Tag: Home Office

The press release issued by the Home Office on 20 October 2022.

• The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse publish their final report
• Home Secretary pays tribute to victims and pledges to learn from mistakes of the past
• He commits to act quicker to put an end to devastating crime

The Home Secretary has today (20 October) responded to the publication of the final report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

The inquiry was established by the government seven years ago to investigate failings of state and non-state organisations over several decades, across England and Wales, to protect and safeguard children from sexual abuse and make recommendations for reform. The report published today makes recommendations for the government and marks the end of the inquiry.

Victims and survivors of child sexual abuse have bravely shared their experiences with the inquiry and shed light on the number of failures by institutions which should have protected them. This afternoon, the Home Secretary extended his personal thanks to everyone who contributed to the inquiry and pledged to make sure that these failings are never repeated.

The Home Secretary, Grant Shapps said:

I am incredibly grateful to the thousands of victims and survivors who have bravely come forward to share their experiences with the inquiry, their bravery will not be forgotten.

I will keep their voices front and centre in everything I do and I will ensure that the findings of the inquiry, and their invaluable testimonies, are acted upon.

To date, we have already taken action to tackle this abhorrent crime and learn from the lessons of the past, but I know there is much more to do. This is the start of a new chapter in our efforts to put an end to this terrible crime.

I want to give assurances – where we can act quicker, we will. I will use all available levers to protect our children, to improve the law enforcement and criminal justice response, provide the support victims and survivors deserve and ensure all institutions and leaders are properly held to account.

Over the last seven years, the government has responded in real time to recommendations from the inquiry to ensure that across government work continues to be driven forward to tackle all forms of child sexual abuse and ensure victims are better supported.

Last January, the government published the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy, setting the strategic direction for addressing this terrible crime across the whole system, and putting lessons learnt from the inquiry into practice. This has helped to drive initiatives to increase reporting, target offenders, drive up convictions and provide better support for victims.

The work to tackle child sexual abuse doesn’t end with the conclusion of the inquiry. The government is committed to ensuring that the valuable work of the inquiry is translated into action to end this terrible crime.

The government will respond in full to the inquiry’s report within six months, when proper consideration has been given to all of the recommendations, but today the Home Secretary announced a further £4.5 million for organisations supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse at a national level.

This money will go to seven organisations who provide vital support for children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse, adult survivors, and parents or carers of victims. This includes telephone and online counselling and support services; support groups; specialist support to LGBT+ victims; and survivor-led interventions.

In addition, the Home Secretary will champion children’s safety at the highest levels and convene ministers from across government to drive action against the inquiry’s recommendations.

Lord Chancellor & Secretary of State for Justice, Brandon Lewis said:

This inquiry has laid bare the horrors that many children suffered as a result of historical institutional failings that must never be repeated.

That is why we will continue to transform the justice system’s response to these heinous crimes – locking up child abusers for longer to protect the public, making sure predators cannot use sports or religious roles to harm young people, and hugely increasing funding for support services so that no victim is left to suffer alone.

The government will continue to ensure that the voices and perspectives of victims and survivors are placed at the centre of work tackling this horrific crime. Victims must feel confident in being able to seek justice and find support.

The Victims Code and draft Victims Bill have been important steps in setting out clear victims’ rights and the level of the support they can expect throughout the criminal justice process.

We have also increased investment in specialised support services to make sure that victims and survivors can be supported in rebuilding their lives.

Education Secretary, Kit Malthouse said:

The scale of historic abuse and exploitation suffered by these children is horrifying, and their bravery in coming forward will help improve services to protect children.

Over the last seven years we have strengthened the join-up between police, health care professionals, councils and schools, so more children feel protected by the institutions that are supposed to keep them safe, and we will continue to improve children’s social care so every child has a safe and loving childhood.

In the past seven years the government has established the Child Safeguarding Practice Review panel to improve local practice and outcomes for vulnerable children, and across government we are making sure that the services and organisations which have a responsibility for the welfare of children continue to put safeguarding at the top of their agenda.

Our Child Protection Ministerial Group, set up following the Care Review, will also champion children’s safety at the highest levels and provide the leadership to oversee necessary reforms across children social care.

All government responses to recommendations from the inquiry’s previous reports to date have been published and can be found on the The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) or GOV.UK.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 19 October 2022.

This inspection examined the use of hotels to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, with particular reference to the Home Office’s duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the United Kingdom.

Publishing the report, David Neal, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), said:

It is clear that the housing of these extremely vulnerable children in hotels represents a significant challenge to the Home Office, in both ethical and operational terms. This is not an area in which the Home Office should be operating. A clear cross-Government approach is required.

