Conclusions and recommendations
1. The
failure of the Home Office to produce proper accounts and to get
a grip on the issue of foreign national prisoners released from
prison without consideration for deportation are symptomatic of
the need for radical improvements in the management of the Department's
core business. The Department needs to focus on its corporate
objectives, managing its business as a unified organisation with
clear accountability for delivery, as well as motivating staff
at all levels to report and address problems as they arise.
On Home Resource Accounts 2004-05
2. The Department failed to reconcile its
in-house cash records with its bank statements and wrote off a
difference of £3 million as administration costs without
further investigation.
These are basic failures of financial stewardship and control
which, for example, ignore the risk that net differences may mask
larger gross discrepancies. To safeguard against fraud and financial
mismanagement, the Home Office needs to reconcile cash at least
monthly, investigate large or unusual entries, and not write-off
unexplained differences.
3. The Home Office's financial records did
not provide an audit trail of original documentation which could
be clearly and easily linked to entries appearing in the accounting
system. Accounts are only reliable if
they can be shown faithfully to reflect the underlying transactions.
The Department cannot expect to meet even elementary standards
of financial control unless it maintains all the necessary supporting
documentation in readily accessible form.
4. The Home Office did not fully understand
how to use the functions of its new finance system and failed
to mitigate the risks inherent in its implementation.
Instead of reaping the promised benefits, including greater efficiency
and control, and improved timeliness and quality of information,
the Home Office lost even the tenuous grip on its finances which
previous outmoded systems had provided. It needs to produce a
formal action plan in response to the Ernst and Young review,
giving priority to the redesign of the financial management system
and the simplification of business processes, and proper training
of staff to understand the finance system they are expected to
use.
5. The Accounting Officer failed in his duty
to Parliament to produce auditable financial statements for 2004-05,
leaving his successor in the unenviable position of having to
sign unauditable accounts so that they could be laid before Parliament.
This failure reflects a lack of high level attention to accounting
requirements and a poor sense of their corporate importance.
Achieving a clear audit opinion will depend not only on having
enough qualified accounting staff, but will also require a strong
corporate emphasis on the importance of accurate financial information,
both to account for public funds and to manage resources effectively.
The need for a modern, integrated accounting system should have
been appreciated much earlier. Staff now need to be trained to
understand the new system, convinced that senior management are
committed to making it work, and given the confidence to use the
enhanced capability it provides.
On returning failed asylum applicants and foreign
criminals
6. For years, the Home Office has failed to
get to grips with the increasing number of foreign national prisoners
in custody. Too much attention has been given to protocols and
administrative processes and too little to securing better outcomes.
As indicated in our recent Report on dealing with increased numbers
in custody,[1] the Department
has failed to consider all foreign prisoners in custody for deportation
prior to their release from prison. The Home Office should, in
future, review all foreign national prisoner cases at the beginning
of their custodial sentence to prepare for immediate removal of
those offenders recommended for deportation on their release from
custody. To meet these challenges, the Home Office needs to:
a) direct staff in HM Prison Service and the
Immigration and Nationality Directorate to review all cases of
foreign national offenders at the beginning of their custodial
sentence to prepare for immediate deportation on release from
custody, resolving obstacles, such as travel documentation issues,
at the earliest opportunity;
b) increase through recruitment, training or
redeployment of staff the resources allocated to the timely removal
of foreign national offenders recommended for deportation, prioritising
the removal of those convicted of the most serious crimes. At
the same time it needs to maintain momentum on the asylum removals
programme as a whole, using monthly progress against its 'target
to remove within 28 days' to measure improvement.
7. The Home Office has not captured centrally
the key data it needs to manage the foreign national prisoner
population from the point of sentence to deportation or release.
The Department should record in a single, central electronic database
accessible both by HM Prison Service and the Immigration and Nationality
Directorate the identity and nationality of these prisoners, what
crimes they have committed, where they are being detained, the
length of their sentence and progress in considering them for
deportation.
8. There were errors,
omissions and inconsistencies in the Home Office's oral evidence,
and in subsequent supplementary written evidence to this Committee
during our hearing on Returning failed asylum applicants.[2]
The frequency with which the Department has revised its data in
recent weeks on the number of foreign prisoners released without
consideration for deportation is indicative of the Home Office's
apparent inability to put accurate information into the public
domain. Not only did it take the Department six months to supply
some of the supplementary evidence requested by this Committee,
but it has since revised and re-categorised the data several times
to correct errors and inconsistencies, and still cannot be certain
that the data is accurate.
On the management of Home Office business
9. Deficiencies in the Home Office's migration
to its new financial management system and in its management of
foreign nationals on release from custody are the latest in a
series of management shortcomings stretching back to the passport
delays of summer 1999.
On prisons, asylum, the UK Passports Agency, the Criminal Records
Bureau and now on its financial statements, we have reported on
poor management and ineffective intervention by the Department.
The Department needs to address the factors which impede delivery
or undermine effective management of its business. In particular,
it needs to co-ordinate the operations of the separate strands
of the business and establish clear lines of accountability for
delivery.
10. The Home Office needs leadership, clear
strategy and, above all, effective delivery if it is to restore
public confidence in its ability to meet its objectives.
The Home Secretary has announced[3]
that the Accounting Officer is to address poor performance, weak
delivery, inadequate leadership and silo working as a matter of
urgency. When we next take evidence, the Accounting Officer will
need to demonstrate that his Department has made a convincing
start on the fundamental changes in attitudes and methods required
to deliver a business-wide transformation in the effectiveness
of the organisation.
1 44th Report from the Committee of Public
Accounts, National Offender Management Service: Dealing with
increased numbers in custody (HC 788, Session 2005-06) Back
2
34th Report from the Committee of Public Accounts,
Returning failed asylum applicants (HC 620, Session 2005-06) Back
3
HC deb, 23 May 2006, Col 77 WS Back
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