Asylum: Children

(asked on 7th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what urgent steps she is taking to tackle the backlog in processing asylum claims from children.


Answered by
Kevin Foster Portrait
Kevin Foster
This question was answered on 15th February 2022

The Home Office is unable to state what the average number of days taken to process claims unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK and how many days it took to reach a decision on claims by children seeking asylum in 2021, 2020 and 2019 as this information is not held in a reportable format and therefore cannot be published.

The Home Office have established two dedicated case working Hubs for deciding children’s asylum claims which are now fully operational. The hubs have established improved focus on and greater control of children’s cases to build expertise, identify efficiencies and provide a consistency of decision making (and quicker outcomes) for our customers.

We continue to work collaboratively with Local Authorities nationally on the remote interview process for Accompanied and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and young people utilising digital interviewing video capabilities to complement in person interviews.

Since May 2021 we have increased Local Authority opt in for digital interviewing to 108 Local Authorities. This has helped to speed up processes, reduce delays, and by doing so the numbers of children and young people who have an outstanding claim.

We are continuing to recruit additional decision-makers who will be trained to process children’s asylum claims.

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