The post you are reporting:
Home Office releases 'great report dump' submitted by chief borders inspector before his sacking.
A No 10 spokeswoman (Mrs Pinoccho with the long nose?) said: "We wanted to publish them as swiftly as possible following the necessary and appropriate due diligence."
Here are the main points so far:
On the asylum case processing:
In November 2023, the Home Office changed its guidance to asylum seekers from saying a decision on their claim would be made within six months to "as soon as possible". At the time there had not been a published service standard in place for five years.
The focus on clearing the legacy backlog at "all costs" impacted quality of interviews and decisions - having the potential to add to the appeals queue .
60% of decision makers who responded to the inspection survey said they wanted to leave their role as soon as possible or within the next year, stating that the pressure to meet targets affected their mental health.
Children were not given adequate breaks after "speaking about traumatic events" during claimant interviews.
On e-passport gates:
On staffing at ePassport gates the report said Border Force officers "are often distracted from their core operational activity" and roving officers are not always deployed, with posts sometimes "left unmanned while officers signalled for attention from their managers."
The report said the staffing situation was !unacceptable and needs to be addressed urgently," with "basic stuff not being done well."
On using hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeker children:
The report raised serious safeguarding concerns around DBS checks at hotels were children are being housed, saying at one hotel it visited, the copies of the certificates were poor and had dates of issue missing.
The manager at this hotel "demonstrated a concerning lack of general safeguarding awareness", the report said, and had stated that as the certificates did not expire, they didn’t consider it necessary for further renewal as, “I know them, and I think they are okay".
The report criticised the Home Office for not providing any guidance to hotel providers on when a DBS check should be renewed.
The report said "a fundamental gap still exists in terms of defining who is ultimately responsible for the children and for safeguarding decisions in hotels, given there is no corporate parent or designated safeguarding lead".
Hotels visited by inspectors had health and safety issues including an electric fan being used with the guard missing exposing the rotating blades , a loose carpet to the landing at the top of the main steep staircase presenting a significant tripping hazard and missing window restrictors in a ground floor bathroom
From the overall annual report:
Mr Neal did not meet the Home Secretary until he was in the job for 18 months
He said Home Office data is “inexcusably awful”.
He said the division between policy and operational delivery is "a stark one" and being able to motivate large groups of people to deliver a plan."is not a skillset that I find in abundance in the Home Office".
More to come!