Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 16
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)
When we asked the Home Office why it was so far from achieving its accommodation targets, it told us that there is a “huge amount of pressure” for the type of accommodation it is trying to source.44 In written evidence, the Local Government Association (LGA) told us that providers sourcing accommodation for the Home Office compete with councils seeking accommodation for domestic families and people who have resettled in the UK or been granted asylum, which increases prices and distorts local markets.45 The Home Office acknowledged that it was “in similar parts of the market” to councils.46 The LGA told us that homelessness, low social housing stock and an unaffordable private rented sector are “creating a housing crisis”, and that this will make the government’s plans to house people waiting for an asylum decision across all local authorities challenging. The Home Office is planning to implement a ‘place-based approach’ and said it was seeking “to get into a position where [it has] a much closer and ongoing dialogue” with providers and local areas.47 It told us that it would have “meaningful discussions” with every local authority where there is concern about the changes that it is implementing.48
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".