Independent commissioner to inspect Home Office's use of age assessments

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) has commenced an inspection of the Home Office’s use of age assessments.

The inspection will focus on the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of age assessments conducted by the Home Office, with a particular focus on the Illegal Migration Intake Unit, the Asylum Intake Unit and the National Age Assessment Board.

Introducing the call for evidence, David Bolt, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, wrote:

“As Independent Chief Inspector, I am inviting anyone with knowledge or first-hand experience of an age assessment conducted by the Home Office to submit evidence to inform this inspection. I would like to hear about both what is working well and what could be improved.

“I would therefore welcome any case studies from those who have worked with individuals who have undergone a Home Office age assessment.”

Mr Bolt stressed that the ICIBI’s statutory remit does not extend to investigating or making decisions about individual cases – however, he said he can take an interest in individual cases to the extent that they “illustrate or point to systemic problems”.

The move has been welcomed by BASW who have vocally opposed attempts by the Home Office to centralise and take control of age assessments in recent years.

Age assessments are carried out by social workers on age-disputed unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It was previously the responsibility of the local authority of where the age-disputed child resides to conduct the age assessments through social workers, but the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 controversially extended powers to the Home Office to create the National Age Assessment Board which recruited social workers to carry out age assessments on behalf of the Home Office.

BASW, along with many other social work groups, opposed the measures in both parliamentary Acts, and released a public statement encouraging social workers not to work for the Home Office due to concerns including the politicisation and motivation of the age assessment process by the Home Office.

Responding to the announcement of the inspection, BASW Chief Executive Dr Ruth Allen said: “BASW has been concerned about the Home Office’s motivation for involvement in the age assessment process since it was first discussed, and we have made these concerns very clear to our members and the Home Office.

“Former Home Secretaries have been prejudicial about age-disputed young people travelling to the UK through unsafe routes, and our fear was that these highly-charged political views would feed down into the daily work of social workers who feel pressured by their organisation to assess young people to deliver a particular outcome.

“There was never a need for the Home Office to be involved with age assessments, yet local authorities who are experiencing financial difficulties are referring to the National Age Assessment Board because they do not have the resources to do it themselves. The Home Office should instead have provided local authorities with the resources to be able to carry out the assessments fairly and timely.

“The launch of an investigation is welcome, and we hope that this is the start of the dismantling of the National Age Assessment Board and the move back towards local authorities being responsible for the conduct of age assessments. We also will be urging the Government to scrap plans for scientific methods of age assessments.”