Home Office has ‘culture of defensiveness’, sacked borders watchdog warns

A raft of inspection reports were finally published after months of delays
PA Archive
Flora Thompson29 February 2024
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The Home Office has a “culture of defensiveness” and “will not change” if it does not want to, the borders and immigration watchdog warned in a report produced before he was fired.

The criticism from David Neal was set out in stark terms among a raft of reports the Government department finally published on Thursday in the wake of his sacking, after months of delays.

The former chief inspector of borders and immigration’s exit came after he was embroiled in a row with the Home Office about concerns he was raising in a report submitted over security checks at airports – one of two outstanding documents still yet to be published by the Home Office.

The Daily Mail newspaper reported data provided to Mr Neal showed the UK Border Force failed to check the occupants of hundreds of high-risk, private jets arriving at London City Airport – but the department disputed the figures.

In his annual report, covering April 2022 to March 2023, Mr Neal said the Home Office had a “reluctance to engage” with recommendations for improvement and he had experienced “significant pushback” while drafting inspection reports, including responses which “have gone way beyond” just checking factual accuracy.

“Some of this is perhaps down to a culture of defensiveness, but it is not good”, he said, although he noted many senior officials “embrace the independent oversight”.

He expressed fears that some officials would be “content to polish and put a positive gloss on far too much, which results in a failure to deliver real change”, adding: “To put it bluntly, if the Home Office does not want to change, it will not.

“The only meaningful way of determining whether a recommendation has been delivered is to review it as part of another inspection”.

Mr Neal also said he senses a “reluctance for some officials to get out on the ground and speak to people”, adding: “Part of that is a legacy of the pandemic, but the bigger part is a lack of self-confidence and a culture that prioritises office-bound policy over on-the-ground experience.”

Other reports raised a series of concerns about the performance of Border Force, warning protections at UK airports were neither “effective nor efficient”, with ePassport gates left unmanned.

The basics were “not being done well” at arrival halls, with operations “hampered” by an inconsistent lack of resources, Mr Neal said.

Other findings said staff working with children and vulnerable adults in asylum accommodation in Northern Ireland had not been subject to the necessary safeguarding checks or been trained.

While a separate report found Afghans fleeing to the UK after the Taliban takeover were “unknowingly failing” to meet resettlement scheme requirements because of a “secret policy” by the Home Office on hotel accommodation.

The bundle of reports was published all at the same time, late in the afternoon on the same day as damning findings from an inquiry into Sarah Everard’s murder by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, a series of significant immigration statistics were released as well as a host of other major developments.

But Downing Street downplayed suggestions this was a deliberate move in an attempt to bury bad news.

A No 10 spokeswoman said: “We wanted to publish them as swiftly as possible following the necessary and appropriate due diligence.”

Diana Johnson, the Labour chairwoman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said: “Not only have all these reports been published in one go, but there is no ICIBI (Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration) in post to provide a press release or a commentary on the contents of these reports.

“This is wholly inadequate and raises serious questions about what the Home Office has been doing all this time.”

Earlier this week, Mr Neal told the committee he was sacked “for doing my job” via a Microsoft Teams meeting held online after the Home Office said he lost the confidence of the Home Secretary James Cleverly amid claims he breached the terms of his appointment.

During his tenure, he repeatedly raised concerns the Home Office was too slow to publish his reports and questioned why his three-year contract was not renewed for a second term, as was customary with his predecessors.

His time in office was due to end on March 21 and he claimed Number 10 had blocked his reappointment before he was ultimately fired.

Labour branded the publication a “broken borders dossier”, with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claiming: “This is the border chaos the Tories are trying to hide.

“Ministers have sat on these devastating reports for months in a bid to hide their utter failure to protect our borders … They have tried to bury this bad news, but the public deserve the truth … This is a Government that has lost its way and on their watch our borders are less secure, and our asylum system is falling apart.”

But the Home Office said it had “delivered” on a promise to publish all overdue report as soon as possible, adding: “The publication of these reports that scrutinise the activity of the Home Office and make recommendations for improvement is in and of itself a demonstration of transparency and acceptance of independent scrutiny.”

The two final reports will be published “in the established eight-week period” and the process of hiring a replacement watchdog was “already underway”, a spokeswoman added.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in