The young people who spoke to inspectors all stated that they were happy and felt safe in the hotels, although the majority were keen to move on and resume their education. Inspectors found Home Office and contractor staff were, in the main, committed and engaged in their work and keen to provide the best possible environment for the young people in their care. However, this inspection did find areas of significant concern including two cases of staff who had not been Disclosure and Barring Service checked residing at hotels.

More broadly, while the initial crisis response had transitioned to a business-as-usual operation, the practices and procedures developed by the Home Office did not represent a child-centred approach that fully acknowledged and provided for the safeguarding and wellbeing needs of the young people in the department’s care. Similarly absent was consistent and effective oversight by the Home Office of contractor activity. Guidance, processes and policies were slowly being developed but this gap in clarity led to clear shortcomings in the provision of key services for these children.

Although staff referred to the need to end the use of hotels, there was little in the way of concrete planning for this to be achieved and no timelines provided by the Home Office.

As we found in the inspection into the processing of migrants at Tug Haven and Western Jet Foil, a disjointed response at day one or even week one could be excused but at month 10 this is not acceptable. Senior leadership action is needed to unlock the sub-optimal ownership of this issue in order that these children and those who will keep on arriving over the next days and weeks receive a more effective service. In essence, a recognition of the enduring nature of the requirement is needed.

I am particularly grateful for the expertise and assistance provided by Ofsted inspectors who accompanied my inspectors during the onsite phase of the inspection.

This inspection made four time-bound recommendations. The Home Office has accepted one recommendation and partially accepted three. I welcome the news that the Home Office has moved to a sole occupancy model which means members of hotel staff, including those without DBS checks, are no longer able to sleep or reside onsite. However, it is disappointing to note that the time-bound nature of the recommendations appears to be a barrier to full acceptance, that overall the pace of implementation appears slow and that processes necessary to ensure the safeguarding of children remain ‘in development’. This approach continues to ignore the vulnerability of these children.

This inspection report was sent to the Home Secretary for publication on 9 June 2022.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 18 October 2022.

For the first time, new legislation will compel those acting for a foreign power or entity to declare political influencing activity – and criminalise those who do not.

This change is being brought about by the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), which has been introduced to the UK Parliament via an amendment to the National Security Bill.

The bill brings in vital new measures to protect our national security and modernise existing counter-espionage laws to tackle covert influence.

The new scheme will increase the transparency of political influencing activity being carried out for a foreign power or entity; help safeguard UK democratic institutions from covert influence; and better inform us as to the nature, scale, and extent of foreign influence in our political affairs.

The public register will exist on a government website for political influence activities.

Tom Tugendhat, Security Minister, said:

Unfortunately, there are people working in secret to undermine the UK’s democracy and cause harm to our citizens.

For years I have advocated for the establishment of a foreign influence registration scheme to deter foreign powers from pursuing their pernicious aims through the covert use of agents and proxies.

I am delighted that the scheme we are introducing will help ensure our political affairs are protected, whilst embracing open and transparent engagement with foreign governments and entities which we continue to welcome.

Ken McCallum, Director General of the Security Service (MI5), said:

The UK is in strategic contest with states that seek to undermine our national security, democratic institutions and commercial advantage at an unprecedented scale. We need new, modern tools and powers to defend ourselves, proportionately but firmly.

Alongside the other vital measures introduced in the National Security Bill, the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme will make it harder – and riskier – to operate covertly in the UK at the behest of a foreign power. It will also increase openness and transparency around the scale of foreign influence in our political affairs and make it harder for our adversaries to undermine our democracy. The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme is a modern power designed to tackle a modern threat, and I welcome its inclusion in the National Security Bill.

The scheme will be 2-tiered.

The primary tier will require the registration of political influence activities within the UK at the direction of a foreign power or entity. The person would need to declare who they are in an arrangement with, what activity they have been directed to undertake, and when the arrangement was made. They must do this within 10 days of the direction, or in any case, before the activity is carried out. Foreign entities will also be required to register their own political influence activities before carrying them out.

Notable exceptions to those who would need to register include those working for a foreign power in their official capacity, those with diplomatic immunity, those who provide legal services, those working for domestic and foreign news publishers and those in an arrangement to which the UK government, or someone acting for or on behalf of the Crown is party.

The penalty for failing to register, carrying out activities that aren’t registered, providing false or misleading information or any other foreign influence offence is a maximum of 2 years’ imprisonment, a fine or both.

The enhanced tier allows the Home Secretary to specify a foreign power or foreign power-controlled entity where necessary to protect the safety or interests of the UK, and with parliamentary approval, make it an offence for anyone to carry out any activity in the UK at their direction without it being registered. There is no restriction on which states could be named, to enable the UK to respond to emerging threats from any foreign power. The penalty for these offences is up to 5 years’ imprisonment, a fine or both.

