Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
HOME OFFICE
AND THE
DEPARTMENT FOR
CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
30 JUNE 2004
Q60 Jon Cruddas: It does not act as a
disincentive to appeal, does it?
Mr John: From our perspective,
we do not believe it acts as a disincentive. It is a function
of what necessary support is needed at the decision-making stage.
Crucially, at an appeal stage, if somebody's case has merits,
then they will still be entitled to seek legal aid.
Q61 Jon Cruddas: May I ask a question
about case workers? You have asylum applications from 146 different
nationalities. I get the impression that you have had generic
case workers. Is that the case?
Mr Jeffrey: No, that is not the
case. It is somewhere between generic and specialised. We do try
to achieve as much specialisation as we can. Our senior case workers
are often considerable specialists in particular countries and
we aim for specialisation, at least by region. In terms of managing
the volume of applications from as many countries as you described,
we do need to have a certain number of case workers doing more
than one nationality.
Q62 Jon Cruddas: Is this something you
are working on? I think I pulled this out of the NAO proposals.
They might not have said this precisely, but if you have 20 countries
which take up X% of all applications, presumably it would be rational
to have banks of case workers who have proven knowledge of day-to-day
changes in that specific country, who are experts. Is that the
direction we are heading?
Mr Jeffrey: Yes. So far as possible,
that is what we do already. The last time I sat in on an asylum
interview, it was with one of our case workers who was interviewing
a Somali applicant as it happens. The case worker was a considerable
expert on Somalia, on the various clans there, on the issues which
arise on applications. We cannot always do it, because we are
talking about almost 150 nationalities, but to the extent that
we can do it and still manage the business in the way that we
want to, that is what we aspire to.
Q63 Jon Cruddas: Obviously that cross-relates
with issues of training which are flagged up in this Report as
well, in terms of building the service in the future. Paragraph
26, page 10 is about this issue of appeals and whether there is
a presenting officer there. Does the proportion of successful
appeals increase in appeals where there is no presenting officer
there?
Mr Gieve: As I understand it,
the statistics do not show a very clear story, but in managing
our presenting officers, we try to get them to the most difficult
cases. That is not always possible, but we have a prioritisation
of cases. The simple statistics on what the appeal success rate
is, is not telling the whole story.
Q64 Jon Cruddas: Do you grade cases you
turn down in terms of the probability of successful appeals and
therefore the availability of presenting officers?
Mr Jeffrey: It is not as simple
as that. First of all, we are very keen to get to 100% on this.
Q65 Jon Cruddas: That was my next question.
Mr Jeffrey: It is not satisfactory
that we should be at less than 100%. Last month we got to 90%.
We have 50 new presenting officers currently being trained and
mentored who will come on stream quite soon and we are recruiting
another 70 on top of that. There is a good prospect that by the
end of this year we will be hitting 100% representation rate.
In terms of how we deploy those we do have, we certainly give
priority to cases, for example, where the appellant is detained,
cases remitted back by the tribunal, particularly complex cases,
that sort of thing. I would not say that it is very systematic,
but we do enough of that nature for it not to be easy to interpret
any information there may be about whether we are more successful
when we are represented than we are when we are not.
Q66 Chairman: Just to be clear, if you
look at Figure 6 on page 15 and the blue mountain which is "Granted
either asylum or short-term protection under backlog criteria"
that was a kind of amnesty to clear an earlier backlog. Then if
you move forward to paragraph 3.3 on page 29, you can see "In
October 2003, the Government announced that families who had applied
for asylum before 2 October 2000 would be considered for permission",
so we are now creating another blue mountain to clear an earlier
backlog. I just wonder—this may be entirely unfair, but
I want to give you a chance to answer this—whether the system
periodically runs out of control and you have to relax your criteria
to clear backlogs and this will endlessly repeat itself.
Mr Gieve: There is a slightly
different situation now than there was at that blue peak. That
did coincide with the surge of asylum applications and was an
attempt to deal summarily with the old list of those at a time
when the business was in real difficulties in handling the volume
of business. The ILR exercise we are currently engaged in is not
motivated by an inability to handle the cases, but it is learning
from experience where families have been living in the country
for a substantial period, our chance of removing them, even if
we win the case against their asylum application, is low and that
therefore in those circumstances the balance of advantage is probably
to acknowledge that.
Chairman: That underlines the importance
of dealing with these things quickly.
Q67 Jim Sheridan: Does it give you concern
that at least 50% of applicants go to appeal? Does that give you
any cause for concern? Do you ask the question "Why"?
Mr Gieve: Yes. Clearly they have
the right of appeal and that is right, because we do not always
get things right or there are new developments which they can
point to. Generally, we believe that many applicants want to postpone
the hour of departure, so they appeal as a matter of course.
Q68 Jim Sheridan: That begs the question
whether or not the applicant wants to appeal or indeed the applicant
is encouraged to appeal. I draw your attention to page 50, Appendix
3. Each application costs an average of £4,000 and there
is a breakdown there of exactly where that £4,000 goes to.
Certainly the two major factors are legal services and accommodation.
I have a particular view about lawyers working on asylum applications.
