IRC
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Gatwick IRC
IMB Annual Report 2021 · Published 23 June 2022
The 2021 report covers the first year of the combined Gatwick IRC (Brook House and Tinsley House) under merged IMB oversight and Serco management, with the year dominated by Covid-19 restrictions, unprecedented Channel crossing arrivals through Tinsley House, and ongoing Home Office case management failures leading to prolonged and often unnecessary detention. While Serco staff generally treated detained men with respect and compassion, systemic failings in mental health support, access to legal advice, property management, and Home Office communication remained serious and in many cases repeated concerns.
Positive Findings
Serco introduced an improved standardised reception and induction process from April, including a house rules booklet in 22 languages with earlier Welfare team involvement. A new Vulnerable Residents meeting improved focus on individual vulnerability needs. Officers generally treated detained men with respect and dignity. Healthcare transitioned successfully to Practice Plus Group from September, with expanded services including podiatry and physiotherapy. Catering received largely positive feedback (66% positive). No deaths occurred at either centre in 2021. Self-harm and ACDT figures fell substantially from the exceptionally high 2020 levels.
Key Concerns
Other
Repeated
No time limit on immigration detention; one man detained in Brook House for 343 days; 34% of population detained for over 10 weeks at year-end.
Mental Health
Repeated
Home Office Detention Gatekeeper not adequately preventing detention of men with serious mental health needs; two men sectioned under the Mental Health Act during 2021.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Frequent involuntary wing moves in Brook House due to Covid cohorting, contributing to increasing tension and complaints of being treated 'like cattle'.
Other
Poor mobile phone reception in Brook House confirmed by expert report, severely undermining access to legal advice.
Other
Repeated
53% of men leaving Brook House in 2021 were released rather than removed, raising questions about the lawfulness of their initial detention.
Complaints/Property
Repeated
Complaints process not operating fairly: 13% success rate, 20% withdrawal rate, 20-working-day response time, and frontline officers as investigators.
Other
Systemic loss of detained men's property between Dover and Tinsley House; no effective tracing system and generic, boilerplate responses to enquiries.
Safety
Repeated
51 age disputes between May and December 2021; Home Office systems not adequate to prevent children from being detained.
Other
Repeated
Bail accommodation delays leaving men in detention beyond bail grant; 8% of Brook House population awaiting accommodation in mid-December.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
41% of Tinsley House departures between 9pm and 7am; groups of 43 and 37 men released at 23:58 and 00:30 on separate nights.
Safety
Repeated
AAR, ACDT and Rule 35 policies unreformed despite recommendations in 2019 and 2020 reports; new AAR paperwork on hold with no timeline for change.
Mental Health
Repeated
Mental health support insufficient; psychology services unavailable for most of 2021; use of force to prevent self-harm rose to 28% of all UoF incidents.
Healthcare
Repeated
Planned dental suite at Brook House still not operational by 31 December 2021 despite longstanding recommendation.
Education/Purposeful Activity
Repeated
Insufficient vocational training at Brook House; virtual college limited to eight short courses with low uptake.
Segregation
Use of Rule 40 as a blanket measure to facilitate removal on charter flights questioned as to legality, including for 8 men on Jamaica charter in November.
Segregation
De facto separation via informal 'Rule 15' — men held in CSU beyond Rule 40 expiry due to Covid-related placement difficulties — no legal basis identified.
Board Commentary
Staffing
Healthcare staffing recruitment continued to be a challenge throughout 2021, with 12.8 vacancies out of 40 posts reported in February 2022, covered by agency and bank staff. The Welfare team fell short of its planned complement of 18, achieving only a small increase of two staff. HMPPS cancellation of ACDT assessor courses in Q1 reduced training access, though the number of trained ACDT assessors at Gatwick increased from 8 to 18 by January 2022. Serco staff generally behaved professionally, though the Board noted occasional dismissive or judgemental conduct by individual officers that required monitoring.
Healthcare
Healthcare services transferred from G4S Health Services (January–August) to Practice Plus Group from 1 September, with mental health sub-contractor Elysium Healthcare replaced in November. Physical healthcare was broadly comparable to or slightly better than community standards. Psychology services were unavailable for most of the year; two men were placed under section 48 of the Mental Health Act, one experiencing an unacceptable three-and-a-half-week delay before transfer to appropriate accommodation. The planned dental suite at Brook House remained unimplemented by 31 December. No formal healthcare complaints were upheld.
Regime & Daily Life
Covid cohorting reduced Brook House association time to approximately 90 minutes per wing per day, down from nearly nine hours pre-pandemic. Frequent involuntary wing moves contributed to increasing tension in the later months of the year. Tinsley House operated primarily as a RSTHF with men staying three to five days on average; its facilities were significantly strained by unprecedented throughput, with inadequate cleaning capacity and emergency floor-level accommodation used 12–30 November. Education and vocational activities were significantly curtailed; virtual college uptake was low (26 men, 79 enrolments, over half uncompleted).
