Home Office

4. Mr A complains about the service and decision he received from the Home Office. He complains that:

• His application for the Windrush Compensation Scheme was not accepted because he could not provide documents (such as bank statements and housing records) from more than 40 years ago.

• The Home Office wasted his time by telling him that he was eligible for the scheme under the ‘Impact on Life’ category, despite knowing that he did not hold the documents they would later require.

5. Mr A explained that dealing with this process has left him stressed and caused him to have difficulty sleeping. He had to relive a lot of difficult times while completing his application and feels like this was all unnecessary. He says he was given false hope that he would be able to receive compensation, and it has been hard to take to find out that he is not.

6. By bringing the complaint to PHSO, Mr A is seeking acknowledgement of what he went through.

7. He would also like to see us recommend that the Home Office reconsider the compensation he believes he is due under the Scheme.

8. Mr A submitted a claim to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. In his application, he explained that he had been subjected to repeated racism and physical abuse from the late 1970s up to the 1990s, which left him depressed to the point of having suicidal thoughts. He explained that he still suffered this depression, which continues to impact greatly on his close relationships, including his marriage, to this day.

9. He said what happened also impacted his relationship with his parents and siblings, because they had travelled to the UK without him initially when he was six months old. He followed from Jamaica in 1971 when he was 11 years old, and he explained that adapting to his new home and surroundings caused a lot of stress and hurt because he had not seen his parents in all that time.

10. Mr A explained that he was homeless between 1977 and 1979 and was repeatedly harassed and threatened by the police. It was in relation to these impacts on his life that he made the claim.

11. Mr A says that he was told that he was eligible to submit a claim for the Windrush Compensation Scheme. However, once he did so, his claim was rejected because he could not provide documentation for events that took place over 40 years ago, including banking and housing documents.

Windrush Compensation Scheme decision on Mr A’s claim

14. Mr A complains that his application for the Windrush Compensation Scheme was not accepted because he could not provide documents such as bank records and housing letters from more than 40 years ago. He feels that this was not a reasonable requirement, as most people would never have held onto such documents for so long because they are not ones that are considered vital.

15. Mr A made a claim under seven categories:

• Immigration and Legal Fees • Loss of Access to Employment • Denial of Access to Housing Services • Denial of Access to Higher Education • Denial of Access to Banking Services • Homelessness • Impact on Life

16. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not found any indications that something has gone wrong.

Original Decision:

17. The original decision from the Home Office was made on 14 November 2023 and explained that Mr A could not be offered any compensation. It covered each category separately.

Immigration and Legal Fees

18. In this category the HO can award compensation for certain qualifying immigration application types which were unsuccessful due to an inability to demonstrate lawful status in the UK.

19. The HO noted that according to its records, Mr A made an application for British citizenship on 23 December 1987, for which he paid £60.00. This application was successful, and so the HO explained that it was unable to offer him an award under this category.

Loss of Access to Employment

20. Mr A told the HO he had been refused employment between 30 to 40 years ago. To provide an award under this category, the HO must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that either Mr A had employment terminated, had an offer of employment withdrawn or was unable to progress job applications because he was unable to demonstrate lawful status.

21. The Home Office said that there was insufficient information to show the issues he faced were due to an inability to demonstrate lawful status in the UK. It also explained that there was no requirement for employers to check a person’s right to work at that time.

Denial of Access to Housing Services

22. Mr A told the HO he had issues accessing housing services between 1977 and 1979. He contacted his local Council but says they refused to provide him with accommodation or to register him on their housing list. He explained they would not accept his Jamaican passport as proof of his legal status, and then rental agencies advised the same.

23. Because he could not access housing, he was forced to live in a squat with no electricity or running water.

24. In its response to the application, the HO explained that to award under this category, it must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the reason he was unable to access housing services was an inability to demonstrate his lawful status.

25. It said it had not seen sufficient information to show the reason he was denied access to housing was because of an inability to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK.

Denial of Access to Higher Education

26. Mr A told the HO he had been unable to access higher education because of his homelessness. He felt if he had proper accommodation, he would have been able to participate in higher education. He felt that because his right to education was taken away, his future opportunities were impacted.

