Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints her Department has received regarding services provided under contract by Clearsprings from (a) service users and (b) external parties in each of the last six years.

Within the terms of the contracts for asylum accommodation the accommodation provider is required to respond to and address complaints from service users and external parties in the first instance. Where a service user or external party is dissatisfied with the response or the measures taken to address their complaint, the complainant may escalate the issue to the Home Office.

In the years 2010 to 2015 the Home Office has received 60 complaints in total regarding services provided under contract by Clearsprings Ready Homes, broken down by each of the last six years as follows:

Year No. of complaints

2010 0

2011 0

2012 0

2013 1

2014 0

2015 59

The complaints have not been categorised to distinguish whether the complainant was a service user or external party.

On receipt, each complaint is considered, investigated and addressed. If after investigation the Home Office determines that a complaint demonstrates a failure of the contractor to comply with the required standards and the contractor fails to address the complaint there are a range of contractual sanctions that the Home Office can and do impose.

The Home Office is working with contractors to undertake profiling and trend analysis of complaints, including why there was an increase in 2015. The Home Office is also assessing whether the existing channels are sufficiently capturing service user and external party concerns.