Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 10
Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Transformation Programme
Published 27 Oct 2023
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee The Asylum Transformation Programme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
However the UNHCR, as well as the Public Law Project and Dr Jo Wilding from the Migration Law Clinic, have raised concerns about the streamlined asylum process questionnaire.23 Though the Home Office told us that it had worked with the UNHCR 10 Home Office, Immigration system statistics: Asylum and Resettlement - Asylum seekers in receipt of support: Asy_D09, 24 August 2023 11 C&AG’s Report, para 3.5 ; PM Statement on illegal migration: 13 December 2022, 13 December 202 12 Qq 17, 20, 34 13 Hansard, Illegal Migration Update, 5 September 2023 14 Q 25 15 C&AG’s Report, para 3.6 16 Qq 22, 37 17 Q 36 18 Q 12 19 Q 15, Home Office, Streamlined asylum processing guidance, 16 August 2023 20 Q 12; C&AG’s Report, para 3.11 21 Home Office, Streamlined asylum processing guidance, 16 August 2023 22 TAP0004; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR’s Guide to Asylum Reform in the United Kingdom, 23 February 2021 23 TAP0001; TAP0004; TAP0005 10 The Asylum Transformation Programme to improve the questionnaire, the written evidence we have received indicates that the questionnaires are poorly designed, lack clear instructions and are only available in English.24 Written evidence suggested that some of these weaknesses, along with IT system issues, may mean the Home Office is unable to achieve the expected decision- making increases from the new questionnaires.25
From: Public Accounts Committee, Seventy-Sixth Report - The Asylum Transformation Programme (HC 1334), 27 October 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 February 2024 (deadline 27 December 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with the Committee's recommendations on the asylum backlog, the streamlined process and local authority engagement, and disagrees with those on hotels, safeguarding and publishing the Programme Business Case.
- On the backlog, the government agrees with the recommendation, describes it as implemented and says the legacy backlog target has been met; it says flow claims "will be prioritised from 2024 onwards".
- On hotels, it disagrees with the recommendation to set out how and by when it will stop using them, but says it has "plans in place to close over 50 hotels before the end of January 2024" and will keep modelling assumptions "under regular review".
- On local authorities, it agrees, with a target implementation date of "iterative to December 2025", and says pilots with London, Wales and South West England will run between January and March 2024.
- It disagrees with publishing the Programme Business Case, stating that "it is not standard practice" to do so, and offers a private meeting with the Committee once HM Treasury approves it, which it anticipates by "the Summer of 2024".