Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Acknowledged
Urgently publish outstanding Accounting Officer Assessments and explain third country processing negotiations.
Recommendation
We are disappointed that, despite the Committee previously raising concerns, the Permanent Secretary is still not providing the necessary transparency to enable Parliament to hold the Home Office to account on its asylum and immigration plans. We have previously raised concerns about the Accounting Officer’s transparency to Parliament. Despite this, the Home Office published the summary Accounting Officer Assessment for the Sovereign Borders Programme nine months late, and 15 months after it approved the programme. The assessment did not cover the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act, despite this representing a major change to asylum policy. The Accounting Officer asserts that it is up to ministers when to make these assessments public, but other departments have repeatedly shared assessments in a much more timely manner, without Ministerial approval being a barrier. The Accounting Officer was also unwilling to share any details on negotiations with other countries over other potential third country asylum processing partnerships. While respecting the need for a level of confidentiality, we are concerned at the Home Office’s unwillingness to engage with the Committee on its only “plan B”. Recommendation 6: As a matter of urgency, and no later than one month after the publication of this report, the Home Office should: • Publish all outstanding Accounting Officer Assessments, including those where there has been a significant change to an ongoing programme, and in the future should publish all Accounting Officer Assessments in a timely manner; and • Write to the Committee to explain how it intends to share information about negotiations with other countries it is considering for third country processing, while respecting confidentiality. 8 Asylum Accommodation and UK-Rwanda partnership 1 Planning in a fast-moving policy environment
Government Response Summary
The Home Office commits to producing and publishing outstanding Accounting Officer Assessments as quickly as possible, pending ministerial views, but indicates some will not be published yet due to ongoing discussions. On negotiations, it will write to the Committee in due course but maintains the sensitive nature requires privacy.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. cannot be currently supplied but the department will inform the Committee as soon as it is able to do so. The Home Office is committed to producing Accounting Officer Assessments (AOA) for all required programmes including any new or outstanding Programme AOAs, these are being progressed now and whilst the Home Office intend to publish any outstanding assessments as quickly as possible, it is right that it gets the views of Ministers in this process. For new programmes or those with significant changes, the AOA will be produced promptly at the same time as an updated business case. Decisions by new Ministers are likely to result in changes to some Programmes. For example, discussions are ongoing on the Asylum Accommodation Non-Detained Programme including large sites and so the department will not yet be publishing an AOA but will keep the Committee updated. On sharing information about negotiations with other countries that are being considered for third country processing, the Home Office Permanent Secretary noted during the Committee evidence session that it is important that the substance of those negotiations is kept private due to their sensitive nature. The department will write to the new Committee on this in due course to provide updates as necessary.