Examination of Witness (Questions 1-40)
MS LOUISE
PERRETT
2 MARCH 2010
Q1 Chairman: Could I welcome our
witness, Louise Perrett. Could I also refer everyone present to
the Register of Members' Interests where the interests of Members
are noted. My wife is an immigration solicitor; I am a non-practising
barrister. Ms Perrett, thank you very much for coming to give
evidence to us on the work of the UKBA. You probably are not aware
that from time to time we have the pleasure of taking evidence
from the Chief Executive of the UKIB, and also BA, and also recently,
since his appointment, the Independent Inspector of the UKBA,
so that is part of that overall framework that we have called
you to give evidence on. You were quoted in the Guardian
newspaper and other media as making some very serious allegations
about what was happening in Cardiff. Could you briefly tell us
the background of what you were doing in the Cardiff office? What
was your job? How long were you working there?
Ms Perrett: I was
employed as a casual case owner on a temporary work basis in the
summer of 2009 in between university courses. I was employed for
three and a half months, and I was a decision-maker as a case
owner. That is it.
Q2 Chairman: What was the nature
of your concerns about what colleagues were saying and doing at
that Cardiff office that led to what you have done? We are most
grateful to you for coming here today to give evidence to this
Committee.
Ms Perrett: When I arrived there
was some misunderstanding within the office, they did not realise
that I and several other casual members of staff were going to
turn up that day, we were allocated our posts, it was split between
HEO, case owners, and the rest were executive officer, I am not
sure what their title was. Then we were allocated asylum teams
to sit in and shadow for two weeks until our training started.
I was allocated to Asylum Team 3, and there were pleasantries
and introductions to the staff. I introduced myself, and I was
asking about the job, the pros, the cons, things like that, and
I asked about the claimants and their thoughts, and I was told,
"If it was up to me I would take them all outside and shoot
them". I told her that I did not agree that she should be
saying things like that in the office and it was horrendous. I
quickly explained my background and career history, which has
always been in the equalities field, working for the Welsh Assembly
and the voluntary sector in Wales. Then she went on to tell me
that I would quickly discover that nobody in the office was very
PC, in fact everybody was the exact opposite, and that I would
not win any friends or favours by spouting any of that rubbish.
That was my first 10 minutes. That was an indication of what
was to come. Throughout the next few days I was trying to explain
that I was worried about doing this post, I did not realise what
the job entailed, I was not told by the recruitment agency what
the job was until a few days before taking up the post, and I
did not think I had the skills to make decisions on asylum seeker
claims, I did not think I had the interviewing skills. I was reassured
that after training it was enjoyable and easy, and I was still
saying I did not think I could do it, I did not think I could
question women and children claiming to be victims of torture
or rape. Then a line manager gave me some tips, he was saying
that all the case owners had tips and they would all support me,
it is fine, it is easy, you will enjoy it, and he was giving me
some tips on how he conducts interviews. One of his examples was
that when he had young men or children claiming to be former child
soldiers from Africa he would make them lie on the floor and demonstrate
to him how they would shoot somebody from the bush. I could not
quite understand his rationale but he was trying to say if they
do not do it immediately, if there is hesitation, then you will
discover that they are lying. I did not agree with him, obviously.
Q3 Chairman: Yes. You also made comments,
reported in the Guardian, that people behaved in other
offensive manners. Can you give us any other examples of the offensiveness?
Was it a majority or a minority of members of staff?
Ms Perrett: It was generic throughout
the office. If somebody was not making the statements or saying
things horrendously they were just allowing it to happen. That
goes from the team leaders to the Grade 7 to the other case owners.
It is constant, so much so that as an equalities person working
for 10 years I just did not know where to begin and how to
address any of it. I would raise my concerns with team leaders
or my trainer or the other case owners but I was always dismissed
and laughed off.
Q4 Bob Russell: Ms Perrett, four
weeks have elapsed since the Guardian article. Was the
Guardian article a fair and balanced report, from your perspective?
Ms Perrett: Yes, it got my main
points across. Because of word constraints it did not get across
the culture of the organisation, which is my main concern, of
why these things can happen and do happen.
Q5 Bob Russell: Have there been any
consequences in the past four weeks to that article?
Ms Perrett: I have only had positive
feedback so far.
Q6 Bob Russell: You partly answered
the Chairman's question of how your colleagues approach their
work. I wonder if I could just press that, because I think it
is important to know how widespread it was. Are we talking of
three or four people? A dozen? Everybody?
Ms Perrett: Well, a dozen that
I spoke to, I did not like very many people there, I must admit,
I did not agree with the things they were saying so I tried to
avoid them. When I explained to the presenting officers, which
is the legal department, where a lady was from and that a case
owner was trying desperately to find a way to remove this family
back to the DRC, when he asked me where the lady was from and
I told him the Congo, he sang, "Umbongo, umbongo, they kill
them in the Congo"—and that is the presenting officer.
