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Child asylum-seekers targeted in Home Office budget cuts
Setting out a number of options for cutting costs, a Home Office proposal sent to ministers reads: "We need to resolve underlying trends on asylum support. This will involve, for example, continuing recent tightening of entitlement to support and removing minors before they reach the age of 17." The Home Office is also considering saving money by offering a partial amnesty to asylum-seekers whose claims have been delayed by processing backlogs. The paper recommends "continuing to consider grants of the right to stay in the UK where agency delays mean even failed asylum-seekers are still in-country after several years".
But concern has been raised by a proposed mass removal of unaccompanied children before they reach 17, the age when they are deemed to be adult asylum-seekers. Under current rules unaccompanied child asylum-seekers are usually granted leave to remain in the UK until they can make a fresh asylum application as an adult. There are more than 4,200 unaccompanied child asylum-seekers in Britain, with most being supported in local authority social services homes.
Emma Ginn, of the charity Medical Justice, said: "Many unaccompanied children are orphans. Many have escaped various forms of slavery, war and being made into child soldiers. To deport vulnerable unaccompanied children is despicable. To do it to save money is indecent. How we treat asylum-seeking children is already uncivilised, but to sink this low would cost our international reputation dearly."
It was reported earlier this year that the Home Office was preparing to set up a £4m "reintegration centre" in Afghanistan so that failed Afghan child asylum-seekers can be returned home. An organisation is being sought to run the centre in the capital, Kabul, which would aim to help their resettlement. The aim is to assist 12 boys a month, aged 16 and 17, and 120 adults.
The document says: "In total, these cuts and policies could deliver up to £346m of annual cash savings, which would allow a reduction in taxpayer funding of £53m. It would mean around 3,500 more staff cuts (that is, almost a third of our current complement). This would imply a virtual doubling of caseworker productivity as a result of management culture and technology enabled redesign." But the officials warn: "These changes obviously involve significant level of management, project and implementation risk. If bigger budget reductions are needed or to be able to deal with some of the funding and cost pressures from manifesto commitments we will need to go further."
Paul O'Connor, secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), said that cutting staff would lead to security risks from international criminal smuggling gangs and child and sex traffickers. He said: "There should be no compulsory redundancies. If they decide to cut one in three this country will be less safe and lead to a massive exploitation of young people."
He warned that job losses would also have an effect on the backlog of asylum cases. "We expect services to be diminished because there will be fewer people to deal with the backlog, which will get worse. All this experience and skill built up over the years must not be jettisoned on the altar of the cuts."
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