Update 20 March 2025: Inspection report published: An inspection of the Home Office’s management of fee waiver applications (August 2024 – November 2024)

This inspection examined the Home Office’s management of fee waiver applications for certain types of immigration and citizenship applications.

The ability to apply for a fee waiver is an important safeguard for those people who are seeking to make a human rights-based application to enter or remain in the UK, and for children seeking to register as a British Citizen, but who are unable to afford the fees. I was already aware of concerns about the scale of the Home Office fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), and stakeholders drew my attention to additional costs, such as solicitors’ fees and biometric enrolment, which have meant that many applicants have incurred large debts and that their lives, including their health and wellbeing, have been adversely impacted.   

This inspection was conducted against that backdrop. It focused on the resourcing of the three Home Office teams responsible for handling fee waiver applications; on training, workflow, and the prioritisation of fee waiver casework; and on the quality, timeliness and consistency of decision making, including the quality assurance of decisions. 

The ICIBI last looked at fee waivers in 2019, since when the ‘test’ the Home Office applies to a fee waiver application has changed from whether the applicant is or would become destitute to whether they can afford to pay the required amounts. This inspection therefore looked at the guidance available to caseworkers when determining ‘affordability’ to see if was clear and also examined whether ‘affordability’ was being assessed consistently.

Inspectors found problems with both the guidance and practice, and my report, which was sent to the Home Secretary on 21 January 2025, contains eight recommendations covering: better workforce planning; regular sharing of information and best practice; more robust quality assurance; more clearly defined management responsibilities and expectations; a review of data retention practices; ensuring significant changes to fee waiver policies and practice are compliant with the Home Office’s Public Sector Equality Duty; the introduction of Service Level Agreements for the processing of fee waiver applications; and development of an engagement strategy for external stakeholders. 

6 March 2025: Rethinking Security: Bridge to Nowhere: UK security strategy in the ruins of Atlantis

As Western security alliances fragment, Richard Reeve charts the implications for the UK’s most fundamental strategic assumptions, and makes the case for ‘thinking beyond the unthinkable’ in the government’s next National Security Strategy.

While Ukraine has acutely felt its vulnerability since 2014, only in the last month has the precarity of Europe’s position become startlingly clear. Having already laid claim to Canada, Greenland and Gaza, this past month Trump and Vance have attacked and undermined European democracies, dubbed Volodymyr Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’, and grasped at his country’s mineral wealth while unilaterally seeking to end the Russia-Ukraine war on Moscow’s terms. With Trump burying America’s closest alliances beneath his clear contempt for multilateralism, international law, and liberalism in all its forms, by 23 February Germany’s incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz was pledging “to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.

QARN in good company …

4 March 2025: The Tablet: Charities and faith leaders urge reversal of refugee citizenship ban

Organised by the Refugee Council, the letter to the Home Secretary, Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, received 149 signatories from across the refugee, migrant and children’s sectors, including Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network and Islamic Relief UK.

Nearly 150 charities and faith leaders have challenged new government rules which effectively ban tens of thousands of refugees from ever becoming British citizens. This change affects applications for British citizenship submitted on or after 10 February this year by people who arrived in the UK by irregular routes.

It means that anyone who has entered the UK via a small boat, or by means such as hiding in a vehicle, will normally be refused citizenship, regardless of the time that has passed.

The letter of 16 February highlighted that “over generations, refugees who had to risk their lives because there wasn’t a safe way to reach the UK have become proud British citizens in many professions including as doctors, entrepreneurs and also politicians representing their communities”.

25 February 2025: EIN: Child Safeguarding Failures at Border Force Short-Term Holding Sites

HMI Prisons conducted an inspection of the UK’s five short-term holding facilities (STHFs) at the France-UK border during a visit in November 2024. The STHFs are located in Calais, Coquelles, and Dunkirk, and are managed on behalf of the Home Office by Care and Custody, a division of the Mitie Group. They are used by Border Force to detain travellers in French territory pending a decision to admit, grant leave to enter or refuse entry to the UK.

The inspection revealed a mixed picture of ongoing challenges and failures amid some improvements.

Inspectors identified nine key concerns, five of which were deemed priorities requiring immediate attention by leaders and managers. These included the failure to make necessary safeguarding referrals, the lack of systematic data collation to improve outcomes, weak governance of the use of force by Border Force staff, poor physical conditions at the Coquelles facilities, and longstanding problems with phone and radio signals that undermined communication and use of professional interpretation.

Read more: EIN, https://shorturl.at/VGC0N