Policy paper

Home Office response to the ICIBI's report: An inspection of the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority

Published 11 December 2024

An inspection of the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority

January to June 2024

Introduction

The Home Office thanks the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) for this inspection report of the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (IECA).

The Department is pleased to see an acknowledgement of its success in the short time since its creation, with particular reference to the positive working environment that has been created despite significant growth, the clearance of its backlog and subsequent transfer of referrals from the Single Competent Authority.  The recommendations, on the whole, reflect the direction that the IECA has been working towards and will support the drive to bring improvements to the Department and wider National Referral Mechanism.

The ICIBI identified several areas for improvement and has made 25 recommendations covering 7 themes.  Where appropriate, the overarching theme has been split into separate recommendations to enable all actions to be tracked and progressed effectively.  Work was already in place to deliver some of the recommendations. The Home Office has partially accepted recommendations 5 and 6 and accepted all other recommendations.

Unless explicitly stated, the recommendations are intended to apply to all Home Office business areas that fall within the ICIBI’s remit. The Home Office should:

Recommendation 1 – recruitment and workforce planning

With respect to recruitment and workforce planning:

a) Review recent instances where the department has recruited at speed and in large numbers to resource new or expanding functions (including the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (IECA) and produce a ‘lessons learned’ or ‘best practice’ guide for managers faced with a similar challenge in future, including (but not limited to) advice on:

i. The sequencing of recruitment to different roles so that shortfalls in technical advice, quality assurance, governance and management oversight are avoided;

ii. Providing initial training that is broad enough to enable staff to be readily re-deployed in response to evolving requirements and fluctuating workloads;

iii. Ensuring in advance that guidance, Standard Operating Procedures, and training materials are up to date and comprehensive (and deciding how training/mentoring will be delivered)

Accepted

There are three main capabilities that fall under the remit of the ICIBI, Border Force (BF), Customer Services group (CSG) and Immigration Enforcement (IE).

BF already has a ‘Central Workforce Planning and Recruitment’ team, a ‘Seasonal Workforce Planning Board’ and ‘People Board’ who all work closely with Home Office Recruitment Centre and the central Learning & Development team, developing and streamlining processes. Border Force also recently reviewed candidate onboarding setting out a range of improvements, including the selection process and the induction, training and probation criteria.

CSG created Workforce Service Support (WSS) two years ago. When the team was first founded, they spoke with key stakeholders across the business to identify best practices and main issues. Based on this, WSS launched their first two (2) large, brigaded pilot campaigns ‘Executive Officer’ (Sept 2022) and ‘Administrative Assistant’ (October 2022) to experience the process first hand, allowing time for reflections and improvements to the process, to meet business needs. Both during and after those campaigns WSS learnt many lessons on how the process could be more efficient, more user friendly and a better experience for the customer. Based on the lessons learned, WSS made several improvements and have a robust end to end process.

Immigration Enforcement run twice yearly brigaded campaigns for AO Casework Support and EO Caseworkers, managed by Strategic Services and Transformation (SST).  The IE Recruitment teams within SST provide guidance and resources to support IE teams with the end-to-end recruitment process including completing lessons learned exercises on large and hard to fill campaigns.  In response to ICIBI’s findings specific to IECA’s recruitment, IECA have started to produce best practice guidance for recruitment, which will reference large-scale campaigns and recruitment at pace, incorporating the three separate elements identified in the report. It is anticipated that this guide will be completed by the end of 2024. 

Alongside this, teams from the three capabilities, Migration and Borders Group and enabling functions like HR and finance consider more strategic System-wide workforce issues via a regular working group – for example ensuring appropriate prioritisation of external surge resources.

Date of implementation: End of 2024

Recommendation 2 – training

With respect to training:

a) Ensure that wherever peers rather than specialist trainers are used to deliver initial training (as with IECA decision makers) they have received at least basic ‘train the trainer’ training and their competence has been assessed, that the training content has been checked and approved, and that their performance is periodically monitored;

b) Ensure that before anyone is deployed as a technical specialist they have been fully trained and tested in decision-making specific to the area in which they are going to work.