27. To award under this category, the HO must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Mr A was denied access to higher education as a home student due to an inability to demonstrate his lawful status in the UK.

28. However, Mr A had not said on his application form that he had been refused higher education because of an inability to demonstrate lawful status. Rather he told the HO that the situation he was in due to his homelessness meant further education was not an option for him. The HO decided there was insufficient information available to show he was denied access to higher education as a result of problems evidencing his legal status.

Denial of Access to Banking Services

29. In his application, Mr A told the HO he had been refused a bank account, overdraft and loan in 1980. It explained to award under this category it must be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that he was denied access to banking services because he was unable to demonstrate lawful status.

30. Mr A also told the HO he experienced financial loss because he had to be paid cash in hand due to not having a bank account, which meant he could not save and was unable to build a good financial footprint.

31. The HO explained that to reimburse for losses resulting from denial of access to banking services, it must be satisfied he suffered direct financial losses, and that these must have been experienced because he was denied access to banking services.

32. The HO said there was insufficient information available to show he had suffered direct financial losses during the period claimed.

Homelessness

33. Mr A told the HO he became homeless in 1977 after his parents told him to leave the family home. He explained this happened because he felt like a stranger after being left in Jamaica by his parents at six months old and not joining them in the UK until he was 11 years old.

34. He also told the Home Office he had not developed a relationship with the other members of the family because of this. He lived in squats until he was given accommodation by the local Council in 1980.

35. The HO said it denied the claim under this category because it was not satisfied on the balance of probabilities, he did not have access to accommodation in which it was reasonable for him to reside.

Impact on Life

36. Mr A explained to the HO that he entered the UK from Jamaica when he was 11 years old to join his parents. He told them of the impact that the time apart had on his relationship with his family.

37. He explained he first had issues demonstrating his lawful status in the late 1970s and recalled the pressure and stress he felt through the process of applying to naturalise as a British citizen.

38. He believed that if he did not apply on time, he would be forcibly returned to Jamaica, where he had no home or money and his only family members there were ones he had not seen in over a decade.

39. He told the HO that he did not have the money to apply, but had to manage to find it, and that his parents also had to apply to naturalise as British citizens, which left him fearful about what would happen to his siblings if they were left with no parents in the UK.

40. He explained that while he was not directly threatened with deportation by the HO, the police would repeatedly racially abuse and threaten him. He recalled in 1983 being stopped constantly by the police who would tell him they were going to send him ‘home’.

41. He explained to the HO that there was a period when he would not leave his house and he refused to travel to Jamaica because the police had told him if he did, he would never be allowed to return to the UK. He said these incidents affected his relationship with his children.

42. He said these experiences impacted his mental health, that he is still affected by them, and that he is still cautious of the police.

43. The HO said that while it empathised with the experiences Mr A encountered whilst living in the UK, unfortunately it was unable determine these issues were a direct result of an inability to demonstrate lawful status in the UK.

44. It also noted his reasons for applying for British citizenship but could see that he entered the UK following Jamaica’s independence and, although remaining part of the Commonwealth, it became an independent nation. This mean meant he was a Jamaican citizen and would always have needed to apply for British citizenship.

Tier 1 Review Decision:

45. The Adjudicator’s Office provided its Tier 1 Review Decision on 16 July 2024.

46. We have reviewed the Tier 1 decision and can see that for all categories it upheld the original decision. The reason given was typically that at the time of the events Mr A was discussing, various organisations (potential employers, housing associations, private landlords, educational institutions, banks etc) were not required to request that applicants prove their lawful immigration status. These checks did not come into force until the ‘Asylum and Immigration Act 1996’ and/or ‘Immigration Act 2014’ were brought into law.

47. The Tier 1 review found that the impacts Mr A claimed would not have been caused by an inability to prove his lawful status.

Tier 2 Review Decision

48. The Adjudicator’s Office (AO) provided its Tier 2 Review Decision on 1 July 2025, again providing an individual response to each category.

49. The review came to the same conclusions as the Tier 1 Decision – ultimately finding that the impacts claimed would not have been caused by Mr A being unable to demonstrate his lawful status, as checks of this nature would not have been required at the time he claimed to have experienced impacts.

