The asylum and protection transformation programme

The Home Office should: put in place a performance measurement system for the Programme that gives a comprehensive overview of performance across all of its objectives. In particular, in its programme reporting, it should include measures of the flexibility and sustainability of the system, staff morale and retention, public and partner trust and the experience for people seeking asylum. This would allow those with responsibility for the Programme to make informed decisions around trade-offs

The Home Office should build on its work to understand the wider impacts of changes to the asylum system by using this dynamically to inform decision-making within the Programme and more widely. It should: routinely collect the necessary data to understand the flow of demand through the wider asylum system, including local authorities, Immigration Enforcement and HMCTS, and the impact of changes on people seeking asylum;

regularly update its analysis about the projected impact of the Programme and other policy changes on the wider asylum system and on the individuals moving through it;

clarify how the governance and oversight of the asylum system will operate within the Home Office. Given the extent and speed of change in asylum policy and operations, and the challenges it faces securing accommodation, the Home Office needs to embed a structure that will allow it to coordinate multiple strands of activity and secure buy-in from all organisations involved. It should be clear about the implications of the move to a place-based approach, the reorganisation of its accommodation work, and recent changes in senior leadership responsibilities to provide certainty about accountability and reporting lines so that it can identify and manage any trade-offs

use this understanding to inform its decisions and share the analysis with other organisations affected by operational changes within the Home Office to support better planning in the wider asylum system;