Border Agency condemned over asylum and immigration backlog

UKBA accused of misleading MPs after report says more than 100,000 items of post relating to cases remained unopened

Senior UK Border Agency officials have been accused of misleading parliament after a damning report said they wrongly claimed they had dealt with a backlog of asylum and immigration claims أ¢â‚¬â€œ and that at one point more than 100,000 items of post about such cases remained unopened.

John Vine, the chief inspector of immigration, said UKBA's programme to deal with 147,000 outstanding asylum "legacy cases" أ¢â‚¬â€œ submitted before March 2007 أ¢â‚¬â€œ was far from resolved. The asylum seekers concerned have been left in limbo for an average of seven years.

The operation to deal with them was so inefficient and poorly managed that last winter more than 150 boxes of mail, including correspondence from applicants, lawyers and MPs, lay unopened in a room in Liverpool. At its peak, there was a backlog of more than 100,000 items of post, including 14,800 unopened recorded delivery letters and 13,600 unopened first and second class letters containing crucial information and documents about cases.

Vine identified inefficiency, poor customer service, and a lack of security and data checks that left often vulnerable asylum seekers facing further lengthy and distressing delays, including former unaccompanied children whose cases should have been swiftly dealt with.

He also established that no security checks had been carried out routinely or consistently against either the police national computer or the anti-terrorist "warnings index" on the 124,000 cases that had been consigned to a "controlled archive". It is still not clear how many of them were properly dealt with.

Keith Vaz, chair of the Commons home affairs select committee, said: "This is a devastating report into the way in which the UKBA administrates the immigration system. The failure to properly check asylum cases means UKBA is in danger of overseeing an effective amnesty for many of them."

He said it appeared that senior UKBA officials had misled his committee about facts and figures. "To mislead a committee of the house is an extremely serious matter. Those same officials who came before the committee have all received bonuses. On the basis of this report they should hand them back immediately," said Vaz. He added that the 150 boxes of unopened mail was "beyond belief".

The issue of these asylum legacy cases dates back to 2006 when the home secretary at the time, John Reid, declared the Home Office "not fit for purpose". He split off immigration and borders as a separate agency and promised that a backlog of 450,000 unresolved asylum claims would be cleared within five years, by July 2011.

But Vine's report shows that despite repeated claims by ministers that they were "getting a grip" on the immigration and asylum system, it still remains in administrative chaos.

"The clearance of legacy asylum casework often deals with sensitive and vulnerable individuals. My inspection examined how well this legacy work was managed by the agency," said Vine.

"I found that updates given by the agency to parliament in the summer of 2011, stating that the legacy of unresolved asylum cases was resolved, were inaccurate. In fact, the programme of legacy work is far from resolved. On the evidence I found, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that cases were placed in the archive after only very minimal work in order to fulfil the pledge to conclude this work by the summer of 2011."

UKBA officials had assured MPs that the cases were only archived after "exhaustive checks" to trace the applicants.

"I found that the security checks on controlled archive cases had not been undertaken routinely or consistently since April 2011, and data matching with other departments in order to trace applicants had not begun until April this year. This was unacceptable and at odds with the assurances given to the home affairs select committee."

The inspection, which was carried out in May and June this year, also established that while letters from MPs complaining about delays in individual cases had come down from a peak of 300 a week they were still being received at the rate of 170 a week, with 184 of them unanswered at the time of the inspection.

Vine said a change in a policy to give those affected only three years' permission to stay in Britain, rather than indefinite leave to remain, meant that many were badly affected by the delays. The oldest case the inspectors found in a sample of files this summer had been waiting since June 1995 for a decision.

Vine found that decisions had been chaotic. One man who had been sentenced to nine months for fraud had been given permission to stay. Others who would have faced removal from Britain have avoided deportation because the delays have given them the right to stay.

The UKBA told Vine at the time of the inspection that there were still 37,500 applicants they hope to locate in order to consider their cases.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We have known for some time that UKBA is a troubled organisation with a poor record of delivery. Turning the agency around will take time, but we are making progress. The border force is now an independent organisation and its performance is improving. And UKBA has a transformation plan that will put the agency on a surer footing."

He said the Vine report showed that the official policy on security checks had not been carried out.

He added that the agency had reviewed all cases in the "controlled archive" to make sure anyone still in Britain was traced and, where appropriate, removed from the country: "This review has been independently audited by Deloitte, who validated the process." A new performance and compliance unit had been created to ensure data published by the UKBA was robust and reliable.