Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 13
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
While the Programme aims to increase the number of asylum decisions that the Home Office makes, the Home Office acknowledged that it has not looked broadly enough at benefits and costs beyond the asylum and protection team of increasing decisions.33 For example, its business case does not account for economic benefits, such as someone receiving a decision and being able to move into work.34 The Home Office acknowledged that there will be an impact on HM Courts & Tribunals Service, who will need to manage more appeals against asylum decisions and Immigration Enforcement, who may need to 24 Qq 119–120 25 TAP0004; TAP0005 26 C&AG’s Report, para 3.12 27 TAP0005; C&AG’s Report, para 3.11 28 C&AG’s Report, para 3.12 29 Q 57 30 Q 43; C&AG’s Report, para 3.12 31 Home Office, Immigration system statistics: Asylum and Resettlement - Summary tables: Asy_10a, 24 August 2023 32 C&AG’s Report, para 3.14 33 Q 128 34 Qq 129–130; C&AG’s Report, para 9 The Asylum Transformation Programme 11 detain and remove the increased number of people who are refused asylum. The Home Office also listed the Department for Work & Pensions and the Department for Education as bodies that would be affected by the Programme.35
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".