Further powers added to the bill include those to protect UK interests from corrupt financial influence, covered by ‘Powers of arrest and detention.’ This will give investigators powers to monitor a suspect’s account in real-time; identify accounts held by suspects in UK financial institutions; and compel individuals or organisations to provide relevant information, produce documents and/or answer questions in relation to an investigation into foreign power threat activity. Obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service will also be made an offence.

The National Security Bill is currently passing through Parliament.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 17 October 2022.

The Home Office will launch a targeted review of police dismissals to raise standards and confidence in policing across England and Wales.

The internal review will be launched shortly and will help to ensure that the system is more effective in removing officers who are not fit to serve the public.

Baroness Casey’s interim report into the culture and standards at the Metropolitan Police Service, published today (Monday 17 October 2022) raises significant concerns, including that fewer officers are being dismissed, officers with multiple allegations made against them are still serving the public and police from ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the misconduct system.

The Home Office review is likely to consider:

the effectiveness of the existing system to dismiss those who fall seriously short of the standards expected by policing and the public
the impact of the introduction of changes to misconduct panels, including legally qualified chairs
whether forces are making use of their powers to discharge officers during their probationary period
Working with policing partners, it will also assess whether the regulatory framework for the police disciplinary system should be changed.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said:

“The public rightly expects the highest standards of behaviour from police officers and the vast majority meet this expectation. But recently too many high-profile incidents and reports, especially in London, have damaged trust – which is unfair on the public and lets down other serving officers.

“This cannot continue. Culture and standards in the police must improve. And where an officer has fallen seriously short of these expectations, demonstrable, public action must be taken.

“I have been clear it is absolutely vital police act to restore trust, return to common-sense policing and treat the public and victims with the respect they deserve.

“I welcome the Metropolitan Police’s commitment to tackling the issues raised in the Baroness Casey report and hope this review will also help to address underlying concerns.”

The government has already overhauled the police discipline system over the last 7 years, making it more transparent, more proportionate and more accountable – for example introducing public misconduct hearings in 2015 and bringing in the Police Barred List in 2017, ensuring that officers and staff who are dismissed cannot re-join the police.

In addition, the 2-part Angiolini Inquiry is currently examining the issues raised by the conviction of then-serving officer Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard last year. The second part is expected to scrutinise wider issues for policing and the safety of women.

 

The press release issued by the Home Office on 17 October 2022.

The Home Office has launched a new Independent Examiner of Complaints (IEC) service for customers of the Department’s immigration services.

In doing so, the Home Office has fulfilled another of the recommendations in Wendy Williams’ Windrush Lessons Learned Review, published in March 2020.

Introducing an IEC service brings the Department in line with several other public service delivery departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

If customers are not satisfied with the final response to their complaints, they will have an opportunity to have their case reviewed independently by the IEC.

Although the IEC will not have any remit over immigration decisions, which remain subject to existing appeal processes, they will apply greater scrutiny and ultimately increase public confidence in the customer services delivered by the Home Office, as well as helping to manage reputational risk.

In making her original recommendation, Wendy Williams proposed that the new service should have the ability to identify systemic issues within the immigration system. The IEC will achieve that by using the data and insight from complaints to consider why particular issues might be arising and feed them back into the department to support the continuous improvement of services.

The Home Office is pleased to announce that, following a fair and open recruitment process, Moi Ali has been appointed as the new Independent Examiner of Complaints. She will be supported by an Office for the IEC, based in Stoke-on-Trent.

Ms Ali has a background in independent complaints review. For the last 4 years she has been the Independent Assessor of Complaints for the Crown Prosecution Service and she will continue in that role on a part-time basis. She is passionate about providing a genuinely independent service, and about helping organisations to identify learning and wider lessons from complaints in order to improve their service.

Her approach is to understand the complainant journey and perspective, and to support staff to provide a complainant-centric service.

 

The press release issued by the Home Office on 17 October 2022.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 14 October 2022.

Measures to prevent disruptive and violent football fans subject to football banning orders in England and Wales from travelling to the World Cup in Qatar come into effect from today.

From 10 November the 1,308 people subject to a football banning order will be required to hand in their UK passports to the police until the end of the tournament, facing up to 6 months in prison and an unlimited fine if they fail to do so or attempt to travel to Qatar and neighbouring countries.

Passports will be returned to individuals after the final match of the tournament. If they wish to travel to other countries during this period, they will need to seek permission to hold on to their passports and will be subject to thorough checks.

As part of a targeted operation at ports, police will also be able to intercept known troublemakers who are likely to cause further disruption to stop them from attending the tournament. If they are caught attempting to travel, they will face a banning order court hearing within 24 hours.

