• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    Julian Assange

    Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

    RSPB heritage event

    RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      Julian Assange

      Julian Assange’s extradition given the green light by the UK home secretary

      RSPB heritage event

      RSPB heritage event to tell the story of the Dearne Valley, from coal face to wild place

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home News Home Affairs

      Breaking the asylum system may be a deliberate Home Office strategy

      The Home Office immigration inspectorate clearly lays the blame for the 'broken' asylum system at Priti Patel's door

      Dr Stella PerrottbyDr Stella Perrott
      23-11-2021 07:06
      in Home Affairs, Politics
      Broken Asylum System; Open Government License version 1.0

      Broken Asylum System; Open Government License version 1.0

      2.4k
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      Breaking the asylum system may be part of a deliberate Home Office strategy to punish those seeking asylum. While Priti Patel blames the EU for the current number of refugees crossing the channel, or ‘lashes out’ at ‘lefty lawyers’, her own immigration inspectorate clearly lays the blame for a ‘broken’ asylum system at her door. The damning report, ‘An inspection of asylum casework’, examining the efficiency and effectiveness of the asylum casework system was published this week.

      Scope of the immigration inspection

      The scope of the inspection was on immigration processing and decision-making from the initial screening interview through subsequent interviews and onto asylum decisions. It also considered “resourcing, training, workflow, and the prioritisation of claims”, quality assurance measures, and Home Office progress against the recommendations of the last 2017 (process) inspection report.

      In the statement accompanying the report, the chief inspector, David Neal, said:

      “The Home Office is still failing to keep on top of the number of asylum decisions it is required to make … The length of time asylum claimants had waited for a decision increased annually since 2011. In 2020, adult asylum claimants were waiting an average of 449 days. This increased to 550 days for unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

      “Delayed decision-making is caused by a number of factors, including workforce capabilities, inefficient workflow processes, a reliance on outdated IT, and routing asylum claims for inadmissibility consideration in the absence of any bilateral agreements with EU countries. In addition to timeliness concerns, the inspection found problems with the quality of interviews and decisions, and with quality assurance mechanisms.”

      A catalogue of damning immigration inspection reports

      The scope was limited and the findings are best understood alongside other inspection findings, in particular – the 2018 inspection of the Home Office’s management of asylum accommodation provision, the 2021 inspection into the Home Office use of ex-army barracks, and the 2020 inspection of the provision of language services, as well as the previous (2017) process inspection.

      A number of themes are consistent across all these reports:

      • The asylum system is broken. It is broken because of lack of resources, skills and expertise, management oversite, poor technology and lack of political will to mend it.
      • Many asylum seekers are held in filthy and degrading conditions on first arrival (or following onward transmission) in the UK. Those operating the facilities lack experience and skills and are largely left to their own devices with the Home Office failing to provide oversight or even visit the accommodation. The poor conditions were said by the inspectorate to be due to “fundamental failures of leadership and planning by the Home Office”.
      • The care of unaccompanied children is unacceptable as are the increasing delays in dealing with their cases. Children are also being detained illegally as the systems are not in place to properly receive children when they arrive.
      • Immigration system and decisions are “driven by anecdote, assumption and prejudice”.
      • Delays, last minute legal interventions and successful appeals are as a result of Home Office errors and mismanagement. Detainees are provided with poor or no information and are unable to access good legal advice or lawyers early in the process. Communications are often solely in English and full of legal jargon.

      Continuing problems and neglect of the system

      This latest report shows that delays have become endemic. It is worse now as the backlog of asylum cases has risen from 60,000 to 70,000 since the field work for the inspection was undertaken. The inspectorate found that systems were poor and there was no prioritisation – except for those receiving asylum support, which suggests driving down costs rather than need was prioritising decision-making. Case progression was poor with many errors in decision-making and almost no performance or quality oversight or reports.

