Home Office ‘runs risk of another Windrush’ if it doesn’t transform culture, independent reviewer says

The Home Office runs the risk of another Windrush scandal if it doesn’t implement further “systemic and cultural” changes, an inspection report has found.

Independent expert Wendy Williams said that the department was at a “tipping point”, between making the changes necessary and losing focus.

Commenting on her findings, Ms Williams added: “It may only be a matter of time before it faces another difficult outcome.”

Pressed on whether the Home Office could see a repeat of the Windrush scandal, she said: “The department runs the risk of another incident whatever that entails and I think my report speaks for itself.”

In the report, Ms Williams concluded that she was “disappointed by the lack of tangible progress or drive to achieve the cultural changes required”.

Responding to the findings, home secretary Priti Patel said that she had “laid the foundations for radical change in the department and a total transformation of culture”.

Ms Williams was appointed in 2018 to investigate the causes of the Windrush scandal, which saw people with a right to live in the UK wrongfully detained or deported to the Caribbean.

Her initial review into the failings found that the Home Office had demonstrated “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” towards the issue of race.

She was invited back by the home secretary to see how the recommendations from her initial review had been implemented.

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In the updated report, released on Thursday, Ms Williams praised the department for positive steps made in some areas, saying that there was a “real desire” for change within the Home Office.

She also acknowledged that “in an organisation as large as the Home Office, the scale of change envisaged in my report takes time”.

However she warned that “in my view, the department’s assessment of its progress has been overstated”.

Ms Williams also raised the Home Office’s failure to engage with the public as a concern.

She urged senior leaders in the Home Office to set up meetings with the people affected by the Windrush scandal “without delay”.

Ms Williams told reporters: “I spoke to people affected and to my mind they were still of the view that they couldn’t draw a line under what had happened.

“The majority of them said they were sceptical, saying: ‘we don’t think the department’s changed.”

Her 2020 report into the scandal made 30 recommendations for improvements to the Home Office, but Ms Williams said that only eight have been fully implemented.

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21 of the recommendations have been met or partially met however and she told reporters that she did see “commitment at the most senior levels” for further change.

She added: “I did also see a great deal of commitment on the front line.”

One key change put forward was to build a “more compassionate Home Office”, but over half of the people Ms Williams surveyed said that they thought there had been “no progress at all” or “not much progress” towards this goal.

She concluded: “I have seen limited evidence that a compassionate approach is being embedded consistently across the department.”

Ms Williams also raised concerns about the long delays and high standard of proof in the Windrush compensation scheme, writing: “There is sometimes still an almost impossible evidential burden being imposed.”

She added: “I was told in some cases, the department had asked people to provide information which would be impossible to obtain. Examples given were receipts from the 1980s, evidence of spending some nights at the Salvation Army in the 1990s during a period of homelessness, and evidence of unsuccessful job applications many years ago.”

The Windrush Compensation Scheme has now offered or paid out over £45m, with £37.7m paid across 993 claims. As of January 2022, a total of 3,490 claims had been received since the scheme’s inception, with a decision yet to be reached on 1,835 claims.

386 claims were over 12 months old, with 179 of those being over 18 months old.

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Ms Williams and her team also looked at a number of immigration case files and found that there were still examples of lengthy delays in cases, errors in case work, and failing to give applicants a named contact.

Ms Williams also said that more work needed to be done to increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff at a senior level.

She warned that the Home Office needed to be “open to external scrutiny” and is pushing for a migrants’ commissioner to be appointed.

Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said that the report suggested the Home Office “has failed to listen, learn or change enough, and the department now ‘runs the risk’ of ushering in another Windrush-like scandal”.

The home secretary said that she was “pleased with what we’ve achieved in the last two years”. She said: “We have already made significant progress and Wendy [Williams] highlights many achievements, including the work we have put into becoming a more compassionate and open organisation.

“Having said that, there is more to do and I will not falter in my commitment to everyone who was affected by the Windrush scandal.”

The Home Office’s permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft said that the department had used Ms Williams “original report to drive transformation of the Home Office”.