Accepted

The Home Office operates a federated Learning & Development model where ownership of learning is held within each directorate. This allows each area to adopt and be flexible to their training requirements, based on demand and the use of devolved budgets accordingly for speedier outcomes.  

As a matter of course, Border Force learning & development delivers train the trainer courses for any internal staff who deliver training. Customer Services Group ensure that when those being redeployed flexibly to support wider casework demands within the Home Office fully move into the live operational environment and throughout their development period they work within a mentoring framework.  All asylum caseworkers receive the support of Team Leaders, Technical Specialists and consolidators (experienced decision makers who are assigned to support new starters) to grow their skills and to ensure quality and productivity is maintained.

The Human Resources Learning function, as part of the 24/25 strategy will be setting up a ‘Learning Council’ to work with senior colleagues who are accountable for learning across the organisation to support, mitigate risks and ensure the following (not exhaustive):

• Guidance and agree a framework for good training delivery
• Dissemination of Government Skills strategy, Learning Framework, L&D products and knowledge sharing
• Cohesiveness in our approach to learning when solving similar issues
• Ensure that mandatory Learning compliance is achieved and blockers addressed
• Guidance on spend control, ensuring that when procuring courses that these are based on evidence and to be used more widely to address similar issues
• Sharing of good practice such as Leaning Needs Analysis, learning methodologies to cater to people’s learning styles and preferences and evaluation for impact analysis
• Explore opportunities to increase learning attendance cross HO
• Mitigate ‘no shows’ on costly programmes

This council will be created, and effectiveness reviewed by September 2025.

Date of implementation: September 2025

IE’s Training and Skills Unit (TASU) facilitates and delivers comprehensive training to Immigration Enforcement and Criminal Financial Investigations Officers throughout the UK.  Trainers for all frontline enforcement training and business embedded trainers for Personal & Public Safety Training are qualified up to level 4 of the Regulated Qualifications Framework.  Training outside of these areas is managed within individual departments.  IE is exploring mechanisms to streamline governance and build a community of learning leads.

IECA has considered this recommendation separately, their response is below:

a) IECA has introduced a mandatory expectation that any staff member delivering training will have completed a Business Embedded Trainer course and been signed off as competent to deliver training.  To further improve trainers’ performance IECA is currently developing a trainer evaluation process, including regular reviews of training delivery to identify best practice and areas for improvement.  This is expected to be rolled out by the end of 2024.  All training content developed by the IECA is checked and approved by subject matter experts, for example the Modern Slavery Unit approves training relating to NRM decision-making.  All training packages are reviewed annually or sooner if ad hoc changes take place.  For new training packages, an evaluation will now take place three months after it is first delivered to ensure it is meeting its objectives.  This approach will also be promoted to all learning leads across Immigration Enforcement as a best practice approach.

b) IECA has developed a Technical Specialist training package which was first delivered in July 2024.  The course provides a comprehensive overview of the Technical Specialist role in IECA.  Following training, a mentor is assigned to support in consolidating the learning and to ensure that the individual reaches the required quality level before being signed off to work independently.  An evaluation of this new training package is currently underway.  Learning leads will also promote best practice to ensure appropriate training for specialist roles across Immigration Enforcement.

Date of implementation: IECA actions: end of 2024.  Migration and Borders Group action: September 2025

Recommendation 3 – performance and productivity

With respect to IECA performance and productivity:

a) Review record-keeping in relation to RG and CG decisions and identify how performance reporting could be improved to provide qualitative as well as quantitative insights, for example helping to explain why some NRM referrals appear to have become ‘stuck’ in the system;

b) Carry out a ‘time and motion’ study of RG and CG decision-making by ‘fully effective’ DMs to establish whether the expectations regarding number of referrals to be completed per week is appropriate (this should factor in decision quality as well as speed, with the emphasis on ‘right first time’ decisions and error-free decision letters)

Accepted

a) A new quality assurance toolkit has been rolled out within IECA, with the intention of bringing improvements to performance reporting by improving data quality in this area.  We will link this work with existing management information structures to identify any further improvements to performance reporting in relation to IECA decision-making.

b) The Home Office agrees to carry out a ‘time and motion’ study of RG and CG decision-making in IECA, using the results to feed into a review of current decision maker performance expectations.  It is expected that this work will be completed by late Spring 2025.

