Inspection of trafficking decision making body finds speed prioritised over quality

The report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration following the inspection of the immigration enforcement competent authority has been published today, along with the Home Office’s response. The Chief Inspector David Bolt said “on the evidence of this inspection, the IECA has to date placed speed above rigorous attention to detail and, if there is one message to take away from here, it is that doing something quickly or doing it correctly is a false choice”.

The report notes that in Albanian nationals made up 60% of referrals to the immigration enforcement competent authority and 79% of Albanians received a negative conclusive grounds (final) trafficking decision. So it is important to remember that ultimately a lot of this is about trying to refuse and remove Albanians as quickly as possible, in line with the ministerial request.

As a reminder, the immigration enforcement competent authority is one of the two decision making bodies for the national referral mechanism which is the process used to identify victims of trafficking. This authority was set up in 2022 and concerns were immediately raised about the conflation of the identification process with immigration enforcement. The accompanying news story to the report acknowledged the concerns but said the following:

However, where the inspection found issues with decision quality it was not the result of any discernible bias in favour of enforcement action but because of problems with training, advice and guidance, and with the quality assurance regime, alongside changes in legislation and ministerial priorities.  

The Chief Inspector also commented on the extremely high refusal rates, stating:

In light of the significant increases in negative outcomes at both stages of the NRM process, I would have expected the IECA to have shown greater interest in ensuring, and being able to demonstrate, that it was making ‘right first time’ decisions, especially given the life-changing nature of NRM decisions. However, the quality assurance regime, in particular, did not take sufficient account of the potential impact on individuals of poor-quality decisions. The same was true of the IECA’s response to safeguarding issues, which was both under-developed in its thinking and under-resourced.

Seven recommendations were made and they were all accepted in full by the Home Office except for those relating to decisions and quality assurance which were only partially accepted. On recommendation 5 which relates to decisions, the Home Office rejected suggestion that they contact people who received a negative reasonable grounds decision under the January 2023 version of the statutory guidance, later conceded to be unlawful, and offer them a reconsideration. The Home Office has also declined to include external stakeholders in risk of re-trafficking assessments in public order disqualification cases.

Recommendation 6 is on quality assurance and the Home Office again rejected the part that suggested the involvement of external stakeholders and including an independent element to the second line quality assurance process for decisions made by the authority.

The Home Office has been told countless times of the need to engage with external stakeholders in a meaningful way and it is notable that these are still the recommendations that are baulked at.

We can already see the same problems identified in this report also becoming a significant issue in asylum decision making, where an emphasis on fast decisions has resulted in a plummeting grant rate. More haste and less speed is needed within the Home Office, and not just within this competent authority.

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