This asylum shambles is the most shocking account of delinquency and fecklessness I’ve read in 20 years: DAVID BARRETT

Exactly four weeks ago at the Labor Party conference in Liverpool, Shabana Mahmood was asked about the current state of the Home Office.

His response echoed comments made in 2006 by the then Labor home secretary, John Reid, when he said the department was ‘not fit for purpose’.

He told the border event: ‘I don’t think it’s quite fit for purpose yet.’

Ms Mahmood vowed to ‘fight’ the Home Office to achieve her goals.

And last week he vowed to ‘transform the Home Office to serve this country’ after an internal review highlighted how much intransigence and dysfunction there is in the department.

Today, in light of the devastating report on asylum seeker accommodation, it is difficult to share his optimism that the Home Office could be rehabilitated.

Frankly it seems beyond redemption.

Most likely, it is time to disband the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the second time.

The silo mentality of this £23bn-a-year revenue giant – with 51,000 staff – can only be shaken by a major structural reform, which will likely require the creation of two separate ministries.

One will take over border control, immigration and asylum policy, while the other will deal with policing, crime and counter-terrorism.

Of course, no real change can be achieved by changing the signs on the door and moving the tables.

This would have to be accompanied by a root-and-branch staff restructuring to get rid of recalcitrant civil servants who were in open rebellion against Conservative rule.

This newspaper reported in 2023 how Home Office civil servants complained about then home affairs minister Suella Braverman’s asylum policy during an online internal session.

One anonymous worker said he was ’embarrassed and embarrassed’ by the measures, while another complained that they were struggling to balance ‘my own personal ethical beliefs’ with the Government’s objectives at the time.

With such a politicized mediocre Civil Service workforce, it is no surprise that major mistakes are made and nothing actually gets done.

Today’s select committee report is probably the most jaw-dropping account of the Home Office’s crimes and incompetence that I have read in over 20 years of examining the department.

At the highest levels of the Civil Service, there was a lack of rigor in the preparation of key contracts for refugee accommodation. Picture: Some of the more than 300 refugees at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent

At the highest levels of the Civil Service, there was a lack of rigor in the preparation of key contracts for refugee accommodation.

It has now been revealed that basic issues such as the ability to penalize poor performance were overlooked.

Then, as the small boat crisis began to escalate (eventually becoming an issue that infuriated voters more than any other), the Home Office failed to take the necessary action.

Most frustratingly, the Civil Service mandarin responsible for all this was rewarded with a knighthood and a pay packet of £455,000 for his final year there.

So Home Secretary, this must surely be the beginning of the end for the Home Office.

Dr. Be as brave as Reid was 20 years ago when he split the department in two.

We cannot be left in a position where this cycle will repeat after future upheavals, resulting in more investigations and more billions wasted due to the incompetence of the Civil Service.

Almost 244 years after its birth, this exhausted, terminally ill Home Office is begging to be put out of its misery.