Whitehall’s spending watchdog has revealed the Home Secretary’s plans to remodel the asylum system could lead to “unintended consequences” which includes growing case backlogs and homelessness of people in need of refuge.
According to the head of the National Audit Office, Gareth Davies, he noted that for the policies by Shabana Mahmood to succeed, it would require “effective action on the bottlenecks”.
It was revealed in a report by the independent body that details of the population of how many asylum seekers are not receiving welfare and how many denied applicants have disappeared are unknown to the civil service.
Auditors also discovered that “short-term, reactive measures” have caused the asylum system to face shifting pressure for many years, resulting in a growing backlog and delayed applications.
The report also showed that more than half of those who applied for asylum almost three years ago are still waiting for a decision.
These revelations come weeks after Mahmood announced reforms, shaped after Denmark’s strict immigration policies. The decision which has sparked criticism from Labour lawmakers and members of the House of Lords.
The report said the government’s plan to speed up asylum decisions and deportations could help ease pressure on the system, but warned that the proposals are “complex” and must reflect how “people and casework” move through the process.
“Otherwise, there is a risk of unintended consequences for already stretched systems, as well as for wider government priorities such as homelessness,” the report said.
The leader of the NAO, Gareth Davies, said the efforts of successive administrations to improve the asylum system had been short-termed and limited.
“Successfully implementing the new asylum model recently announced by the home secretary will require effective action on the bottlenecks in the current system using better-quality data and streamlined decision-making,” he said.
The NAO has proposed that by the end of 2026, the administration should present to parliament a strategic plan for implementing the new asylum model and create and publish a set of “system indicators” for people seeking asylum, taxpayers, and citizens.
The chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, stated the asylum system “is simply not functioning” if decisions were delayed, local councils are under-resourced, and costs keep rising.
“The NAO’s finding that more than half of people who applied for asylum almost three years ago still don’t have an outcome is shocking.
He added: “The NAO is right that only a whole-system approach with timely, quality decisions and proper data and capacity will fix the chaos. The government must focus on getting decisions right first time and supporting people to integrate and contribute to their new communities to restore order and confidence in the system.”
A spokesperson for the Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary recently announced the most sweeping changes to the asylum system in a generation to deal with the problems outlined in this report.
“We are already making progress – with nearly 50,000 people with no right to be here removed, a 63% rise in illegal working arrests and over 21,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented so far this year.
“Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove the incentives which draw people to come to the UK illegally and increase removals of those with no right to be here.”
