A year after the Brook House Inquiry published its report, the Independent Monitoring Board has published its annual report on the Gatwick detention centres (Brook House and Tinsley House) finding that safety has deteriorated in the past year. The report noted “a substantial increase in violence across both centres in 2023, both in comparison with the previous year and with pre-pandemic periods” and that the use of force more than doubled.

Issues remain with the use of rule 35 reports, with wait times remaining “unacceptably long” and the report noting that the “Home Office’s continued frequent use of its discretion under the adults at risk policy to maintain detention for individuals for whom a Rule 35 report has been submitted has served to undermine the effectiveness of Rule 35 as a safeguard”.

 Some of the other key findings include:

Safety

• An effect of Operation Safeguard has been to make Gatwick IRC a less safe place.
• The Detention Gatekeeper has not been robust enough in its safeguarding purpose of protecting vulnerable people from being detained (paragraph 4.5.2).
• A disproportionate burden of the care of men with serious mental ill health falls on officers who are not trained or adequately supported to manage such complex needs (paragraph 4.5.14).
• There is a tendency to focus on how vulnerable men can be ‘managed in detention’ rather than a presumption that they should be released. Home Office caseowners rarely attend multi-disciplinary adults-at-risk meetings (paragraph 4.6.3).
• Despite wider, systemic failings, there is commendable work being done on an individual and team level by officers working with vulnerable men on E wing, by the welfare department, by social workers and the religious affairs department and by some residential officers on the wings. These require more support, including wider recognition of their importance and value.

Fair and humane treatment

• Almost every man escorted on a hospital visit was handcuffed in the last six months of the year. This can be humiliating and distressing (paragraph 4.10).
• Even fewer complaints against Serco were upheld this year. The functioning of the complaints process does not give confidence that it is fair (paragraph 5.7).
• Payment of £1 per hour to detained people for work being done is not fair and does not reflect the value of the work. Similar considerations apply to the failure to increase the daily allowance of £0.71 paid to detained people (paragraph 6.6.4).

Health and wellbeing

• In the Board’s view, the healthcare department has failed to fully address concerns raised by the Brook House Inquiry about access to critical safeguards and the competence of those charged with them (paragraphs 6.1.1, 6.1.3).
• The volume of complaints from detained men about healthcare staff behaviour and the Board’s observations of defensiveness, disengagement and weak or ineffective multi-disciplinary working suggest wider issues of staff culture and burnout (paragraph 6.1.6).
• There have been some positive interventions, such as reversing policies of removing men’s mobility aids on arrival and delivery of some preventive health initiatives (paragraph 6.2.1, 6.2.3).

Preparation for return or release

• Failure by the Home Office to establish pathways to release by working with its counterparts in the Probation Service resulted in significant anxiety among the detained men and even despair on occasion. It unnecessarily extended time in detention for too many people who had already been granted immigration bail (paragraph 7.4).
• People detained at Gatwick did not always have meaningful access to legal advice throughout 2023. This was the case while solicitors’ legal aid appointments were done remotely and, for Brook House, while the planned new mobile phone system is not in place and working for all men detained there. And, even after a return to in-person appointments at Tinsley House, access was not consistent due to ongoing problems with the IT scanner used for communication with solicitors (paragraphs 7.2.7 to 7.2.13).
• There was a welcome post-pandemic return to face-to face solicitors’ legal aid appointments in 2023, but the requirement was reversed from 1 January 2024. 

For the sixth year in a row, the board’s recommendations have included a time limit on immigration detention, reiterating that “detention without a time limit is unfair and inhumane”. Given the Home Secretary’s announcement that detention capacity is to be increased, it seems likely that this recommendation will continue to be ignored.