The Follow up Report to the Home Office from Stephen Shaw
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Assessment of government progress in implementing the report on the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons A follow-up report to the Home Office by Stephen Shaw July 2018 Cm 9661 Assessment of government progress in implementing the report on the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons A follow-up report to the Home Office by Stephen Shaw Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Command of Her Majesty July 2018 Cm 9661 © Crown copyright 2018 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to dsb&[email protected] ISBN 978-1-5286-0438-3 CCS0518614318 07/18 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum Printed in the UK by the APS Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office iii Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v FOREWORD vii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY xi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 PART 2: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER REPORT 7 PART 3: HEALTHCARE 43 PART 4: CASEWORKING 71 PART 5: SAFER DETENTION 91 PART 6: OVERSIGHT AND STAFF CULTURE 99 PART 7: ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION 115 PART 8: LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS 123 Annexes Annex 1: Exchange of letters in respect of this review’s ambit regarding staff conduct 127 Annex 2: List of meetings and visits undertaken during review 129 Annex 3: List of recommendations from previous report 133 Annex 4: Government initial response to my first report 139 Annex 5: Home Office’s action plan response 141 Annex 6: Written submissions received and NGO seminar 157 Annex 7: Updated impressions of the immigration estate 171 Annex 8: Escorts and charter flights 199 Annex 9: Summary of deaths in immigration detention or shortly after release 2010-17 203 Annex 10: Staff culture in Immigration Removal Centres 207 Annex 11: Alternatives to Immigration Detention: A Literature Review 213 Annex 12: Attendees at staff culture seminar, 24 January 2018 249 iv Assessment of government progress in implementing the report on the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been very fortunate in carrying out this follow-up review to have worked alongside the five colleagues seconded to assist me. Mr Nick Hearn has proved a consummate team leader, and he has been most ably assisted by Ms Mary Halle, Ms Lorraine O’Hagan (Home Office) and Ms Meg Trainor (Cabinet Office). I am also indebted to Mr Anthony Nichols, on secondment from NHS England, who has contributed significantly to the healthcare section of this report as well as more broadly. As with the initial review, I must also express my deep gratitude to Professor Mary Bosworth, Director of the Centre for Criminology at Oxford University, for contributing a specialist sub-review on Alternatives to Detention that I have annexed to this report. In addition, Professor Bosworth co-chaired a seminar on immigration staff culture that formed part of my programme of work, and prepared a discussion paper that I have also annexed. Altogether she has added immeasurably to both the first and second reviews. Ms Clare Checksfield, Director, Detention and Escorting Services, Immigration Enforcement, was the Home Office sponsor of both this and my earlier work, and – while properly respectful of my independence – she and her senior colleagues have been consistently interested and supportive of the review, and the approach I was taking. Indeed, it was made clear by them all that I was entitled to take a broader approach than a strict reading of my terms of reference would have allowed. I am grateful too to all those who have contributed evidence to the review, and am very conscious of the demands that my requests for information have placed upon both the Home Office and its partners and stakeholders. I have also been given free and immediate access to every part of the immigration detention estate, and have spoken with many detainees and those who have left detention. It goes without saying, however, that I take sole responsibility for the findings and judgements in the pages that follow. Stephen Shaw April 2018 vi Assessment of government progress in implementing the report on the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons vii FOREWORD In my first review of the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons (Cm 9186), I consciously began by setting out the historical development of the system of immigration detention. This was in part to provide some context for what I had found and what I went on to recommend. But it was also to help expand political, media and public understanding of institutions and processes that are frankly little known and little understood. I remain of the view that public policy is not assisted when there is so little informed interest and debate. Nonetheless, my approach in this second review has been rather different. My principal task was to reach a view on the extent to which the Home Office had adopted the recommendations of my first report, and – more significantly – what impact this had had in practice. Amongst my colleagues, I referred to this as ‘marking the Home Office’s homework’. However, I was also conscious that – despite its length – my first review had areas that were less well developed than others. I had made many recommendations about healthcare and caseworking, for example, but the evidence base had been limited and non-specialist. Perhaps surprisingly given my former responsibility as Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for investigating every death in detention, the section of the first report on safer detention was rather limited. And I was also aware that what I had said about ‘alternatives to detention’ (a very broad and possibly misleading term) would have benefited from a more detailed examination. Most significantly, given that the start of this review coincided with revelations by the BBC Panorama programme of appalling misconduct by some staff at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre,1 I knew that I needed to say much more about staffing and staff culture, and the impact they have on detainee welfare.2 In consequence, this report is much more than a stocktake of what I previously proposed, what the Home Office has implemented, and what impact any of it has had. There is much new information, and new recommendations as well as a small number that are repeated. I have not directly considered the case for a time limit on detention. This did not form part of my original review, and I wanted to concentrate my time on those areas where I could make the most distinctive contribution. However, this did not prevent many of those who submitted evidence or with whom I spoke from raising the issue with me. 1 Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets, broadcast on September 4 2017. If I may be forgiven the observation, the reference to immigration secrets reinforces what I said in the first review about the benefits that would follow if the Home Office adopted a policy of greater proactive openness in respect of the detention estate. 2 Subsequently, I was expressly asked by the Home Office to confirm that “staff culture, recruitment and training, the sufficiency of the complaints mechanisms; and the effectiveness of whistle-blowing procedures” were matters I would consider as part of my second review. (See paragraph 1.2 below.) viii Assessment of government progress in implementing the report on the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons Support for a time limit has coalesced around a period of 28 days, but I have yet to see a coherent account of how this figure has been arrived at. It is not so long ago that Parliament was presented with a proposal for a 60 day limit,3 and it is clear that there must be exceptions (it would surely be unacceptable for someone who disrupted a flight on the 27th day of their detention to be released the next day). Indeed, the proposals considered in 2016 during the passage of that year’s Immigration Bill specifically excluded those subject to deportation (in other words, the very foreign national offenders (FNOs) who make up the vast majority of those held in detention the longest). The current Government position is to oppose a time limit (whether of 28 days or any other period),4 but Parliament may at some point take a different view.5 My point is that, at present, the case for a time limit has been articulated more as a slogan than as a fully developed policy proposal. Be that as it may, I have obviously been pleased to note a reduction in the average length of detention since 2015. I also welcome the substantial fall in the overall detained population since I conducted my first review. These are significant steps forward. Nevertheless, the number of people held for over six months has actually increased. The time that many people spend in detention remains deeply troubling. Furthermore, over half of those detained are still subsequently released back into the community. And virtually all of the population reduction has been on the male side, while the number of women in detention (who do of course make up a far smaller proportion of the overall detained population) has fallen by a much smaller percentage. Given the levels of vulnerability amongst women detainees, I hope that their numbers can also follow a strong downward path.