Home Office should “engage and communicate better” with local authorities on numbers of age disputed asylum seekers, says inspector

The inspection report, published this week (22 July), makes a number of recommendations to the Home Office on its use of age assessments, with a particular focus on the Irregular Migration Intake Unit (IMIU) and the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB).

The NAAB has supported local authorities and the Home Office since 2023 by conducting Merton-compliant age assessments on their behalf.

As part of the inspection, the ICIBI set out to understand how far the Home Office goes to ensure that its age assessments are “sufficiently mindful of the difficulty of getting it right, and of the consequences of getting it wrong.”

Inspectors observed that at the initial age decision stage, the Home Office looks to mitigate the risk by adopting a “benefit of the doubt” approach in the case of anyone claiming to be a child, questioning such a claim only when the person’s appearance and demeanour suggest that they are “significantly over 18”.

The report noted: “What constitutes 'significantly' is left largely to the judgement of frontline officers, who are often working under pressure due to the numbers of arrivals and the need to process them quickly.”

However, inspectors criticised what they described as a “lack of curiosity” from individual officers and corporately about decisions that were subsequently disputed and overturned, and a lack of learning from overturned decisions.

At later stages in the migrant journey, the report noted that a greater reliance on qualified social workers, the recognised “Merton standard”, and the fact there is “more time to probe and reflect”, makes for a “more careful and thorough process”.

The report recommended that in order for the Home Office to build “greater confidence” on how it goes about making initial decisions on age, it should involve others (interpreters, social workers, experts, and practitioners in supporting children and young people) “as much as possible in the process”.

It added: “In the meantime, it might help the debate if both the Home Office and its critics could agree that some migrants lie about their age, and that not to attempt to make some form of initial age assessment risks incentivising more to do so”.

Meanwhile, the report identified improvements the Home Office should make in its dealings with local authorities.

In particular, it recommended that it should “strive to communicate and engage better” - sharing data on the number of individuals being dispersed into local authority areas who, despite being assessed as an adult at the border, have disputed their age.

The ICIBI said: “This would be welcomed by local authorities (and accommodation service providers), both practically, as it would enable them to plan more effectively for ‘spontaneous arrivals’, and as a sign that the Home Office appreciates the challenges local authorities face and is looking to work in partnership.”

The report made the following other recommendations for the Home Office:

1. Produce a stakeholder map and engagement plan that takes full account of the practical and presentational value of involving external stakeholders (including local authorities and their equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Strategic Migration Partnerships, Non-Governmental Organisations and others) in the development and delivery of relevant policies and best practice.
2. Before the end of 2025, conduct a formal evaluation of initial age decision training, meanwhile involving Kent Intake Unit’s ‘in-house’ social workers and the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) in its delivery, and identifying all staff across the Home Office who may make an initial age decision as part of their role and ensuring they have received the latest training.
3. Publish guidance on the ‘age admit’ process, setting out the steps required to ensure that anyone asked to sign a ‘Statement of Age’ form has been informed of and has understood what they are being asked to sign, the consequences of doing so or not doing so, and how the form might be used later in relation to any immigration, asylum or other decision, including where a local authority later assesses someone to be a child.
4. With input from Kent Intake Unit (KIU)’s ‘in-house’ social workers and the NAAB, set minimum quality standards for the KIU triage process at Western Jet Foil (where migrants are brought to shore after being picked up in the English Channel), and for initial age assessment interviews and decisions.
5. Confirm the funding for the Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) Service Management Team and set out its initial programme of work with delivery dates, in particular in relation to improving data for the end-to-end age dispute process. This should include as a priority the ability to disaggregate data to differentiate between initial age decisions at all Home Office ports of entry and outcomes of age disputes determined by local authorities and the NAAB.
6. Review the NAAB’s workforce plan and its business plan and confirm that these align, making whatever adjustments are necessary where they do not. The outcomes of the review should inform a NAAB stakeholder engagement plan, which should be shared with local authorities.
7. The Home Office’s Digital, Data, and Technology Team, and others as necessary, should review and agree the NAAB’s IT requirements as a matter of urgency.

Responding to the report, the Home Office said: “The Home Office welcomes the ICIBI’s recognition of the inherent challenges in accurately assessing the age of young people. We also note the Inspector’s observation that constructive dialogue on this issue would benefit from broader acknowledgment that some individuals may misrepresent their age, and that the absence of an initial age assessment process may risk incentivising such behaviour, which is not in the overall interests of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

“The ICIBI’s inspection was carried out during a period when Home Office officials and ministers were actively reviewing a range of potential scientific and technological methods designed to assist human-led age assessments. This was a policy development process that has culminated in the decision to pursue the further testing and trialling of Facial Age Estimation technology, with a view to rolling it out widely next year subject to the results of this further testing and assurance. The analysis and evaluation of the options in this area has been a rigorous and lengthy process. This process has proceeded at pace from the point at which the current Government took office.”

It added: “The Home Office thanks the ICIBI for this report, in which a number of areas were identified for improvement and eight recommendations were made. The Home Office has accepted all eight recommendations, several of which are already in train as part of a pre-planned programme of continuous improvement.”

Lottie Winson