Home Office has 'no idea' how many asylum seekers missing since arriving in UK, damning report reveals
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published damning findings which showed failings in Britain’s asylum process including huge gaps in systems and key data that does not exist.It comes weeks after a separate publication criticised the same "incompetent" department for "squandering" billions on asylum hotels. The most recent document questioned the Home Office's stance on how many asylum seekers have gone missing in this country, the Daily Mail reports.It also found the asylum system cost the taxpayer £4.9 billion in 2024-25, which was mostly on providing taxpayer-funded migrant hotels and other accommodation.But this figure excluded major sums including legal aid for asylum seekers' lawyers and the costs borne by local councils when they take over responsibility for supporting successful claimants.Read more: 'Stakeknife' army spy inside IRA committed 'grotesque' crimes and should be officially identified, report saysRead more: Prince Harry wins path to UK security arrangements in major Home Office U-turnIn its report, the official spending watchdog warned: "We found several examples of data that could help the Government better understand outcomes within the asylum system that were not routinely being collected, or which they could not provide."In the research, a sample of 5,000 people who began their asylum claims nearly three years ago showed more than half the cases remained unresolved.The report authors warned that this can cause uncertainty and hardship for asylum seekers while also eroding public confidence in the system.The recommendations come as the Government announced plans to overhaul the asylum system last month, including to remove its legal duty to guarantee support to asylum seekers and limit appeal rights.But the NAO said the complex plans need a sustainable approach or otherwise there is a risk of "unintended consequences for already stretched systems."Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: "Successfully implementing the new asylum model recently announced by the Home Secretary will require effective action on the bottlenecks in the current system using better quality data and streamlined decision-making."The NAO's research mapped out the asylum system from beginning to end for the first time, which found there is no single point of accountability for outcomes throughout the process across government.The sample of 5,000 people who first made their initial asylum claim in January 2023 showed that 35% were granted protection, nine per cent were removed from the UK after their claims were refused and 56% of the cases remain "unresolved."Meanwhile, the NAO found 41 per cent of the 5,000 were of those who had their claims refused but had not been removed from the country, leading to "significant costs" for accommodation and support.Reasons why asylum seekers with refused claims cannot be removed include missing identity documents and compliance of foreign governments even if agreements are in place.The report said: "Our analysis shows how efforts to improve the system in recent years have often been short-term and narrowly focused on one area of the system in reaction to large backlogs and sharply increasing costs."Increases in speed of processing have sometimes come at the expense of the quality of decisions and improvements in one area have shunted problems elsewhere."There has also been no realistic approach to the fact that in a significant number of cases it is not possible to return people whose claims have been refused. "As a result, the system has incurred significant costs – primarily on accommodation and support – that might have been avoided."A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary recently announced the most sweeping changes to the asylum system in a generation to deal with the problems outlined in this report.“We are already making progress – with nearly 50,000 people with no right to be here removed, a 63% rise in illegal working arrests and over 21,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented so far this year.“Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove the incentives which draw people to come to the UK illegally and increase removals of those with no right to be here.”
