Source · IMB Annual Report

Charter Flight Monitoring Team (CFMT)

AI-generated report summary The Independent Monitoring Board's Charter Flight Monitoring Team observed nine charter operations to Albania, primarily involving individuals transferred from prisons to immigration detention before removal. The report highlights significant concerns regarding the humane treatment of returnees, particularly excessive in-vehicle confinement during night operations, and issues with interpretation provision and the handling of vulnerable individuals. While positive engagement from escorts was noted, the Board raised concerns about medical confidentiality, increasing use of restraint, and some coach safety incidents.

Year: 2023 Published: 25 Jul 2024 Type: Prison · Cat Charter Flight Monitoring Team Recommendations: 5 Key concerns Positive findings

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Safety statistics

Incidents during reporting year

Indicator	This year	Previous
Self-harm incidents	3	—
ACCT cases opened	12	—
Use of force	18	4

Positive findings

AI-generated summary

The Board noted improvements in the provision of professional interpreters compared to the previous year. Escorts generally demonstrated a friendly, respectful, and professional approach towards returnees, often engaging positively during the stressful removal process. Positive examples included escorts safeguarding personal property, effectively de-escalating challenging situations, and showing sensitivity towards vulnerable returnees and families. Continuity of care from paramedics was appropriate, with evidence of forward planning for medication.

Key concerns

11 items

Safety HOIE continued to remove people with known vulnerabilities, whether around their mental health or their risk of harming themselves.

Safety There was an increase in the use of restraint on returnees as compared with 2022.

Safety Not all the coaches in which returnees travelled to the airport were driven safely.

Regime/Time Out of Cell Repeated It is neither fair nor humane to subject people being removed from the country: to a process for their delivery to the airport, which always takes place through the night, in order to meet an arrival timetable HOIE has agreed with the Albanian authorities and (as part of this process) to hours of confinement in vehicles in order to reach departure airports selected by HOIE.

Equality/Diversity Repeated The processes used to identify interpretation needs are unreliable and should be improved.

Staffing Senior escorts’ lack of familiarity with the current version of the ACDT should be urgently addressed.

Regime/Time Out of Cell Repeated The length of time returnees are held in coaches, before the road journey to the selected airport even begins, is another long-standing concern of ours. These long periods of confinement have continued and should be reduced.

Equality/Diversity Repeated The plan given in response to our 2022 annual report, detailing the various steps escorts would take to achieve interpreting support for returnees when a professional interpreter was not present, has been achieved to only a limited extent. The plan was impressive. It needs to be fully delivered.

Mental Health We had concerns around the removal of a man in the summer directly from a psychiatric unit.

Healthcare The handover of medical documents and medication to the Albanian receiving authorities (instead of directly to returnees) represents a potential, if not actual, breach of medical confidentiality, with no guarantee they would be restored to their rightful owners.

Resettlement/Release The Board was not able to discover the extent to which some returnees, including a vulnerable individual referred to in the Appendix, had been properly prepared for removal in advance.

Recommendations

5 items · 4 repeated

Recommendation 1

Addressee: Home Office

It is neither fair nor humane to subject people being removed from the country:
• to a process for their delivery to the airport, which always takes place through
the night, in order to meet an arrival timetable HOIE has agreed with the
Albanian authorities and
• (as part of this process) to hours of confinement in vehicles in order to reach
departure airports selected by HOIE.
A fairer and more humane approach should be adopted. This long-standing concern
of ours is recorded in paragraphs 5.2, 5.4.1 and 5.4.5.

Repeated Source text verified

Recorded status:

Topic: Regime

Recommendation 2

Addressee: Home Office

The processes used to identify interpretation needs are unreliable and should be improved.

Repeated Source text verified

Recorded status:

Topic: Equality

Recommendation 3

Addressee: Home Office

Senior escorts’ lack of familiarity with the current version of the ACDT should be urgently addressed.

Source text verified

Recorded status:

Topic: Staffing

Recommendation 4

Addressee: Home Office

The length of time returnees are held in coaches, before the road journey to the
selected airport even begins, is another long-standing concern of ours. These long
periods of confinement have continued and should be reduced: paragraphs 5.4.2,
5.4.2.1 and 5.4.4.

Repeated Source text verified

Recorded status:

Topic: Regime

Recommendation 5

Addressee: Other — other

The plan given in response to our 2022 annual report, detailing the various steps escorts would take to achieve interpreting support for returnees when a professional interpreter was not present, has been achieved to only a limited extent. The plan was impressive. It needs to be fully delivered.

Repeated Source text verified

Recorded status:

Topic: Equality

Other reports for Charter Flight Monitoring Team (CFMT)

2024 Published 4 Sep 2025 · Concerns

2021 Published 24 Jun 2022 · Concerns