Inspection launched into Home Office use of age assessments
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) has called for anyone with knowledge or first-hand experience of an age assessment conducted by the Home Office to submit evidence as part of an inspection.
The inspection is set to 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 (NAAB), the ICIBI revealed.
The inspection will also consider:
- guidance, training, and development
- workforce planning
- record keeping and data collection
- quality assurance, risk management, and safeguarding
- stakeholder engagement
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 extended powers to the Home Office to create the NAAB, which recruited social workers to carry out age assessments on behalf of the Home Office.
The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) opposed the measures in both parliamentary Acts, and said it was discouraging its members, as well as other social workers, from applying for, or taking up age assessment roles in the NAAB.
Sharing its concerns in March 2023, the association said that since the NAAB is part of the Home Office and “therefore accountable to the Home Secretary”, this could lead to age assessment work being “influenced by political priorities such as reducing immigration”.
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.”
She continued: “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.”
The call for evidence will remain open until 9 October.
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, said: “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.”
He noted that any information submitted may be quoted in the final inspection report. However, he added: “It is the ICIBI’s practice not to name sources and to anonymise as much as possible any examples or case studies.”
Lottie Winson
