Quakers Clearance Committee

The work of the UK Border Agency – Home Affairs Committee

3. It emerged in 2006 that the Home Office had built up a backlog of between 400,000 and 450,000 unresolved asylum cases, some dating back more than a decade. The UK Border Agency’s target for clearing this backlog is the summer of 2011. Both our predecessor committee and the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, Mr John Vine, expressed concerns that the Agency would be unable to complete its programme of clearing the backlog by the summer of 2011,[ 4 ] despite the fact that new processes had been put in place to help clear the backlog, including employing contract staff to perform basic administrative tasks in relation to the applications, thus freeing the Agency’s own caseworkers to concentrate on the substance of decision-making.

4. Now, however, it appears that the UK Border Agency may be able to meet that target, as the clearance process has accelerated considerably: 15,500 cases being dealt with between October 2009 and January 2010, 41,500 cases between January and July 2010, and 57,500 cases between July and the end of September 2010. As reported on 1 November 2010, the situation with the backlog was as follows:

The question therefore arises how the increase in speed has been achieved.

5. Lin Homer told us that the programme of contracting out administrative tasks had finally started to produce positive results, and the caseworkers were working extremely hard, with a 68% increase in their productivity over the summer months.[ 6 ] However, in his February 2010 thematic report on how the UK Border Agency handled asylum cases, Mr Vine noted that Ministers had approved revised guidance allowing caseworkers to consider granting permission to stay to applicants who had been in the UK for 6-8 years, rather than the 10-12 years that applied at the start of the backlog-clearing process.[ 7 ] This decision significantly increased the number of cases which officials might conclude quickly, by grant of settlement, rather than contesting. In this context it is interesting that while 9,000 of the cases dealt with between October 2009 and January 2010 resulted in grants, this rose to 23,000 cases between January and July 2010, and 33,000 cases between July and the end of September 2010. Moreover, the proportion of all concluded cases resulting in grants went up from 34% of cases as reported in October 2009, to 35% in January 2010, to 38% in July and 42% in the most recent report—so over time an increasing proportion of the 400-450.000 cases originally identified ended in permission to settle in the UK. At the same time, the proportion of concluded cases resulting in removals decreased from 10% of all cases concluded between October 2009 and January 2010, to 6% between January and July, to 2% between July and September.