House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Sixtieth Report

3 Leadership and management within the Home Office

14. Historically, the Home Office has organised and managed its plethora of responsibilities as separate, unconnected businesses with a variety of organisational structures - identity, immigration and nationality, prisons, probation, and police. This narrow, functional focus takes little account of collective responsibility for the achievement of corporate objectives, particularly where two or more parts of a department share responsibilities for delivery of a corporate goal, for example on managing foreign prisoners. It may in part be a reflection of the sheer size of the Home Office's remit and its wide-ranging responsibilities. Too often, the Home Office has failed to demonstrate the capacity to manage its business as a unified organisation, preferring to tackle problems within its separate functions, when what was needed was a more holistic and strategic overview.[38]

15. Communication between the various strands of Home Office's business has also been poor, characterised by insufficient management attention and a reluctance to tackle emerging problems. The Department needs to tackle the prevailing parochial culture, and promote close working across the Home Office's business. A lack of effective communication even within the same function is exemplified by the breakdown between the Accounts Branch in Liverpool and London based managers.[39]

16. The problems with foreign national prisoners and the Department's failure to deliver its accounts to the statutory reporting timetable were the latest in a catalogue of problems experienced by the Home Office on which this Committee and its predecessors have taken evidence in recent years (Figure 5). A number of common characteristics emerge from our Reports on aspects of the Home Office's work, notably a lack of leadership and strategic oversight, a failure to acknowledge that departmental procedures were not keeping pace with demand for the service, and the tacit acceptance of backlogs and delays. As a result, problems have escalated, increasing their severity and compromising delivery of underlying policy objectives.

Figure 5: Common themes from previous Committee of Public Accounts Reports on aspects of the Home Office's work

Previous Committee Report Relevant findings

On the UK Passport Agency's passport delays of Summer 1999[40] The Passport Agency underestimated the difficulties of introducing a new computer system, assuming it could be introduced quickly without detriment to services, resulting in the lost production of 400,000 passports. The Agency should have been more realistic about the time, resources and management effort needed to secure the successful introduction of information technology. Almost three months elapsed before the Agency alerted the Department to the significant problems affecting service delivery and quality.

On the work of the Criminal Records Bureau[41] The Passports and Records Agency and Capita were slow to get to grips with emerging difficulties, causing backlogs and delays in checking applications.

On improving the speed and quality of asylum decisions[42] Failure to allocate sufficient resources to deal with the number of applications resulted in serious backlogs and made removal of unsuccessful applicants more difficult.

On the effectiveness of the Drug Treatment and Testing Order[43] A consistent approach is needed to enforcement of the Order across the country to maintain its credibility as an effective punishment.

On returning failed asylum applicants[44] The Immigration and Nationality Directorate's practice of treating the asylum system as largely separate operations (viz. application, enforcement and removal) increased the administrative workload, delayed the removal of unsuccessful applicants and created a growing backlog. The Directorate does not know the actual number of unsuccessful applicants awaiting removal and lacks basic information on the whereabouts of people to enable it to effect removal.

On dealing with increased numbers in custody[45] Not all foreign prisoners have been considered for deportation prior to release. To achieve a lasting improvement, the Home Office needs to maintain accurate records of foreign prisoners throughout their sentences, and establish effective communication between its Immigration and Nationality Directorate and HM Prison Service on each individual prisoner.