Recommendation 12

HM Government Accepted

1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 1.2 The legacy asylum backlog target has been met with more than 112,000 asylum cases cleared in 2023. Fundamental changes to the decision-making process and boosting efficiency has resulted in 112,000 asylum decisions this year, and the highest annual number of substantive decisions in a year since 2002. This is in part due to the Home Office (the department) stepping up processing, deploying an additional 1,200 caseworkers, meeting our target to double the number of asylum caseworkers and tripling productivity to ensure more illegal migrants are returned to their country of origin, quicker. The increased efficiency has seen the Home Office not just clear the original 92,000 legacy asylum backlog but exceed it. In one 4-week period from 20 November to 17 December 2023, there were 20,481 initial asylum decisions made. This is more than the number of asylum decisions made in the entirety of 2021. While all cases have been reviewed and 112,000 decisions made overall, 4,500 complex cases have been highlighted that require additional checks or investigation for a final decision to be made. These hard cases typically relate to asylum seekers presenting as children – where age verification is taking place; those with serious medical issues; or those with suspected past convictions, where checks may reveal criminality that would bar asylum. Moreover, the grant rate for asylum seekers has gone down this year. The grant rate for asylum decisions in 2023 is at 67%, lower than in both 2022 and 2021, which were 76% and 72% respectively. The Home Office achieved the commitment to increase the number of asylum caseworkers to 2,500 by September 2023. On 31 August 2023, there were 2,510 decision makers in post, demonstrating that during this month we exceeded our target. Numbers rose to 2,529 in October before falling slightly due to natural attrition as individuals change roles or leave posts. Our recruitment campaign continues, and we expect to maintain to have 2,500 decision makers going forward. 1.3 Flow claims will be prioritised from 2024 onwards now that legacy claims have been cleared. Individual claims lodged on or after 28 June 2022 may be prioritised on a case-by-case basis due to exceptional and compelling circumstances. Please see Case by case prioritisation on GOV.UK for further information about how individual asylum claims may be prioritised. 1.4 The department has quadrupled the number of decision makers over the last 2 years and is continuing to recruit more. There are recruitment strategies in place to maintain staffing at the required levels to allow the department to manage asylum intake and reduce the overall time to make initial asylum decisions, including rolling recruitment campaigns. 1.5 The Home Office has successfully tripled decision productivity. This was made possible through streamlining and modernising the end-to-end process, with improved guidance and more focussed interviews, speeding up asylum processing whilst maintaining the integrity of the system. Productivity will continue to fluctuate as the department works through different case types. The department will continue to build on existing processes and systems in our approach to the remaining backlog of cases, including those made on or after 28 June 2022, 'flow' cases.