Date of implementation: May 2025

Recommendation 4 – NRM referrals

With respect to NRM referrals:

a) By November 2024, evaluate the new (as of April 2024) training package for Immigration Prison Teams (IPTs) and Detention Engagement Teams (DETs) with reference to the number and quality of referrals made pre- and post- training;

b) Establish a single point of contact (SPoC) for the IPTs and DETs to contact for advice on referrals and to provide constructive feedback;

c) Review the May 2023 referral form used with IPTs and DETs with a view to simplifying it and removing any unnecessary or unclear questions;

d) Extend the membership of the IECA NRM Working Group to include representatives from UKVI and Border Force and either (i) invite external stakeholders to attend meetings, or (ii) share training materials and other advice or guidance produced by the group with external stakeholders and seek their input.

Accepted

a) The Home Office has begun an evaluation of IECA’s First Responder NRM training package and it is expected that this will be completed by the end of November.  Once complete, the Home Office will consider any findings and will continue to review the training package annually or where interim changes are made to the NRM referral process.

b) Representatives from IPTs and DETs are members of the IECA NRM referrals working group. A quality assurance framework specifically relating to NRM referral forms is also due to be introduced before the end of 2024 as a formal feedback mechanism to ensure consistency of feedback and to support First Responders in ensuring high quality NRM referrals.  Prior to this, ad hoc feedback was provided directly to First Responders.

c) Home Office policy officials are seeking opportunities to streamline and improve the First Responder Form used by First Responder Organisations to refer potential victims of modern slavery and trafficking into the NRM.  We will consult with IPTs and DETs by the end of 2024 to understand the identified issues and provide clarity where necessary.

d) The Home Office has now extended the membership of the IECA NRM referrals working group to Border Force and UKVI.  The Home Office will ensure that opportunities are taken to share learning from training or guidance materials developed by the IECA NRM Working Group with external stakeholders through the strategic stakeholder forums run by the Modern Slavery Unit.

Date of implementation: (a) End of November. (b) Completed. (c) End of 2024. (d) Completed

Recommendation 5 – IECA decisions

With respect to IECA decisions:

a) Clarify the process(es) that DMs should follow where they consider that they have insufficient evidence to make a positive decision, including where this is the role of the case preparation team and where it is the responsibility of the DM;

b) Identify and remove the obstacles to DMs accessing potentially relevant information, including (but not limited to) ensuring they receive ‘hands-on’ training in the use of Wilberforce and Atlas, and how to check other systems, such as the Police National Computer (PNC);

c) Carry out periodic analyses of decision ‘trends’ to ensure that the stated priorities for making decisions, including those set by ministers, are not skewing decision quality and outcomes and that each referral is assessed on its own merits;

d) Contact those individuals who received a negative RG decision based on the January 2023 Statutory Guidance and have not sought a reconsideration and offer them this option;

e) In the case of POD decisions:

i. Reconsider whether the process for notifying non-detained individuals that the Home Office is ‘minded to apply’ the POD (including the 10-day limit) takes sufficient account of the seriousness of being disqualified;

ii. Consider whether external stakeholders should be involved in assessing the risk of re-trafficking;

iii. Set out the evidence base for the assumption that there is no immediate risk of re-trafficking for detained individuals.

Partially Accepted

a) Communications have been issued to IECA decision makers to confirm the correct process to follow and further work is underway to clarify any processes relating to insufficient evidence decisions at the Conclusive Grounds stage.  Once finalised, this will be communicated to all staff.  This is expected to be by November 2024.

b) The Home Office has made improvements to the Home Office systems training provided to IECA team members.  Stand-alone Wilberforce training has been delivered to new recruits since June 2024 and decision makers are able to use the Wilberforce training environment as part of this. Both Atlas and PNC awareness sessions are provided to new trainees and also form part of the post training mentoring support.  Further work is ongoing to develop a comprehensive, stand-alone Atlas training package tailored for IECA staff and this is expected to be completed by the end of October 2024.  Access to an Atlas training environment was enabled in August 2024 and training scenarios have now been created allowing trainees to practice navigating and sourcing information.  General Atlas training materials, including videos and guidance, are now stored in IECA’s SharePoint page remaining available for staff to review when required.  PNC walkthrough guidance is currently being developed to provide detailed information to staff and this is also expected to be available by the end of October 2024.

