summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, stating it does not intend to publish the business case as it is not standard practice. Instead, it offers to hold a private meeting with the Committee once HM Treasury approves the business case, which is anticipated by Summer …
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HM Treasury
14
Conclusion
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
The Home Office told us it would include a wider range of costs and benefits in the next iteration of its business case, which it plans to produce early in 2024.36 It had previously told the NAO it would update the business case in Summer 2023.37 We note that the …
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The Home Office told us it would include a wider range of costs and benefits in the next iteration of its business case, which it plans to produce early in 2024.36 It had previously told the NAO it would update the business case in Summer 2023.37 We note that the updated business case is now not expected until after the date by which the Home Office expects to have cleared the legacy backlog. When we questioned the Home Office about whether the Programme business case is realistic, the Home Office replied that it still expects there to be a “significant benefit to the taxpayer” from the Programme, and that it would “iterate from the previous version” and “sharpen” its analysis.38 35 Qq 128, 132 36 Q 170 37 C&AG’s Report, para 2.5 38 Qq 172–173 12 The Asylum Transformation Programme 2 Finding accommodation for people who are waiting for a decision Sourcing alternative accommodation to hotels
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Government response AI summary
The government rejects the committee's implied recommendation to publish the business case, stating it is not standard practice, but offers a private meeting to discuss it once HM Treasury approval is received by Summer 2024.
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HM Treasury
15
Conclusion
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
In 2022–23, the Home Office spent £2.3 billion on hotels to accommodate people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim and in April 2023, there were 48,000 people waiting for a decision in hotels.39 In his statement to the House on 13 December 2022, the Prime Minister said that …
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In 2022–23, the Home Office spent £2.3 billion on hotels to accommodate people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim and in April 2023, there were 48,000 people waiting for a decision in hotels.39 In his statement to the House on 13 December 2022, the Prime Minister said that the Home Office would end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.40 An early version of the business case for the Programme expected the Home Office to find 500 new beds in local communities every week and stop using hotels by December 2023.41 The Home Office later revised this to 350 beds a week but, in the year to the end of April 2023, it found on average just 48 new beds a week.42 When we took evidence in July 2023 the Home Office told us that it was then finding more than 48 beds a week but was not close to 350 a week on a regular basis.43
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Government response AI summary
The government rejects the committee's implied criticism regarding hotel usage and bed provision, detailing a plan to reform asylum accommodation, reduce reliance on hotels by closing over 50 by January 2024, and continually review modelling assumptions.
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HM Treasury
18
Conclusion
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
The Home Office said it is very difficult to estimate how many people will claim asylum because of uncertain migration patterns, but that it has low, medium and high scenarios that it uses for planning purposes.53 When we asked the Home Office when it planned to stop using hotels for …
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The Home Office said it is very difficult to estimate how many people will claim asylum because of uncertain migration patterns, but that it has low, medium and high scenarios that it uses for planning purposes.53 When we asked the Home Office when it planned to stop using hotels for people waiting for their asylum decision, it said there were “too many variables” and that it “deliberately” did not have a date for this.54
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Government response AI summary
The government rejects the committee's implied recommendation for better planning, stating it has a clear plan to reform asylum accommodation, including closing over 50 hotels by January 2024, and will continue to review modelling assumptions despite inherent uncertainties.
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HM Treasury
22
Recommendation
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Trans…
Rejected
When we asked the Home Office how it was ensuring the safety of the people it is pairing up to share a hotel room, it was unable to clearly articulate its plans and said that there “might be people for whom it is not appropriate if they share”.67 It said …
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When we asked the Home Office how it was ensuring the safety of the people it is pairing up to share a hotel room, it was unable to clearly articulate its plans and said that there “might be people for whom it is not appropriate if they share”.67 It said it was looking at the records it holds, at the experience of people who were already living in its estate, and at nationality and language.68 It provided no further detail when we asked specifically whether it would consider mental health.69 We asked if anybody was speaking to the asylum seekers or completing an assessment, as would be the case for a social services placement, and the Home Office said that its providers were “explaining” that they would be moving people into shared rooms.70
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Government response AI summary
The government rejected the recommendation, stating it disagrees and that its existing safeguarding strategy, which includes staff training, collaboration with statutory agencies, and a Safeguarding Hub, already ensures the welfare and safety of asylum seekers.
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HM Treasury