An inspection of illegal working enforcement (August – October 2023)

Home Office accepted: Immigration Enforcement already has processes in place to consider the impacts on communities.  However, we will review this guidance to ensure it continues to meet its purpose. Mandatory checks are already included in immigration officer training. This is in addition to the immigration enforcement assurance checks that are carried out across all teams and the reintroduction of first line assurance will strengthen this process (see recommendation 4a).  We will continue to raise awareness within Immigration Enforcement via feedback from assurance reviews (see recommendation 4c). The opening line in Safe Systems of Work (SSOW) guidance for considerations of reconnaissance states that ‘Reconnaissance must be conducted for all operational arrest visits, either by walk by, drive past or virtual recce’.  The SSOW details how to carry out walk by and drive past.  However, it does not go into detail on how to carry out virtual reconnaissance and cautions against officers using digital media to conduct reconnaissance, due to its limitations, including that the information may not be accurate. We will carry out a review of this guidance to ensure it is sufficiently rigorous. We will aim to complete these actions  by April 2024.

Home Office accepted: Immigration Enforcement will review guidance using feedback from officers and assurance activity to implement change where appropriate. Returns, Enforcement and Detention Policy will work with change and transformation colleagues to explore whether “succinct guidance” can be provided for use on a mobile platform that can be accessible to officers in the field. We will aim to complete these actions by the end of 2024.

Home Office accepted: Immigration Enforcement already assure the recording of coercive powers and feedback is provided to teams via assurance reports and assurance forums. We will build on existing assurance in this area to ensure that officers are recording the use of coercive powers accurately.  The reintroduction of first line assurance will further assist with this (see recommendation 4a) and we will review the feedback mechanisms of Level 2 assurance to drive improvement (see recommendation 4c). We will aim to complete this by April 2024.

Home Office accepted: A new assurance toolkit has recently been introduced by the Assurance and Risk Team. This will enable all Immigration Enforcement business areas to conduct and record first line assurance.  Assurance frameworks for Immigration Enforcement are being developed and will be introduced as soon as possible. Second line assurance currently covers all areas of Immigration Compliance and Enforcement including the elements of the planning process.  We will build on this to capture all elements of the planning process. We will engage with Immigration Compliance and Enforcement to review feedback mechanisms for second line assurance to maximise improvement. This recommendation will be completed by July 2024.

Home Office accepted: Immigration Enforcement will review debriefing of illegal working enforcement visits to identify opportunities to develop and implement standard procedures for debriefing including recording debriefs on Pronto where appropriate. We will aim to complete this recommendation by the end of 2024.