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The Home Office has no central record of the fate of more than a third of people who made asylum claims three years ago, including whether they have absconded from the system, the official spending watchdog has found.
The study by the National Audit Office, published on Wednesday, attempted to quantify the causes of delay and inefficiency in the UK’s asylum system.
The report studied a sample of 5,000 people who lodged asylum claims in January 2023. It said the Home Office’s systems did such a poor job of tracking the people left in limbo — who accounted for 36 per cent of the sample — that it was impossible to say what was happening to them.
“The Home Office does not hold data on how many people linked to refused claims are living in the community and required to report regularly, nor on how many have absconded from the immigration system,” the report said. “It also does not know how many of these individuals continue to receive accommodation or other support.”
The study found that by November 2025, as well as the 36 per cent of people in limbo, another 16 per cent of the people were still waiting for the outcomes of appeals against the rejection of their asylum claims.
A further 4 per cent were in the process of making new submissions to the Home Office about why they should be granted refugee status.
The report said there were only “weak incentives” for officials in each part of the asylum system to ensure other parts of the system worked efficiently.
It said that issue contributed to the high cost of the system, which the watchdog calculated at £4.9bn annually. Of that, £3.41bn is spent either on financial support for asylum seekers or on accommodation such as hotels.
The UK’s asylum system is currently under strain from a record number of requests for protection, many from people reaching the UK clandestinely on small boats.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood last month attempted to address the problem by announcing sharp reductions in the rights of people seeking asylum, a step that she said would reduce the “pull factors” encouraging would-be refugees to come to the UK.
Of the 5,000 sample, 35 per cent had been granted refugee status or some other form of protection, either because of an initial decision by civil servants or as a result of an appeal to the immigration tribunal, according to the report.
Another 9 per cent of the 5,000 people had been removed from the country having had their asylum claims rejected.
The report recommended that the government move away from “short-term, reactive fixes” and instead adopt a “sustainable, whole-system approach”.
Ruth Kelly, the NAO’s chief analyst, said the large numbers of people left in limbo illustrated the problems facing the system as it currently operated.
“What you see there is a system that’s not working effectively,” Kelly said. “The decisions that are being taken are not being actioned.”
The Home Office said that it was “making progress” on the issues identified in the report.
It said: “Our new reforms will restore order and control, remove the incentives which draw people to come to the UK illegally and increase removals of those with no right to be here.”
Publication of the NAO report comes as justice secretary David Lammy and attorney-general Richard Hermer prepare on Wednesday to meet EU justice ministers on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Europe.
They will seek both in the meeting with EU justice ministers and at the meeting of the Council of Europe — made up of the 46 signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights — to persuade other states to follow the UK’s lead in “rebalancing” the interpretation of two articles of the convention.
The UK has blamed excessively broad interpretation of the articles — guaranteeing the right to a family life and to protection from inhuman and degrading treatment — for preventing some deportations of failed asylum seekers and people convicted of criminal offences in the UK.
