§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Statement by the Baroness Scotland of Asthal on 15 March (HL Deb, col. 119), what specific measures they intend to take to secure "the improvement of the initial decision-making process" in refugee cases; and whether they will earmark funds for this purpose. [HL1962]
§ Baroness Scotland of AsthalThe Government are committed to delivering high quality decisions at all stages of the asylum system. Many improvements have already been made, including setting a specific target for decision quality, introducing quality assurance systems involving both internal and external assessment, enhanced training and use of language testing.
We are determined to build on these improvements to ensure that the highest standards are consistently achieved. We are discussing with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees how they might work with us to provide an additional external assessment of the quality of decisions. We are looking at other ways of strengthening the quality of assurance systems, including sampling a cohort of the same cases at each stage of the initial decision process. We are developing greater external input to our training from other organisations with specialist skills and have introduced the Independent Country Information Advisory Panel to ensure that the country information is as accurate, objective and up to date as possible. These and other measures will continue to drive up the quality of initial decisions.
Despite the rapid fall in the number of asylum applications in 2003, down to 49,370 and 41 per cent lower than in 2002, we have maintained the resources available for decision-making on asylum claims. This has enabled us to reduce the backlog of outstanding applications to 24,500—the lowest level for a decade—and to increase the investment in initial and refresher training for asylum caseworkers.