Impact on Life

50. The AO upheld the HO’s decision, noting that it found the decision to be consistent with the scheme rules when concluding that there was insufficient information to show that the impacts suffered occurred because of an inability to demonstrate lawful status.

Our decision:

51. We can see from the responses provided by both the Home Office and the Adjudicator’s Office that it appears that the experiences and impact Mr A described were acknowledged.

52. The Home Office has not disputed Mr A’s claims that these events occurred, or the impact he suffered because of them, but rather has explained that there is nothing to indicate that the cause of them was Mr A being unable to demonstrate his lawful status, which is a key requirement of the Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS). At the time of the events in question, Mr A’s status was ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain ‘(ILR). This is a form of immigration status in the UK that allows individuals to live, work, and study without the need for visa renewals.

53. We have reviewed the introduction and background section of the Gov.uk guidance ‘Windrush Compensation Scheme: full rules’, which states:

54. “This compensation scheme (“the Scheme”) is designed to compensate individuals who have suffered loss in connection with being unable to demonstrate their lawful status in the United Kingdom.”

55. There appears to be here a misunderstanding here of what the WCS is for. We appreciate that Mr A was subjected to very difficult conditions at times, including but not limited to his difficulty in securing employment or housing. While this may have been caused by several factors, there was not sufficient evidence to suggest that one of those factors was an inability to demonstrate his status (ILR) in the UK. As that is the key criteria for eligibility under the WCS, we could not find that there is any indication of maladministration or service failure in the HO’s decision.

56. As there is no indication that Mr A would have been unable to demonstrate this status when required, the HO and AO appear to have carried out their reviews correctly.

Incorrect Advice

57. Mr A complains that the Home Office told him that he was eligible for the scheme under the ‘Impact on Life’ category, despite knowing that he did not hold the documents they would later require. Mr A took this to mean that he qualified for compensation from the scheme, which appears to be a misunderstanding (as we will cover below).

58. He says that this was both a waste of this time, and gave him false hope, which could have been avoided as the Home Office knew it would never accept his application.

59. After his initial application was rejected, Mr A wrote to the HO on 5 February 2023 to complain about this, and to tell the HO about the additional impact that the application process had on him. He said the applications process forced him to relive several traumatic incidents, and that rejecting his claim ‘on the balance of probabilities’ made him feel abused all over again. He feels the HO was telling him that he did not have these experiences which caused him to suffer so much.

60. He explained that he feels the burden of proof is so high that only people who have been reported, had benefits stopped or been refused health care can ever claim successfully. He believes that everyone else who came to the UK from the Caribbean at that time will have their claims refused.

61. The HO acknowledged receipt of Mr A’s claim on 17 April 2023. It wrote to him again on 10 June 2023 and advised “We have reviewed your claim form and the supporting documents provided and have confirmed you meet the eligibility criteria of the Scheme. We will now carefully consider what compensation you may be entitled to. Please be aware that being eligible for the scheme does not mean you will definitely receive compensation.”

62. It also explained that it would carry out an initial assessment to determine whether Mr A could be given a preliminary award of £10,000 under the ‘Impact on Life’ category. It explained that any determination would be made on the balance of probabilities.

63. It wrote to Mr A again on 29 June 2023 to request copies of any documentation he had to show evidence of being threatened with deportation or fined, or that he was refused employment.

64. Mr A emailed the HO on 4 July 2023 to explain that the threats were from police, not the HO, and that he had no evidence for either point as it was 30-40 years ago.

65. The HO wrote to Mr A on 24 July 2023 to explain it could not offer a preliminary award as it had not been able to determine that he met the requirements, but that this was not the final assessment of his claim.

Our decision:

66. Mr A complains he was told he could apply to the WCS without documents that were in fact required. He complains that this was a waste of his time and gave him false hope.

67. In PHSO’s ‘Principles of Good Administration’, we set out a number of standards that we expect to find from public organisations. In in terms of communication from an organisation regarding being customer focused, the principles say “Public bodies should aim to ensure that customers are clear about their entitlements; about what they can and cannot expect from the public body.”

