Asylum

(asked on 17th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the backlog of applications for (1) asylum, or (2) temporary protection; and what assessment they have made of the effects these measures have had so far.


Answered by
Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
This question was answered on 31st March 2022

Asylum decision makers receive extensive mandatory training and mentoring on considering asylum claims. We have a robust quality assurance strategy in place to ensure asylum caseworkers meet the standard expected of them, and to ensure compliance with the published policy.

Asylum Operations has an internal audit process which assesses the quality of interviews, decisions, and the application of Home Office policy. We have Senior Case Worker assessments as well as independent auditors from Central Operations who audit asylum cases and provide quarterly reports. The quality of asylum interviews and decisions are systematically assessed against a detailed audit framework drawn up in consultation with external partners, which includes checks on compliance with existing asylum polices, relevant case law and the appropriate country of origin information reports.

To help reduce the backlog of applications for asylum or temporary protection we are investing in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up and simplify our processes, reduce the time people spend in the asylum system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision. These initiatives include conducting shorter, more focused interviews or omitting interviews where it is appropriate to do so, streamlining decision templates for grants and refusals and focusing on improving quality to ensure decisions are right first time. We have extensive recruitment and training plans in place, including career progression options to aid the retention of staff.

We are continuing to develop existing and new technology to help build on recent improvements such as digital interviewing and move away from a paper-based system. We are streamlining and digitising the case working process to enable more effective workflow, appointment booking and decision-making. Additionally, we have introduced specialist Decision Making Units, providing greater ownership and management of cohorts of asylum cases.

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