In Asylum Team 1 or 2, they were separate, they had a grant monkey
in their team. I was not part of that team.
Q7 Bob Russell: In the newspaper
article it is referred to as a "stuffed gorilla".
Ms Perrett: It was just a toy
but it was known in the office as a "grant monkey".
Q8 Bob Russell: Was everybody in
the office involved in the grant monkey award?
Ms Perrett: No, that was in just
one team. The office is in an L-shape separated by a stairway,
and it is Asylum Team 1, I think.
Q9 Bob Russell: Would the people
in ultimate charge be aware there was this stuffed monkey there?
Ms Perrett: Yes. The team leader
obviously, and the team leader sits with the case owners.
Q10 Bob Russell: In summary are you
saying the ethos of the whole office, every single employee, was
of a nature that caused you serious concern, or was it just a
few domineering people?
Ms Perrett: There are good people
there, do not get me wrong.
Q11 Bob Russell: That is what I am
trying to get at.
Ms Perrett: Those people act in
a professional, courteous, caring manner. I do not want to tar
everybody with the same brush. But the fact is the culture of
the office does not permit those individuals to speak up and say
"No, this is wrong".
Q12 Chairman: What you are saying,
leaving the issue of the monkey aside, is that those who grant
asylum applications were in some way ridiculed, is that the issue?
Ms Perrett: Yes. Initially, when
I first started in the office I thought it was a positive thing.
I thought to have the grant monkey on your desk was a celebration
that you had helped somebody that day and to have the grant monkey
was to be celebrated, but I quickly discovered no, it was not,
it was ridicule, and that you had "let one through",
in a sense; you had not done your job properly. I am sorry, what
was the question again?
Q13 Chairman: It was that people
were ridiculed when they granted applications.
Ms Perrett: Yes.
Q14 Mrs Dean: Could you just remind
us how long you worked there?
Ms Perrett: I was employed for
three and a half months.
Q15 Mrs Dean: You completed the three
and a half months?
Ms Perrett: Yes. It was a rolling
contract through Hays Specialist Recruitment. I was there for
only three and a half months.
Q16 Mrs Dean: You said how one of
the members of staff there described how he interviewed people.
Did you witness how people interviewed claimants?
Ms Perrett: I did shadow people.
I did not shadow that individual because he was a team leader
and they tend only to interview the most difficult cases that
need the most experience, so I did not witness him personally
interviewing, but he was giving me tips as my line manager on
how to conduct an interview.
Q17 Mrs Dean: How did you find the
interviews that you did witness?
Ms Perrett: I witnessed one that
was absolutely fantastic and she should be commended for her professionalism,
it was brilliant, but they tended to be the more mature members
of the staff who were not influenced so much by the culture of
the office. They did not really care if they fitted in or not.
The younger members of staff were very gung ho, very aggressive
and rude from the moment you met an asylum seeker in the waiting
room.
Q18 Mrs Dean: You witnessed that
rudeness?
Ms Perrett: Yes.
Q19 Mrs Dean: It was not just something
you heard talked about, as wrong as that could be? You witnessed
it?
Ms Perrett: In the two weeks when
we were shadowing that meant we were following individual case
owners throughout the whole day.
Q20 Mrs Dean: What sort of rudeness
did you come across in those interviews?
Ms Perrett: Just general hostility,
not so much in the things they would say but their demeanour,
abruptness, general intimidation that I thought as a government
official was totally unnecessary, and we would not expect to be
treated that way.
Q21 Mr Clappison: Did you report
your concerns to anybody?
Ms Perrett: I continuously raised
my concerns within the office to line managers in front of the
group director, which is a Grade 7 level but, like I said, I was
always laughed off as a woolly liberal.
Q22 Mr Clappison: When you say you
"raised" your concerns, what did you say specifically?
Can you remember?
Ms Perrett: That this was outrageous,
that you cannot act like that in the office. You would walk in
and people would be standing up screaming, swearing. I have worked
in the Welsh Assembly so that is the only other Civil Service
kind of scenario that I can compare it with.
Q23 Mr Clappison: What was your job
in the Welsh Assembly?
Ms Perrett: Initially I was team
support back in 2000. I worked my way up to be the equality and
diversity co-ordinator for the Culture Directorate and then I
was a researcher in 2008 for the public sector.
Q24 Mr Clappison: Going back to your
training and the way you approached it, were you trained that
this was a factual exercise, gathering evidence to see if somebody
was telling the truth or not? Whether they met the criteria for
asylum?