c) The IECA conducts quality assurance on all negative decisions.  The IECA has now introduced quarterly reviews of quality assurance outcomes, including those for priority cohorts.

d) The Home Office rejects this element of the recommendation.  The Home Office modified guidance on making RG decisions in July 2023, following legal challenge to the changes made in January 2023, ensuring such decisions appropriately balance the evidence provided to the competent authorities.  The relevant challenges were managed through the courts at the time.  Reconsiderations can be requested for negative decisions made in the NRM in line with the relevant sections of the Statutory Guidance.

e)

i. The Home Office is in the process of reviewing the ‘minded to apply’ notification issued to individuals eligible for a POD consideration to ensure that the consequences of any decision to disqualify are clearly stipulated.  It is expected that the review will be completed, and any amendments identified are made, by the end of 2024.

ii. The Home Office has considered whether external stakeholders should be involved in conducting risk of re-trafficking assessments and has made a decision not to include them in this process.  Decision makers take into account all information relevant to the risk of re-trafficking assessment, including information from a support provider where available.  The Home Office will continue to keep decision making in the NRM under review and ensure that POD decisions are appropriately taking into account the risk of re-trafficking.

iii. Individuals in secure detained accommodation have been removed from the place of their reported exploitation and are in controlled environments that operate a variety of safeguarding mechanisms to mitigate against the risk of re-trafficking in such environments, although we acknowledge that the risk can never be fully removed.

For individuals detained in immigration removal centres (IRCs), their rights are safeguarded by a multi-layered framework of Statutory Instruments (the Detention Centre Rules 2001, Short-Term Holding Facility Rules 2018 and Short-term Holding Facility (Amendment) Rules 2022), published Operating Standards for IRCs and individuals under escorts and a suite of Detention Services Orders published on gov.uk.

Within IRCs, Detention Engagement Teams act as First Responders to identify any indicators of modern slavery. Being based at the centres, engaging with those in detention and on-site healthcare providers and suppliers, DETs work to identify and manage any vulnerability issues at the earliest opportunity. In addition, for Albanian Nationals, Detention Engagement Teams signpost to support services for victims of modern slavery available in Albania if they return.

For individuals in prison, safety and safeguarding are supported by a range of operational policy frameworks.  In October 2022 His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) issued guidance to prisons in England and Wales in respect of incarcerated individuals who are victim-survivors of modern slavery.  This includes a range of safeguarding measures which apply within the custodial environment, including preparations for release, removal and deportation.

All IPT (Immigration Prison Team) Officers are trained to act as First Responders and have the capability to identify any indicators of modern slavery within the HMP estate. Particularly when embedded in prisons, IPT officers are aware of how to record and escalate vulnerability issues to both the prison and FNORC caseworkers, will engage with HMPPS staff and on-site delivery partners to then manage these at the earliest opportunity and if required, directly refer FNOs to the non-governmental sector for additional information and support. 

Alongside all IPT officers completing the mandatory Modern Slavery first responder training, identified thematic leads ensure any revised guidance is communicated in a timely manner and to enhance the service available within the HMP estate, conversations are also currently taking place around IPT being included in the delivery of the HMPPS Modern Slavery Programme.

Date of implementation: (a) November 2024. (b) end of October 2024 (c) completed (e)(i) end of 2024 (e)(ii) completed (e)(iii) completed

Recommendation 6 – quality assurance

With respect to quality assurance:

a) Ensure that the ratio of tech specs to DMs in the IECA is sufficient to prevent ‘second pair of eyes’ (SPOE) backlogs and slow responses from undermining the effectiveness of such checks, including in preventing DMs from repeating the same mistakes while awaiting feedback;

b) Increase the target for dip sample checks of positive Conclusive Grounds decisions from 10% to 20% until such time that the results show that no more than half of the checked decisions are marked ‘red’;

c) Build into the roll-out of the new quality assurance tool a formal review (after three months) of its effectiveness in identifying patterns from ‘SPOE’ checks;

d) In order to build confidence in the IECA’s decision making, having consulted external stakeholders, design and implement a second line assurance mechanism for IECA decisions that either includes an independent (non-Home Office) element or explains why this is not necessary.

