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A £1million Home Office scheme to help failed asylum seekers leave Britain resulted in only one family returning home, it emerged today.
The year-long pilot scheme was labelled "a waste of money" and a "scandal" as it was also revealed just 13 families instead of the intended total of 260 joined it.
The project, which cost £1million, was set up to reduce the number of children of failed asylum seeker families held in detention by speeding returns.
It relied on a "softly softly" approach of sending the families to an open residential unit instead of a detention centre, while a local charity helped to organise their return home.
In its report on the scheme the Children's Society said today that a chance to improve the treatment of asylum seekers had been missed. Lisa Nandy, the report's author, added: "It was mismanaged from start to finish. The money would have been well spent, it's just a real scandal that the opportunity was missed. There was a substantial amount of confusion about what it intended to achieve."
The report blamed the failure on confusion among UK Border Agency staff and officials and an excessively short time scale for families to move to the residential unit.
In the UK about 2,000 migrant children a year are held in detention with their parents as their claims are processed, a practice criticised by charities and the Government's Chief Inspector of Prisons.
The pilot scheme, run in Kent by the Migrant Helpline charity, began in November 2007. The first family did not arrive at the open residential unit until the following January. Only 13 attended before the pilot was halted a month early due to low take-up. Today's report says families were deterred by the fact they were given just seven days to move from their existing homes to the centre, and remove their children from school.
The report also said the criteria used to select families were unclear and meant "unsuitable" candidates had been referred by UK Border Agency staff.
Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said it had been "a waste of money" because the intervention came too late. He said: "If you have been in a queue for five, six, even 10 years you become settled and don't want to leave. The way to tackle this is to deal with the huge backlog."
Roy Millard, deputy chief executive of Migrant Helpline, said valuable lessons had been learned. The UK Border Agency said a new project had started in Glasgow and was "building on what we learnt from our experiences in Kent".
Reader views (9)
Andy, South East: The bill you speak of has been passed. The same MPs that were shouting from the rooftops about how the would be completely transparent over their expenses have voted to continue redacting (censoring) their expense claims of anything useful prior to publication. This applies especially to addresses, so we will not be able to tell if the pactice of "flipping" is continuing.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
I'll leave for about half that. Where do I apply?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
I'd like to apply for £1 million to help me and my family seek refuge in another country. Who do I need to contact?
- Sue R, London
I do hope all the civil servants that manned this office remembered to switch off the lights before they went home for the weekend on thursday lunch-times. Must save energy you know!
- Phil, Fareham England
This is nothing unusual, Liebour have a well proven track record of wasting our money.
- Satnam Singh, Kettering
What a waste! just think how many "Duck Island's" you could have bought and Moats you could have cleared not forgetting Mortgage Interest Scams! you could have pulled off.
Seriously though so many area's of waste Softly Softly approach to asylum seeker families indeed!!!
Keep reporting and commenting on waste and Expenses, keep it alive. Do you know of the bill to keep expenses details secret passing through the Commons at the moment?
- Andy , South East, UK
The only help that failed asylum seekers and other illegal immigrants should get is a Police escort to the nearest airport.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
a total joke, like this country. I've got a good idea for failed asylum seekers. take them down to the white cliffs of dover and launch them into the English Channel.
what do u think about that 'Liberty'......
- Jonny, London
On a positive note I presume most of this money was spent on wages and other outgoings rather than hi tech equipment made in China. Certainly more efficient in creating employment than a defence contract for helicopters that never fly and other wastes of money.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, Surrey
