Asylum system delays and backlogs have wasted taxpayers’ money, watchdog finds

Attempts at short-term fixes to the asylum system by the government have brought delays which have wasted taxpayers’ money, the public spending watchdog has found.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found the current cost of supporting people seeking asylum is “disproportionately high” and totalled around £4.9 billion for 2024-25 driven by long delays and backlogs.

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 conditions can cause uncertainty and hardship for asylum seekers, and erode public confidence in the system, the report authors warned.

The recommendations come as the government announced plans to overhaul the asylum system last month, including removing its legal duty to guarantee support to asylum seekers and limiting 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, 9% were removed from the UK after their claims were refused and 56% of the cases remain “unresolved”.

Of the unresolved group, 25% were awaiting an appeal decision and 3% were making further submissions.

Meanwhile, the NAO found 41% 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.

Some 4,500 failed asylum seekers were receiving support last year, under section four, which can be given while they are making arrangements to leave the UK, when there is another barrier for them to leave the country or they are likely to become homeless within 14 days.

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.”

Of the £4.9 billion, accommodation and support made up the biggest amount of £3.4 billion, of which hotels totalled £2.1 billion.

This is from spending by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, but the figure does not capture the full amount, as costs for local authorities for asylum are also difficult to calculate.

Shortages in judges to staff the appeals, legal aid, caseworkers and accommodation were listed as some of the challenges for capacity in the system.

It is understood the government is investing to recruit 1,000 judges and tribunal members this year, and boosting £20 million a year into immigration and housing legal aid to address the issues.

Among recommendations made, the watchdog called for ministers to set out a plan for implementing the new asylum model by the end of next year, with annual progress updates, and address poor data quality.

Reacting to the report, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity, said the government must focus on getting decisions right first time and supporting people to integrate to restore confidence in the system.

“These findings mirror what we see every day in our frontline services: an asylum system that is simply not functioning, where people wait months or even years for a decision, local councils are under-resourced and costs keep rising,” he said.

Responding to the NAO, a Home Office spokeswoman said the recently announced plans to reform the asylum system are to deal with the problems in the report.

She said: “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.”