Partially Accepted

a) The current ratio of technical specialists to decision makers in the IECA across Reasonable Grounds and Conclusive Grounds workstreams is 9:1 which the Home Office is satisfied is a reasonable ratio, although at times across the past year, this has been between 10:1 and 12:1.  The recent improvement has been due to cross-training and technical specialist recruitment.  To further improve this, we have upskilled high-performing decision makers to fulfil SPOE checks and prevent backlogs and slow responses.

b) From 1st September the Home Office has increased the target for dip sample checks of positive Conclusive Grounds decisions to 20% and will maintain that target at least until no more than half of the decisions are marked ‘red’.  The introduction of a new quality assurance toolkit is also expected to improve feedback mechanisms and enable better identification of trends in relation to decision quality.

c) The quality assurance toolkit has been piloted and was rolled out as business-as-usual from 1st October 2024.  The Home Office will engage with the Immigration Enforcement Assurance, Integrity, Risk & Resilience team to support undertaking a review of the tool’s effectiveness three months after its implementation.  The evaluation is expected to start in December 2024 and be completed by the end of January 2025.

d) The Home Office partially accepts this element of the recommendation.  The IECA is developing a similar system to the Quality Strategy that is employed by the Single Competent Authority, which is intended to support the vision of delivering quality outcomes for victims of modern slavery by regularly reporting quality assurance outcomes to decision making teams.  The Home Office continues to keep the assurance of decision making in the competent authorities under review, including whether independent assurance would be beneficial to decision making outcomes.

Date of implementation: (a) completed. (b) completed. (c) 31.01.25

Recommendation 7 – Safeguarding

With respect to safeguarding, establish a dedicated, full-time safeguarding team within the IECA with the capacity and expertise to:

a) Respond to all cases where a safeguarding risk (Levels One, Two and Three) has been identified by a DM with advice (including where appropriate “no safeguarding action required”) before a decision is signed off and served;

b) Use the knowledge gained from the recommended review of record-keeping (3.a) to input into the training of DMs and tech specs, so that they are better able to recognise and report safeguarding issues;

c) Identify or produce appropriate training for administrative team members responsible for fielding calls to the ‘duty line’ and oversee its delivery and effectiveness (receiving reports from and debriefing call handlers, having regard to their wellbeing and identifying where further safeguarding action is required).

Accepted

a) The Home Office will review the current safeguarding arrangements in place in the IECA and consider the viability of establishing a dedicated, full-time safeguarding team within the current available resource.  We will also review the current process in relation to required actions for each of the safeguarding risk levels.  It is anticipated that this review will be completed by the end of November 2024.  Currently, decision makers can request advice from a technical specialist with safeguarding expertise before being finalised, regardless of the level of safeguarding risk.  For non-detained individuals who are identified as a level three safeguarding risk and do not have a legal representative instructed, formal advice is requested to ensure appropriate mitigation is in place in relation to service of NRM decisions.

b) Refresher safeguarding workshops have been delivered across all IECA staff, including all decision makers and technical specialists.  This safeguarding training will be continually reviewed and updated based on qualitative and quantitative insights obtained from the performance management mechanisms outlined in 3a.

c) Following feedback received as a result of interviews completed by the ICIBI inspection team, all IECA administrative team members have completed relevant e-learning and a bespoke Workflow training, including a duty phone line operator protocol and call incident pro-forma has been devised and disseminated to support staff.   An incident log has been created to track any incidents occurring via the duty line, enabling them to be analysed to ensure appropriate actions were taken at the time, identify any lessons learnt and determine whether any further actions are required. To assess the effectiveness of the training and support in place the IECA introduced a survey allowing staff to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the training provided and highlight any future training or knowledge gaps.

Date of implementation: (a) end of November 2024 (b) completed (c) completed