About us
The IFRP provides independent advice to the Home Office on how best to safeguard children’s welfare during a family’s enforced return.
Who we are
The Independent Family Returns Panel (IFRP) was established in 2011 to provide advice on the safeguarding and welfare plans for the removal of families with children who have no legal right to remain in the UK, and have failed to depart voluntarily.
The approach was established as a way of avoiding the detention of families with children who are subject to an enforced return.
The panel does not make immigration decisions. Decisions to remove a family from the UK are made by the Home Office and independent courts.
The IFRP makes recommendations to the Home Office, ensuring the welfare needs of children and families are met when families are returned to their home country (or, in asylum cases, the third country where the asylum claim legally must be heard).
The IFRP is consulted on how best to safeguard and promote the welfare of the children in every family returns case. The IFRP must also be consulted if it is proposed that a family should be detained in pre-departure accommodation. Evidence of the suitability of detainment and showing consideration of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of any children in the family must be shown to the IFRP. Detainment in pre-departure accommodation should be used as a last resort and in most cases for a maximum time of 72 hours.
The panel’s subsidiary role: children held at ports of entry
The panel has an additional, non-statutory role, relating to the occasional need to hold families with children at the border while enquiries are made as to whether they may be admitted or while they wait for a return flight.
Families are usually held in a holding room at the port of entry and, where possible, families are held separately from other passengers. If a family is to be held overnight or for longer than 24 hours, they are normally removed to designated family accommodation in an immigration centre.
The panel maintains an overview of the handling of families who are denied entry to the UK at the border, to ensure that children are held in such circumstances only when necessary and appropriate, and for the shortest possible time.
Who we are
The panel is made up of experienced professionals from a range of backgrounds, recruited through the Home Office public appointments process.