UK asylum system hit by inefficiencies and wasted funds, watchdog finds

The UK’s asylum system is affected by inefficiencies, “waste of public funds” and “short-term, reactive” government policies that move problems elsewhere, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

As part of its analysis, the spending watchdog examined a sample of 5,000 asylum claims made in January 2023, almost three years ago.

Since then, 35 percent (1,619) of the asylum seekers have been granted some form of protection such as refugee status, while 9 percent (452) have been deported from the country. However, there is still no final outcome in the cases of 56% (2,812).

The Home Office welcomed the analysis, which it said supported “the case for fundamental reform of the asylum system”.

Most of the cases in the remaining group (2,021 out of 2,812) remained in some form of “limbo” with no appeal filed.

“Their claims have been dismissed, but their cases remain in the system unresolved, and that’s because of the difficulties of removal,” NAO chief analyst Ruth Kelly told reporters.

The inadequacy of other types of accommodation means that many asylum seekers whose cases have not been closed are accommodated in hotels. Accommodation costs in 2024-25 are £2.7bn.

Refugee Council Chief Executive Enver Solomon said of the January 2023 analysis: “It is shocking that NAO has found that more than half of people who applied for asylum almost three years ago are still receiving no results.”

He said the report reflected what the Refugee Council’s frontline services face every day: “a dysfunctional asylum system where people wait months, even years, for a decision and costs continue to rise.”

The NAO’s report criticizes how successive governments have dealt with the current surge in small boat crossings, which began in 2018.

“Interventions tended to be reactive and focused on solving an immediate problem in only one part of the system (such as intake or initial decisions), without a clear view of their impact on other parts,” the report said.

“Increases in processing speed sometimes compromise the quality of decisions, and improvements in one area shift problems elsewhere.”

The NAO cited the example of former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s attempt to clear the old asylum backlog in 2023, which shifted the pressure to the appeals stage and created a new backlog in the courts.

Ruth Kelly said one of the most critical factors now was the lack of specialist immigration judges to hear appeals.

“There is a serious capacity shortage in judges,” he said. “And judges told us that incentives to work in immigration and asylum courts are weak… making it difficult to recruit judges because of taxes and the complex nature of the work, as well as negative media attention.”

The NAO said it would now seek evidence that the government was moving away from “short-term, reactive fixes” towards a “sustainable whole-system approach”.

He said the current long delays in the system were “eroding public confidence in the fairness and effectiveness of the system.”

The NAO also found that it was impossible to track individual cases throughout the entire asylum process as there was no “unique asylum case identifier” shared by the Home Office, court services and local government computer systems.

The report states that because asylum applications are subject to fluctuating demand with significant peaks, it is important to establish a flexible and resilient system that can respond to increases and decreases in demand.

NAO analyst Ruth Kelly said the government should avoid returning to “the inefficient quick fixes model we have seen in the past”.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Home Secretary recently announced the most sweeping changes to the asylum system in a generation to tackle the problems identified in this report.

“We are already making progress – nearly 50,000 people who have no right to be here have been eliminated, there has been a 63% increase in illegal worker arrests and more than 21,000 small boat crossing attempts have been foiled so far this year.

“Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove incentives encouraging people to come to the UK illegally and increase deportations of those who have no right to be here.”