      Alongside poor questioning of interviewees, which left many topics inadequately covered, interviewers were “openly disbelieving of claimants in interviews and not responding appropriately to sensitive disclosures of personal information”. Decision-makers had not read supporting documentation or even the initial questionnaires completed by their colleagues. Despite repeated criticisms in previous inspection reports, there is no quality oversight for initial interviews.

      Plane in dark sky
      Home Affairs

      If the flight to Rwanda succeeds, mass deportations will follow

      byDr Stella Perrott
      13 June 2022

      Impact of Brexit

      In December 2020, I wrote about the changes to the immigration rules that were coming into force in January 2021 at the end of the transition period, and the end to the UK’s capacity to return refugees to ‘safe’ EU countries under the Dublin III arrangements that previously applied. The rules were being amended to:

      “Allow decision-makers to reject a claim as ‘inadmissible’ if the claimant could have or has made an application in another safe country, or has a substantial connection with another country. In other words, the claim will not even get as far as being ‘substantively’ considered.”

      It was self-evident then that this would result in “the starting point for asylum decisions for those arriving in the UK [being] an enquiry as to how the refugee can be sent elsewhere, and only when that fails will their case be considered in the UK”.

      I noted then that, irrespective of the legality of the approach (and its inclusion in the nationality and borders bill suggests the Home Office had some doubts on that score too), it would inevitably lead to further delays. Because each asylum seeker who had passed through an EU country would automatically have their case suspended while enquires were made about their possible return.

      The guidance says that claims for asylum in the UK will only be considered when approaches to EU countries have been ‘exhausted’. As at December 2020, the UK had no agreements with any EU country for such returns and EU countries had indicated that they would not accept them, yet the impossible-to-implement rule was still introduced.

      Asylum seekers stuck in limbo and indefinite uncertainty

      The inspectorate found that by May 2021, 3,379 asylum seekers were stuck in this limbo. Their cases could not proceed in the UK and the asylum seeker could not be returned. There is no limit to the time that they can be kept in this situation. The moderate inspectorate language does not do justice to the cruelty of this practice of indefinite uncertainty and, in some cases, indefinite detention.

      The inspectorate found no will within government to resolve the problems identified in 2017 and increasing year on year. The Home Office argued to the inspectorate that the ‘new plan for immigration’ (of which the nationality and borders bill is a part) will solve all the problems the system faces. It hopes the new rules will deter refugees from crossing to the UK, in spite of all the Home Office evidence that it will fail to do so.

      Irrespective of the bill’s intentions, as the inspectorate notes “there will still be a need to ensure that the Home Office is properly resourced, equipped and organised to make timely and good quality asylum decisions”. Measures that had been identified that might bring about improvements were not being implemented and inspectors were told plans to improve the system are “in draft form, are subject to change, and reliant on funding”.

      In other words there is no intention other than to continue with current failure. Priti Patel has been accused of blaming everyone other than herself for the failing immigration system. It may be however, that failure is a key weapon in her hostile environment strategy.

      Tags: Immigration
      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      With the health and social care bill, Conservatives care only for themselves

      Next Post

      European countries introduce restrictions as covid cases rise

      Dr Stella Perrott

      Dr Stella Perrott

      Stella Perrott is a consultant in criminal justice and children’s services who has spent 25 years reviewing public services when things have gone wrong. She lives in North Yorkshire.

      Related Posts

      Conservative Party Meeting
      Politics

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      bySue Wilson MBE
      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
      Politics

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      byDr Stella Perrott
      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron
      Politics

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      byAnn Moody
      25 June 2022
      March for women
      Politics

      Women of Wakefield: people power only works if the people use that power

      byProfessor Juliet Lodge
      24 June 2022
      your vote matters wakefield by-election
      Politics

      Spotlight on some of the smaller parties in the Wakefield by-election

      byWill Barber Taylor
      22 June 2022
      Next Post
      Covid-19 restrictions for christmas and vaccine passports introduced by the EU - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

      European countries introduce restrictions as covid cases rise

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      25 June 2022

      MOST READ

      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In