Ms Perrett: Yes. The trainer did
a very good job in the five weeks that you have of training, in
the limited space. She did her best to bring us up to speed in
a proper manner.
Q25 Mr Clappison: Did you find that
your background in equalities and diversity was helpful in this
or not?
Ms Perrett: Yes, I could challenge
and give an alternative. Again, from my two weeks I had already
established myself as a bit of a pain really and a bit of a liberal.
Q26 Mr Clappison: The job you had
was not to be a liberal or to be offensive or anything else; it
was to evaluate the facts and see whether somebody met the criteria?
Ms Perrett: The Home Office set
training itself I have no issue with. Obviously the length of
time that you are given, five weeks to make a decision on somebody's
asylum claim, but the contents, no, that is not my issue whatsoever.
My issue is with the culture of the organisation and how the officials
conduct themselves and how that affects the asylum seekers claiming
asylum. It is not the training.
Q27 David Davies: Ms Perrett, what
percentage roughly of the staff that you were with were not white?
Were there black and Asian staff there as well?
Ms Perrett: A few.
Q28 David Davies: So the black and
Asian staff, white staff, were all taking part in these jokes,
were they?
Ms Perrett: Well, no. The one
black employee that I had more dealings with was a Muslim, and
when he heard staff members saying things that were factually
incorrect about Islam and the Muslim beliefs and culture he would
try and give the correct view from his point of view.
Q29 David Davies: But what about
the grant monkey that gets passed around the desks?
Ms Perrett: He was in a different
team. I never saw that gentleman in Asylum Team 1.
David Davies: You will recognise this
document as the monthly cohort snap shot from UKBA.
Chairman: What does that mean?
Q30 David Davies: This is a breakdown
of how many asylum seekers have been allocated to each region
of the UK, how many have been granted asylum by staff like Ms
Perrett. It contains various other topics as well but the interesting
point for me is this. At the top you have the number of people
who are granted asylum immediately by case workers like yourself.
I have the figures from Cardiff and Wales, Scotland, Northern
Ireland, and the North East and Cardiff were granting far more
claims than anyone else. Were you aware of that at the time?
Ms Perrett: No.
Q31 David Davies: 30% were granted
immediately in Cardiff as opposed to 24% in Scotland and Northern
Ireland, and just 20% in the North East.
Ms Perrett: I do not know the
dates of those.
Q32 David Davies: June 2009? Another
whistleblower came out from the same office as you a few weeks
later.
Ms Perrett: Really?
Q33 David Davies: And suggested that,
notwithstanding what you have said, in Cardiff there is a real
problem that so many cases have been granted without anyone looking
at them, and that is why the figures are so much higher in Cardiff
than elsewhere.
Ms Perrett: Look, my issue is—
Q34 David Davies: —more with
the behaviour?
Ms Perrett: The behaviour. I am
not interested in how we are trained or the figures, I do not
know if they are correct or incorrect, but the problem is how
an organisation deals with its members of staff and acts on a
professional basis and how we interact with people who are the
most vulnerable people in our society, and how they meet with
officials of the government, and what I saw was absolutely horrific
and should never be accepted, or ignored.
Q35 Mrs Cryer: Ms Perrett, what made
you eventually decide to approach the Guardian, or did
they approach you?
Ms Perrett: I was approached by
the media. I have not courted any media myself.
Q36 Mrs Cryer: How did they know
about you?
Ms Perrett: I am a student at
Bristol University studying social policy, and we have a mentoring
scheme. When I was new there my mentor lived with a girl who was
part of the STAR group, Student Action for Asylum Seekers and
Refugees, and they invited me to give a brief talk about my experiences
in the Home Office in the summer. They are an industrious group
and I was expecting there to be about 15 to 20 students, but they
invited people from the voluntary sector in Bristol and about
100 people turned up that night.
Q37 Mrs Cryer: You talked about your
concerns to this group?
Ms Perrett: Yes.
Q38 Mrs Cryer: And that story percolated
through to the Guardian and they approached you?
Ms Perrett: Yes.
Q39 Mrs Cryer: Have any other newspapers
or media outlets approached you since then?
Ms Perrett: Not since then. Before
the Guardian was the BBC World Service. They were the first
people to contact me.
Q40 Mrs Cryer: Do you feel you have
achieved anything by going public?
Ms Perrett: I am aware through
contacts that the grant monkey no longer exists and that to me
is an achievement, that is no longer in the office and, again,
if that is all I achieve, that is great.
Mrs Cryer: Thank you.
Chairman: Ms Perrett, thank you for giving
evidence. It is obviously very difficult to come before a Select
Committee and it has been difficult for you to do what you have
done, but we are extremely grateful to you for sharing your information
with us. If there are other matters that we need to raise with
you we will write to you. Thank you for coming in. We are most
grateful.
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