68. The HO told us: ‘Eligibility to claim compensation, and entitlement to be awarded compensation are two distinctly separate assessments – both of which are outlined in publicly available information. Where eligibility is confirmed (based on an assessment of lawful status and the time the person entered the UK for the first time) this does not guarantee compensation will be offered – this was confirmed in the eligibility confirmation letter of 10 June 2023.

69. ‘The WCS guidance does specify that documentary evidence is not mandatory and that we will make a decision on the balance of probabilities where possible. It is also true that we will request further evidence where appropriate. In this case, none of the issues raised could be linked to an inability to demonstrate lawful status therefore it was not appropriate to request further information to evidence claimed experiences as the overall outcome would not be affected.’

70. This would be the key point of the argument. Mr A appears to have been under the impression that because he was told he was eligible to apply, this meant his application would be accepted. However, he had simply been told he could apply, and eligibility to apply does not guarantee that an applicant is entitled to a payment.

71. As part of the investigation, we reviewed the Home Office document ‘Windrush Compensation Scheme Primary Claimant Claim Form’, which Mr A had to complete to make his claim. We wanted to see what the form advised complainants would be required in the form of evidence when making a claim.

72. Under the section ‘Documents to support your claim’, the form states: “If you can give us the information and evidence we ask for, it will help us decide your claim for compensation. However, if you don't have any evidence for a particular category, please don't worry as we will try to help you to get this.”

73. We explored this further with Mr A, and his complaint appears to stem from a misunderstanding of what would be involved in the process.

74. As the complaint form advised that the HO would help attempt to locate documents, Mr A was under the impression that even if he could not provide them himself, this would not be a problem. This in turn led to him suffering false hope that his claim would be successful.

75. There does not appear to be an indication that the HO did contact other external agencies to seek evidence. However, based on the reasons given above, it does not appear that doing so would have provided any relevant evidence.

76. There does not appear to be anything here to suggest that the HO did not carry out the process correctly, and it was not incorrect to say that Mr A was eligible to apply for compensation – he was. However, that did not automatically mean he was entitled to compensation, and they explained this when they wrote to him.

77. When we considered this, we reviewed the ‘Windrush Compensation Scheme casework guidance’, in particular the section that discusses the ‘standard of proof’ required when making an application. The guidance states:

78. “The scheme operates on the balance of probabilities. This means you can award compensation if you are satisfied it is more likely than not that what has been claimed for occurred, that is, you are more than 50% sure.

79. This means you should not expect customers to provide detailed documentary evidence to support every aspect of their claim, or every criterion within a particular category.

80. The suggested documents set out in the next sections of this document are not exhaustive or prescriptive. You should take a holistic view of the claim and use all the information and evidence you have available to you.

81. This will include:

• direct documentary evidence – this information is factual and corroborates what a claimant has told us - it may be from Home Office records or official correspondence, for example from employers or a local authority • circumstantial information – this won’t categorically prove something but may indirectly support what a claimant has said - it may include statements from a claimant and / or others, or it might be documentation that proves aspects of a claim but not all, for example records from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) which might tell you that an individual stopped being employed but doesn’t tell you why

82. If, drawing upon both, and your overall understanding of a claim, you are satisfied that it is more likely than not that what the customer has claimed for has occurred, then you should make an award.”

83. This shows that while the HO does have discretion to make an award without records being present, it does need to be satisfied that there was a likelihood that the claim is valid. For the reasons described above, the HO was not satisfied this was the case.

84. With this in mind, we find that there is nothing to indicate failings on the part of the HO, and so we will end consideration of this complaint here.

Summary:

85. Having reviewed all the relevant evidence, we have taken the decision that there is nothing to indicate a need to proceed to the second and final stage of our complaints process.

86. We were sorry to learn of the circumstances which led to Mr A’s approach to our office. We realise that the outcome of his approach is unlikely to be the one he was hoping for. We also recognise his likely disappointment at this and hope we have clearly explained the reasons for our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about the Home Office (the HO).

2. We would like to thank Mr A for bringing these matters to our attention and recognise that this has been a very difficult and lengthy process for him.

3. Having considered the available evidence for both points Mr A asked us to investigate we have seen no indication that anything went wrong. We have therefore taken the decision not to proceed further with a more detailed investigation.