Home Office admits asylum plans in doubt

Plans to amended the asylum strategy are "in doubt" unless the Home Office takes urgent action, the section has told the government's spending watchdog

The National Audit Office revealed the admittance successful a highly captious study informing plans to marque the asylum strategy much businesslike are not connected track.

One of the factors was Home Office delays successful deciding asylum claims, the watchdog said.

The Home Office said it was moving non-stop to trim backlogs.

But earlier this week, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said astatine the existent complaint of processing the authorities could neglect to conscionable the premier minister's target of clearing the backlog of asylum claims.

The backlog of 173,000 radical waiting for an archetypal determination connected their assertion means the Home Office is spending an estimated £3.6bn a twelvemonth connected asylum support.

In April, Home Office chiefs classified their department's advancement connected speeding up the asylum strategy arsenic "amber-red", the NAO study reveals, meaning it was "in doubt, with urgent enactment required and imaginable delays to delivery".

The NAO said the Home Office lawsuit for a £430m programme of improvements to the asylum strategy was based connected "highly uncertain assumptions".

Risks remained high, including the request for accommodation for asylum seekers exceeding proviso

The proportionality of asylum applicants waiting much than six months for a determination had been expanding for 5 years.

And that slowdown successful decision-making had accrued the request for accommodation.

But the Home Office was failing to conscionable its targets to unafraid capable places for radical to stay.

And adjacent aft decisions were taken, lone 0.4% of those who had nary lawsuit to beryllium successful the UK were suitable to beryllium removed from the county, due to the fact that of problems relating to documentation oregon aesculapian and safeguarding concerns.

NAO caput Gareth Davies said: "Despite caller progress, the asylum and extortion translation programme is simply a agelong mode from gathering government's ambitions to trim the outgo and amended the prime of the service.

"The Home Office has astir doubled the fig of decisions made each week - although, it is unclear whether it volition beryllium capable to region the backlog of older asylum decisions by the extremity of 2023."

A Home Office spokesperson said it was moving "non-stop" to trim the backlog.

"We cognize much indispensable beryllium done to bring the asylum strategy backmost into balance," helium said.

"The Illegal Migration Bill volition halt the boats by detaining those who travel to the UK illegally, and swiftly returning them to their location state oregon a harmless 3rd country."

But Labour shadiness migration curate Stephen Kinnock said the Conservatives had "lost control" of the backlog.

"The premier curate has admitted that the asylum strategy is broken," helium said.