Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 3
54th Report - Afghanistan Response Route
Published 14 Nov 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Department did not do enough to learn the lessons from previous data breaches. Before the February 2022 data breach, the Department had policies in place to protect against the loss of personal information. After three separate data breaches in autumn 2021 relating to the ARAP, the Department reviewed its data protection policies and guidance, and it worked with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to make targeted improvements to prevent similar incidents from recurring. Despite this, the Department continued to experience data breaches, including the significant data breach in February 2022. In August 2025, the Department disclosed that there had been 49 separate data breaches to date at the unit handling applications from Afghan citizens to relocate to the UK, seven of which met the threshold for disclosure to the ICO. The Department continues to work to reduce the risk of further data breaches, but it has not given us confidence that sufficient action has yet been taken. recommendation Alongside its Treasury Minute response, the Department should write to the Committee to provide details of: • its policies, processes and guidance to prevent data protection breaches relating to personal information; • how the Department assures itself that these are being followed, including the level of attendance at related mandatory training; and • the changes to policies, processes and guidance the Department has made in response to previous data breaches.
From: Public Accounts Committee, 54th Report - Afghanistan Response Route (HC 1391), 14 November 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fourth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 14 January 2026).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fourth report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with four of the Committee's recommendations, including six-monthly updates on ARR resettlement from March 2026, and disagrees with the recommendation on separately capturing ARR costs.
- On updates, the government agrees to write to the Committee every six months from March 2026 until the ARR is complete, though it "may not always be possible to provide a precise breakdown by scheme".
- On the case working system, it agrees, stating the recommendation is implemented and that DACS (introduced in May 2022) addressed "many of the vulnerabilities", with the department "equipped with the right tools to minimise the risk" of a recurrence.
- On scrutiny, it agrees and gives a target date of Spring 2026. The Treasury will issue a Dear Accounting Officer letter on sharing information with the Comptroller and Auditor General in the event of a super-injunction.
- It disagrees on separate ARR costing, saying this would be "disproportionately complex and resource intensive", and instead offers an indicative cost allocation at the end of each financial year, included with the six-monthly updates.