Inspection report published: Third annual inspection of ‘Adults at risk in immigration detention’, June – September 2022
This inspection identified shortcomings in the Rule 35 process, a vital safeguard for vulnerable detainees
Publishing the report, David Neal said:
I welcome the publication of the third annual inspection report on the Home Office’s ‘Adults at risk in immigration detention’ policy. ICIBI has inspected the effectiveness of the safeguards in place to protect vulnerable detainees regularly since the then-Home Secretary asked my predecessor in 2018 to undertake these reviews on an annual basis.
This third annual inspection focuses specifically on the efficiency and effectiveness of Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001, which creates a mechanism for medical practitioners based in immigration removal centres (IRCs) to identify detainees who may be vulnerable on account of health risks, suicidal intentions, or having been a victim of torture. By bringing these individuals to the attention of Home Office staff responsible for authorising and reviewing detention, the Rule 35 process provides an essential safeguard for vulnerable detainees.
On the basis of this inspection, the Rule 35 process needs to be called out for what it is – ineffective.
My inspectors visited three IRCs and also spoke to Home Office operational and policy staff. The inspection team recognised the challenging conditions that staff face in IRCs, especially with the relatively rapid increase in numbers detained, and the impact this has on service delivery.
During the inspection period, a significant increase in Rule 35 reports resulted in considerable pressure on healthcare and Home Office systems. This pressure had a negative impact on an already flawed Rule 35 process notable for a lack of training for GPs, some poor-quality Rule 35 reports, and a failure by Detention Engagement Teams and Rule 35 team managers to adequately review reports prior to a decision by the Rule 35 team.
More broadly, this inspection found that work to address areas identified as problematic in the first and second ‘Adults at risk’ inspections has progressed at a glacial pace, with some areas seeing no improvement at all.
I found the quality of data relied upon to manage the detention system to be poor, with a number of individuals who had been released many years previously wrongly recorded as being in detention, in some cases in IRCs that are now closed. As previously, inspectors found staff and others involved in the process often held the perception that Rule 35 and other safeguarding mechanisms were being abused by detainees. Again, limited evidence was presented to support this assertion, and efforts to address the alleged abuse were minimal.
I have no doubt that some migrants are abusing the system, but this cannot be allowed to infect the whole response from the Home Office. It is absolutely clear that there are individuals in the system who have suffered torture and are the victims of trafficking. If the Home Office is concerned that Rule 35 is being abused, it is open to the department to address those concerns through its long-delayed work to update the Detention Centre Rules. But in carrying out any changes to current procedures, the Home Office must ensure that there is a sound evidentiary basis for its actions and that genuinely vulnerable detainees do not see the protections available to them rolled back.
We are now six years on from Stephen Shaw’s initial report into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons. My assessment is that more effort is still required to build and sustain an effective system.
It is in the gift of the Home Secretary and senior officials to make the system more effective. However, Home Office senior managers demonstrated a lack of interest in improving Rule 35 specifically, and in the inspection process more generally. The system is not effective and will remain not effective until leadership action is taken to improve this area. There needs to be a ‘foot on the ball moment’ and a concerted effort to do better to provide protections for vulnerable immigration detainees.
In light of my findings that the system is not working as well as it should and that progress towards implementing accepted recommendations for improvement is far too slow, I am concerned that the Home Secretary has judged this to be an appropriate moment to terminate her predecessor’s commission to ICIBI to carry out an annual review of ‘Adults at risk’ policies and safeguards. Because it is such an important area, I intend to continue to include this area in my own inspection programme, in line with my statutory remit, and I will continue to bring my findings to the attention of the Home Secretary, Parliament, and the public.
This report was sent to the Home Secretary on 25 November 2022. It makes 10 timebound recommendations, of which two have been accepted and eight have been partially accepted.