Home Office evaluation of GPS tagging pilot shows no impact on compliance

The Home Office has published its evaluation of the pilot scheme expanding the use of electronic monitoring of people as a condition of their immigration bail.

The Home Office’s pilot monitored two groups of people on immigration bail. The first group was people who were subject to electronic monitoring and normal face to face reporting to the Home Office. The second (control) group undertook reporting only. The evaluation compared the behaviours of the two groups to determine what if any impact electronic monitoring had on compliance. The key findings were as follows:

This report suggests that GPS tagging did not improve compliance behaviours of asylum claimants on bail conditions. Interim findings in October 2022 and August 2023 presented a similar picture. The pilot underwent significant operational challenges interlinked to compliance behaviours, from setting up reporting and tags efficiently to legal challenges to the process.

Compliance rates dropped over time following a similar trend across tagged and control groups; however, individuals in the tagged group tended to go out of contact more quickly than in the control group. After 16 months, there was no statistically significant difference between the proportions of individuals out of contact (66% in both groups).

The use of an EM tag does not appear to be a barrier to absconding. At the end of the pilot, 14% individuals in the control group were marked as absconders against 16% in the tagged group. It took on average 219 days for individuals to be officially declared absconders, this timeframe was similar across both control and tagged groups.

The use of electronic monitoring has been subject to successful legal challenges (see e.g. Court finds that the Home Office’s imposition of a GPS tag was unlawful for over a year in the first case of its kind and High Court finds use of electronic monitoring to be unlawful). This report will presumably make it more difficult for the Home Office to successfully argue proportionality when defending the use of electronic monitoring in future.