Soella Braverman says productivity of civil servants in asylum applications is very low | Immigration and asylum

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Soella Braverman questioned the productivity of civil servants processing asylum claims, and refused to rule out the use of cruise ships to house people seeking asylum in the UK, after admitting the cost of providing housing for claimants would rise to £3.5 billion this year.

The Home Secretary told colleagues on Wednesday that the productivity of her department’s staff was “very low”, resulting in caseworkers treating an average of one case per week.

Braverman also confirmed reports that the Home Office is looking into ideas for using alternative accommodations other than hotels to house asylum seekers, and noted that officials are in talks with ship companies.

She was accused of failing to ensure there was enough hotel accommodation to house asylum seekers this fall which led to her unlawful detention at the Manston Processing Center last month. Braverman denied responsibility for the lack of accommodations.

Speaking to the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee, she told the House of Lords: “There is quite a bit of a shift that we want to embark on when it comes to the examination of asylum cases.

“I have to say just for context, what I’ve found over the few months I’ve been here at the Home Office is that we have very different practices. Our asylum case study team is doing a great job but their productivity is, frankly, very low. The average decision-making rate for a maker Resolution per week is one. We need to ramp that up significantly.”

Braverman claimed that the government had doubled the number of caseworkers, and officials were experimenting with a faster system that she hoped would triple the number of cases covered by a single caseworker.

Taking up the problem of housing asylum seekers in hotels – an issue that has enraged Conservative MPs – she confirmed her office was looking for alternative accommodation, including on cruise ships.

Then I asked about cruise ships. We want to end hotel use as quickly as possible because it’s an unacceptable cost to the taxpayer, it’s over £5m a day on hotel use alone,” she said.

“We’re going to put out a bunch of alternative sites. It’ll include disused holiday parks and former student halls. I have to say we’re looking at those, and I wouldn’t say anything has been confirmed yet.”

The Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, Alistair Carmichael, said Braverman was doubling down on his position in the same failed approach as other home ministers recently. “Her ridiculous proposals to house refugees on cruise ships would once again be ineffective and very expensive,” he said.

Braverman confirmed reports that she planned to change anti-slavery laws due to fears that they would be abused by a minority of asylum seekers. However, neither she nor Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Secretary in the Home Office, could explain why there was no Anti-Slavery Commissioner to examine any new laws, although there was a legal requirement for a person to be in office.

The last commissioner, Dame Sarah Thornton, left the position in April. Rycroft said he would write to the committee with an explanation.

Braverman confirmed that the government will spend £3.5 billion on accommodation and support for asylum seekers and refugees in 2022-23, including £2.3 billion on hotels.

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Currently, 57,000 people are being housed by local authorities under the Asylum Dispersal Scheme – a number which it has said it wants to increase to 100,000.

Braverman was questioned by Labor peer Shami Chakrabarty about reports that civil servants admitted in leaked emails that hundreds of people were illegally detained in immigration deportation centers in November.

The detention centers used to hold about 450 people, described in one email as “overflow” from the Manston processing facility.

One of the emails obtained by the BBC on 4 November said their detention was “no longer legal”, adding: “We need to get them to hotels as quickly as possible”.

Thousands of people arrived in the UK by small boats in October, Braverman said, and there were not enough beds in suitable accommodation.

“The reality of those many weeks was that the influx was overtaken by the influx because it was very difficult to procure sufficient numbers of beds from all over the country. It was a very difficult situation,” she said.

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