Applications to the IMB
Prisoners can apply to their IMB about any aspect of their treatment. This table shows application counts by category.
| Category | Current | Previous | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation (incl. laundry, showers) | 1 | 1 | — |
| Conduct of staff and detained men (incl. bullying) | 6 | 1 | |
| Covid measures | 19 | 0 | |
| Equality | 0 | 0 | |
| Escorts | 1 | 1 | — |
| Finance | 0 | 2 | |
| Food and kitchens | 11 | 1 | |
| Health (physical, mental, social care) | 21 | 17 | |
| Immigration case (incl. access to legal advice) | 46 | 20 | |
| Letters, faxes, visits, phones, internet access | 1 | 1 | — |
| Other | 0 | 1 | |
| Property during transfer or in another establishment | 5 | 3 | |
| Property within centre | 3 | 0 | |
| Purposeful activity (education, paid work, training, library) | 4 | 0 | |
| Use of force, removal from association | 1 | 1 | — |
Recommendations (17)
Home Office: 10
Governor / Director: 5
NHS / Healthcare Provider: 2
8 repeated
Recommendation 1
Repeated
Introduce a time limit for immigration detention (repeated from 2018, 2019 and 2020).
Home Office
Detention time limit
Recommendation 2
Repeated
There should be some supplementary basic information provided by the Home Office on the steps in the asylum claim process that arrivals will go through while held in the RSTHF. The Home Office should follow the suggestion in paragraph 8 of Detention Services Order 06/2013 to repeat the important basic information through use of a format such as posters and leaflets (section 4.1).
Home Office
Information for RSTHF arrivals
Recommendation 3
Home Office and Serco should consider how the perceptions of the detained men about their safety can be collected consistently through the year and used as a meaningful tool for improving the centres' management (section 4.3).
Home Office
Safety perception data collection
Recommendation 4
Repeated
As we have recommended for the past two years, there should be a full review of Adults at Risk (AAR), ACDT and Rule 35 policy and procedure (section 4.4).
Home Office
AAR, ACDT and Rule 35 review
Recommendation 5
The role of the Detention Gatekeeper should be reviewed, in particular its effectiveness in preventing men with significant mental health issues or vulnerabilities from being detained (section 4.4), and psychological support provided on-site in the Gatwick centres should be increased (section 6.3).
Home Office
Detention Gatekeeper review and psychological support
Recommendation 6
Repeated
Operation of the process for complaints against Serco should be reviewed, including factors behind withdrawal rates, and this should consider changes such as introducing specialist teams to handle complaints, shortening the time for responses, and whether contractual penalties for substantiated complaints can be modified (section 5.7).
Home Office
Complaints process review
Recommendation 7
Suitable systems and organisation should be put in place to avoid detained men's property being lost at Dover or en route to Gatwick, and to find it rapidly if it is lost or misplaced (section 5.8).
Home Office
Property management
Recommendation 8
Repeated
Proactive engagement processes should be instituted and communication should be improved so that detained men are kept adequately informed of the progress of their immigration and asylum cases and bail applications (section 7.2).
Home Office
Case communication
Recommendation 9
Suitable technical equipment should be installed in Brook House to provide adequate mobile phone access for the detained men to ensure that they have meaningful access to advice from their solicitors and contact with their families (sections 7.2.4, 7.3).
Home Office
Mobile phone access
Recommendation 10
Home Office should work with the Legal Aid Agency law firms and Serco to ensure a return to fixed time and on-site in-person appointments for detained men (section 7.2.4).
Home Office
Legal advice access
Recommendation 11
Training should be strengthened for frontline staff, especially in Tinsley House, to help ensure that potentially under-age individuals are identified and feel able to challenge the age imputed to them (section 4.4.3).
Governor / Director
Age dispute identification
Recommendation 12
While we recognise that controls are needed to manage Covid risks, the Board considers that more could be done to ensure uptake of educational opportunities at Brook House (section 7.1).
Governor / Director
Education uptake
Recommendation 13
The Board believes that some activities, such as English language classes, should be offered to men detained in Tinsley House even when it is a RSTHF (section 7.1).
Governor / Director
Activities in RSTHF
Recommendation 14
Repeated
There are insufficient opportunities for detained men to acquire vocational skills which might assist them on return or release. The vocational training programmes available at Brook House should be reviewed and expanded. In particular, while the Board welcomes the introduction of online Virtual College courses, their range and relevance to the centre's population should be improved (section 7.1).
Governor / Director
Vocational training
Recommendation 15
Serco should work with the Legal Aid Agency law firms and the Home Office to ensure a return to fixed time and on-site in-person appointments for detained men (section 7.2.4).
Governor / Director
Legal advice appointments
Recommendation 16
Repeated
Systems and training should be improved, or additional resource provided if necessary, to ensure adequate and effective monitoring of men whose physical or mental condition may be deteriorating (sections 6.1, 6.3).
NHS / Healthcare Provider
Monitoring of deteriorating health
Recommendation 17
Repeated
The planned dental suite should be implemented and on-site dental services begun (section 6.2).
NHS / Healthcare Provider
Dental suite