Police officers in the UK and Qatar will gather intelligence during the tournament, with fans causing disruption during the World Cup risking arrest or being handed a football banning order on their return to the UK.

This is part of wider action the government has taken to crack down on violence and disorder at football matches, which includes extending football banning orders to cover the women’s domestic game and football-related online hate crime, and the imminent extension to Class A drug offences at matches.

The police also continue to take action, with over 2,100 arrests made and 516 new football banning orders issued in the 2021 to 2022 season.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 13 October 2022.

Claudia Sturt, Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), looks at the YJB’s activity over the past year.

Today we published our Annual Report and Accounts for 2021 to 2022. This was my first annual report as Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), and I would like to place on record my thanks to all those who have helped produce this report and ensure its accuracy.

The opportunity to lead the Youth Justice Board as Chief Executive is enormously exciting, and there is nothing more important for me than improving the life chances of children. When I was working in adult prisons, I saw first-hand the consequences of failure and I believe, as a result, you will not find anyone more determined to ensure we are effective in keeping children out of the system and supporting them to live happy, safe, crime-free lives.

Our activity over the past year was yet again set against the backdrop of the pandemic. At the YJB, we continued to follow a fully remote operating model from March 2020 up to January 2022. Following consultation with our staff we subsequently developed a hybrid model, enabling our staff to return to face-to-face working, where appropriate, whilst allowing the organisation to attract and support diverse talent with an increase in national rather than London-based contracts.

Despite us seeing the easing of COVID-19 restrictions across England and Wales, the challenges for both children and the sector were still evident, and we have yet to see the full impact this has had on their lives and futures. Reduced access to education and other critical support services, increased trauma and mental illness, fewer opportunities for safeguarding and more opportunities for online exploitation all form a worrying reality for children and those across the sector.

Of course, we welcome the past year’s continued falls in the number of children entering the justice system and those who received a caution or sentence. Reoffending rates decreased again, and the youth custody population stands at an all-time low. But there is no room for complacency: as highlighted recently in a review by the National Audit Office, we have serious grounds to expect a worsening of this picture in the immediate future, with a potential doubling of children in custody by 2024. Long term impacts of the pandemic, combined with the economic shocks that have followed it, seem likely to make far more children far more at risk of coming into the criminal justice system. The YJB will grasp with both hands the challenge of ensuring that the gains made in recent years are sustained.

But, while I welcome these reductions, overwhelmingly I was saddened by yet more evidence of the shocking disparity for children from ethnic minorities. In particular, children with Black and Mixed ethnicities are significantly overrepresented at every stage in the youth justice system. We have undertaken a wide range of activity over the past year to tackle this issue which includes commissioning two research projects with a focus on disproportionality, sharing area level detail on disparity with Police and Crime Commissioners and taking forward an initiative to get children from ethnic minorities into employment. We have also continued to work with our partners, such as the Magistrates Association, to help tackle these disparities, including the development of a checklist for magistrates, to further guard against any potential bias in decision-making.

I was pleased to see that strong progress was made towards our vision of a Child First youth justice system. In essence, we want a system which treats children as children and supports them to become the best version of themselves.

We’ve never been under any illusions about how ambitious this goal is and recognise that it will take a concerted effort from us and all our partners. Nevertheless, we are up for the challenge and the potential benefits to children and our communities alike far exceed any drawbacks. Significant activity over the past year includes work in Wales to develop trauma informed approaches and services in support of its Youth Justice Blueprint. Also, across both England and Wales we commissioned a joint prevention and diversion project to help us increase our understanding and oversight of how this work is delivered by youth justice services.

This year we also took the opportunity to review the pathfinder model that was introduced in 2018. The review found that the pathfinder model was a worthwhile element of sector improvement work. It was also clear that the underlying principles of pathfinders were sound and the introduction of a formal selection process would improve the model further. All current pathfinders will continue as planned and we are designing the selection process for the next pathfinders. We are working to have the new approach in place ready for the 2023/24 financial year.

In December 2021, we secured Board approval for an exciting new initiative to maximise our impact, rebalance how we deliver our statutory functions and change our focus from being driven by risk to being driven by benefits. Known as our ‘new sense of purpose’, this change programme will allow a significant review of our current position and consider how we deploy our people, manage processes, provide advice and invest tax-payers money, including the youth justice grant.

Finally, I would like to thank YJB staff and our colleagues and partners across the system for the welcome shown to me as I started my new role. I remain in awe of your relentless determination to improve the lives of children in the youth justice system and all that you have achieved over the past year.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 5 October 2022.

The press release issued by the Home Office on 4 October 2022.