§ The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes)I have today placed in the Library several important documents on immigration and asylum matters
a report of the investigation by Ken Sutton into how guidance was issued to staff in the Sheffield office of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) on the handling of applications under the European Communities Association Agreements (ECAA);a response to the Home Affairs Select Committee report on "Asylum Applications";the full text of last year's report of the independent review into the operation of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS).Investigation of ECAA guidance:
Mr. Sutton's main findings are that:
two sets of guidance were developed in Sheffield, to reduce the extent of checking of ECAA applications, one set in September/October 2003, the other in January/February 2004;the decision to proceed with the new guidance was taken by middle ranking managers in charge of the Sheffield team. It was not cleared with senior officials at IND head office in Croydon or with ministers;59WStogether with the deployment of additional staff, the guidance was intended to clear a backlog of ECAA applications which had built up;the guidance had nothing to do with attempting to reduce the number of people from EU Accession States who might appear in published statistics after 1 May.The vast majority of those approved under this guidance were already lawfully in the country. From internal management information, we estimate that around 36,000 decisions in the ECAA category have been made in this financial year of which 29,000 were from people already in the UK.
Mr. Sutton has also referred to the relevance of more general working guidance for staff on the clearance of backlogs of older cases. The volume of applications for extensions of stay means that all Governments at least as far back as the late 1980s. have had to address this problem. Over the years, it has been accepted that making decisions on the basis of the information already available to the caseworker can sometimes be justified as a means of tackling backlogs. This is because long backlogs make immigration controls less effective, as it becomes more difficult to take action against people whose applications have been stuck in the system. They are also unfair to legitimate applicants, most of whom are already in the country legally.
Mr. Sutton has found that managers in Sheffield believed that the approach they took was consistent with general guidance on the clearance of backlogs, but he concludes that it went further in extending the procedure to a broader range of cases including new as well as old cases and that it led staff to going too far in easing the application of the checks.
Mr. Sutton's report shows that mistakes were made. There is no suggestion that these were deliberate or the result of lack of effort. Rather there was an excess of zeal in pursuing the common objective of reducing backlogs. Mr. Sutton's inquiry was not a disciplinary investigation. The Director General of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate has therefore now initiated a disciplinary investigation (with all the safeguards necessary to ensure fairness to members of staff) which will decide what management action is required and whether the management in Sheffield needs further strengthening beyond that already announced.
We are determined to learn from this episode. I have accepted all the recommendations made by Mr. Sutton to address the management and other weaknesses identified in his report. This will make it clear who is responsible for determining caseworking practice, their level in the organisation and the respective roles of Ministers and civil service managers. Staff have a right to expect such clarity and for managers to have a defined measure of authority to manage the business in a sensible way. As part of the follow-up to Mr. Sutton's report and as he has recommended, there will be a major effort to standardise guidance for staff in each operational area, ensure that appropriately senior managers are clearly responsible for authorising that guidance, and lay down clearly the circumstances in which Ministers must be consulted.
I have also instructed the Director General to draw up proposals for an off-line audit and inspection unit, reporting directly to me and the Director General, to undertake inspections of working practices and performance in all parts of IND's business.
60WS It is important that these events should not overshadow the great strides that have been made by IND in recent years, including through the excellent work of caseworking staff in Sheffield. The introduction of charging in August has enabled us to invest in additional general caseworking staff. The number of staff deployed on such work in Croydon and Sheffield has increased by 67 per cent., from 780 at the end of 2002 to around 1,300 now. As a result, we have set and are meeting service standards for charged work under which 70 per cent. of cases are decided within three weeks and virtually all of the rest within 13 weeks. Backlogs are low, and special measures to deal with them are no longer necessary.
There are, however, other areas of IND's business where backlogs remain a problem, including a number of older cases where a decision has been taken, but other issues have been raised by the applicant. I have put in hand a full analysis of the extent of this and steps to be taken to deal with it. Mr. Moxon's actions raised the question of how employees can raise matters of concern within IND. Existing Home Office instructions say concerns should be raised either with the Head of the Department or confidentially with a nominated official outside their line management chain and if still unresolved can be raised with the Civil Service Commissioners. I have ordered these procedures should be re-published to every employee today so they can be clear of the avenues open to them if they are concerned about what they are being asked to do. Separately, the Permanent Secretary is taking steps to strengthen my Private Office to enable it to deal better with the large volume of correspondence it receives which includes around 2,000 e-mails a week.
Response to the Home Affairs Committee report on asylum applications:
Also published today is the Government's response to the Home Affairs Committee's recent report on asylum applications. Here too a history of applications exceeding the capacity to deal with them has been reversed, by reducing intake and investing in extra caseworkers about 2,000 more applications are now being decided each month than are being received. At the end of December 2003 the number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision had fallen to 24,500, the lowest level for a decade.
This has been achieved by the hard work of IND staff, underpinned by considerable Government investment and clear political leadership. As a result, the work is under control and IND is in a better shape than it has been for many years. I am determined to build on this by targeted, enhanced checks in areas that still concern us, such as the investigation of doubtful marriages, students and colleges. The Home Secretary and I have already been considering steps we should take in all these areas, and we will make a separate announcement soon.
Confidence in the immigration system is important so we can recognise the huge contribution legitimate migrants make to our economic prosperity and society. Migrants make up 8 per cent. of our population but generate 10 per cent. of our total wealth. They are net contributors to the Exchequer, and in all walks of life bring skills and energy that our society needs. I am today laying regulations in the House to give effect to 61WS the new workers registration scheme for nationals of eight EU accession countries. These will be debated in both Houses next month.
Independent Review of the National Asylum Support Service:
Also published today in response to a recommendation in the Home Affairs Committee's report is the Report of the independent review of the operation of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS). The review was established in March last year to consider the ways in which NASS operated at that time and provide me with recommendations to improve its performance. I have already published the review's key findings on 15 July last year, and provided the House with a further report on 9 February on the progress we are making in NASS. The review was established as an internal management tool to ensure improvements could be made but I have decided to also place a copy in the library of the House and on the Home Office website.
In addition:
Since last summer NASS has suspended processing of claims for back-payments of asylum support while we clarified the legal position. I can now confirm that we will only make back-payments where the missing payments result from an error on the part of NASS and the claimant is still supported by NASS. A dedicated team will work through the outstanding claims resulting from the suspension;
I am abolishing single additional payments to asylum seekers;
I am tightening up on processes for providing support to single failed asylum seekers under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 which provides for exceptional help to those asylum applicants whose claims have failed;
Iraqis will no longer be routinely eligible for section 4 support unless they are co-operating with voluntary returns. This is in line with our section 4 policy for other nationalities now that we will begin returning failed asylum seekers to Iraq from April, as previously announced;
Our contract with Landmark was terminated on 23 March this year. I am grateful to all our local authority and voluntary sector partners for working with us so closely to make this possible; and
I have laid draft Regulations to provide for routine annual increases in the levels of asylum support with effect from 12 April.
Finally, the Home Secretary has also today laid draft regulations to establish a workers' registration scheme for nationals of eight accession countries as the Home Secretary announced in his statement of 23 February.