I think there are unscrupulous carpetbaggers within that profession
who encourage asylum seekers to go through the process.
Mr Gieve: There is a variety of
legal and other advisers working with immigration cases and many
of them have the highest standards.
Q69 Jim Sheridan: Is it not the case
that even in unwinable situations applicants are then encouraged
to go forward with the application, not for the benefit of the
applicant, but because it is seen as some sort of meal ticket
by the profession.
Mr John: That is actually a matter
of legal aid policy. In April 2004 we introduced a series of measures
to try to clamp down on the potential for unscrupulous solicitors.
The Legal Services Commission are introducing an accreditation
scheme which will be fully effective from April 2005. Costs are
being controlled by a maximum fee regime in terms of the number
of hours which can be claimed, but, importantly, in asylum legal
aid cases the merits test at appeal stage is no longer being applied
by solicitors themselves; that is being brought in house to the
Legal Services Commission. So the Legal Services Commission, through
a range of measures, are actually introducing tighter controls,
reducing the risk of unscrupulous solicitors being able to play
the system in this way.
Q70 Jim Sheridan: What impact has that
had on costs?
Mr John: It is too early to say
at this stage what impact it has had. We are looking at that and
monitoring that closely and will be evaluating it in the next
couple of months once we have had three or four months running.
Mr Gieve: We also have an Immigration
Services Commissioner who vets advisers; not lawyers but the immigration
adviser firms.
Q71 Jim Sheridan: I personally have seen
lawyers representing asylum seekers who suddenly find themselves
driving big cars and purchasing big houses. I just find it upsetting
that these vulnerable people are being used as meal tickets and
the taxpayers are being taken for a ride. The Chairman commented
earlier on costs in other countries and there were some positive
aspects there. Do you have any indication of the cost to the taxpayers
of other countries who may not have a legal aid system?
Mr Jeffrey: I do not have any
information with me. I can certainly see whether, as a department,
because we do talk closely to administrations in other countries,
we have information of that sort. It is certainly very common
in other European countries in particular for the equivalent of
our appeals stage to be supported by the equivalent of our legal
aid.
Q72 Jim Sheridan: When you are speaking
to other departments in other countries does it not cross your
mind to ask how much it costs?
Mr Jeffrey: It does and I will
check whether we have information of that sort.[2]
Q73 Chairman: Send us a note. Thank you.
Mr Jeffrey: Yes.
Q74 Jim Sheridan: Paragraph 3.13, page
35, talks about fraudulent claims "Some of these are found
to be fraudulent, and it liaises with the Immigration Service
who will prosecute perpetrators where it is practicable to do
so". Could you identify what "practicable" is and
how many successful cases there have been in terms of fraudulent
claims?
Mr Jeffrey: We certainly prosecute
where we can. I do not have figures for prosecutions with me and
perhaps I could give the Committee a note on that as well.[3]
Q75 Jim Sheridan: You have no idea how
many people were prosecuted.
Mr Jeffrey: No, not immediately
to hand.
Q76 Jim Sheridan: What is "practicable"?
Mr Jeffrey: Where the judgment
on the normal criteria for prosecutions is that the case is more
likely to succeed than not. It depends very much on the evidence
which is available.
Q77 Jim Sheridan: Can I now move on to
accommodation which is another major cost factor around asylum
seekers? My understanding is that the accommodation centres are
very well run and by extremely good and caring staff, but it does
cause some concern in places like Dungable in Scotland which is
designed to take families. It is a very sensitive issue and people
try to keep the families together and not to break them up so
they do not lose sight of each other. Is that the right way to
go or is there another alternative in terms of keeping families
together or separating them where parents have to be sent back
where they came from and the children stay here?
Mr Gieve: We obviously try. It
is very difficult to deal with family cases and we do try to avoid
detention for any prolonged period of time. You are right that
there have been some cases which have dragged on where the family
has been in detention. Most families do live together in accommodation
and currently family support is not withdrawn until they are removed.
We are sensitive to the desirability of keeping families together;
in fact about 60% of our total support costs goes to families.
Of course they have rights under the Human Rights Act.
Q78 Jim Sheridan: May I go back to once
the process is finished? My understanding is that of the actual
cases where it was agreed that the asylum seeker should be sent
back fewer than 10% are sent back.
Mr Jeffrey: I could not say that
that percentage is correct. It is certainly the case that although
we have increased the numbers of removals very significantly in
the last few years it is still a lower number than the number
of people refused. Last year we removed 17,000 people.
Q79 Jim Sheridan: Seventeen thousand
out of what?
Mr Jeffrey: Seventeen thousand
of those who were in a position to be removed. They may in some
cases have been refused in earlier years; they may have been refused
last year. The difficulty which arises, which is something we
have been working very hard on with the Foreign Office and others,
is that for some nationalities, although the eventual judgment
of our own case workers and the appellate authorities is that
they could return to their country of origin safely, it is extremely
hard in practice to bring that about, either because they are
concealing their nationality, or the authorities in the country
concerned are reluctant to document them for a journey. We have
a big programme of discussions and negotiations with the countries
where that is a particular issue to see whether we can unblock
things and remove significantly more than we are at the moment.
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