Committee publication · Report · 5 June 2026 · HC 89
First Report - An analysis of the asylum system
From: Public Accounts Committee
Inquiry: An analysis of the asylum system
Government response deadline: 5 August 2026
Summary
The Public Accounts Committee's first report of 2025–26 analyses the end-to-end asylum system, which cost £4.9 billion in 2024–25 amid rising demand (100,600 claims in year ending December 2025). The committee finds fragmented governance, poor data, reactive planning, and weak accommodation strategy persist despite repeated reform attempts. It calls for clearer end-to-end accountability, system-wide data frameworks, coordinated capacity planning, and stronger commercial oversight to improve value for money and reduce backlogs.
Key findings
- Government departments lack clear end-to-end accountability, shared objectives, or agreed governance for managing asylum as a whole system; improvements in one area (e.g. faster initial decisions) create backlogs elsewhere (e.g. 60-week appeals delays).
- No single reliable view of cases exists across the asylum system; data is fragmented across multiple systems and spreadsheets, preventing effective performance monitoring and Parliament's ability to assess progress.
- 41% of a sample of 5,000 people who claimed asylum in January 2023 were in "limbo"—claims withdrawn, suspended, or unresolved—with around 36,300 asylum seekers still in hotels as of September 2025 despite commitments to exit by 2029.
- Home Office cannot credibly track failed asylum seekers; it knows "where some of them are" but lacks complete certainty on who has left the UK and admits some absconders are not located or counted.
- Home Office lacks commercial capability to manage contracts effectively; "clawed back £46 million of excess profit" from providers indicates weak original contract design; cost-plus contracts permit excessive profits with reluctance to apply excess profit clauses.
Recommendations
- Agree an end-to-end accountability framework by end of 2026, specifying the authority and decision-making powers of the new asylum group, how the asylum system board will resolve cross-system trade-offs, and mechanisms for coordinating activity and resources.
- Establish a system-wide data improvement plan with clear timetable and milestones for delivering a shared data framework with Ministry of Justice, MHCLG, and local authorities, including technical and behavioural changes needed.
- Develop and share understanding of current capacity gaps across the system, their underlying causes, and a plan to address them, using a single shared evidence base to enable joint planning and decision-making.
- Set out a credible long-term accommodation strategy explaining the intended mix of accommodation under different demand scenarios, latest hotel reduction trajectory, and collaboration with local authorities on incentives and support needed.
- Share full findings of external review of commercial capabilities and explain improvement plan with clear actions to strengthen commercial governance and contract oversight, including approach to future large-site acquisitions.
- Undertake full review of hotel accommodation contracts to assess whether profit levels are reasonable and apply contractual levers—break clauses and excess profit clauses, retrospectively or prospectively—to address excessive profits.
- Write to Committee with best estimate of failed asylum seekers in the country, timescale for deportations, tracing and deportation steps, biometric improvements, deportation process acceleration, and coordination with other departments and local police to tackle illegal working.
Tone
CriticalTopics
asylum-immigrationpublic-financegovernance-accountabilitydata-managementcommercial-contracts
Key actors
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury, Comptroller and Auditor General, Local authorities
Notable line
“It is indefensible that senior officials still cannot articulate what the system is collectively trying to achieve, or how success would be judged.”
Key Quotes
“Efforts to improve one part of the asylum system often create pressure in another. For example, in 2023 the Home Office made nearly 76,000 initial asylum decisions – over four times as many as in”
“The Home Office told us, in relation to asylum seekers who have been processed through the system and had their application rejected and appeals rights exhausted, it knows "where some of them are" …”
“This is a shocking and unacceptable state of affairs.”
“Rather than showing effective oversight, it highlights weaknesses in the original contract design and raises questions about whether the Home Office has the skills to manage these or future contracts in a way that prevents excessive profits accruing in the first place.”
“Without clear accountability and shared, long-term goals, the government risks continuing to waste resources, repeat operational mistakes and pursue reforms without a common direction.”
“… it had "learned a lot of lessons" from its work to clear the initial backlog of legacy claims in”
“… there were "around 70,000" people waiting for an appeal decision, compared with 27,000 in April 2024, and that appeals were currently taking "near 60 weeks" to be heard.”
“If it is not fit for asylum seekers, why is it fit for our homeless population?”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