The Home Office should do more to “professionalise” the officials it sends to argue immigration cases in court, the immigration inspector has found. A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, published today, s ...

The UK’s official guidance on the human rights situation in countries producing asylum seekers is too often out of date and should be better resourced, the immigration inspector has found. David Bolt suggests that if the Home Secretary is seriou ...

Home Office targets for handling complaints within 20 working days are “routinely missed”, according to a report published today by the immigration inspector, David Bolt. Mr Bolt also says that the department has failed to keep up improvem ...

Reports by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, now follow a familiar pattern. Mr Bolt and his team carry out an inspection of a certain area of Home Office activity. A report on possible areas of improvement is draw ...

David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, has published his first report into the operation of the Adults at Risk policy. It makes fascinating reading for anyone involved in helping vulnerable adults secure release from d ...

The Home Office has been concealing important data about the EU Settlement Scheme, an independent inspection report suggests. While the department refuses to release the number of “disguised refusals”, or to disclose gender breakdowns rele ...

The Home Office should release more details about a “cryptic” computer programme that scores visa applicants as high, medium and low risk, the immigration inspector has recommended. David Bolt says that while applicants labelled high risk ...

Government attempts to tackle illegal working are halting, aimless and ill-adapted to the post-Windrush dispensation, an independent inspection report has found. David Bolt’s latest report says that “the Home Office’s efforts are not rea ...

Consistently the most popular article on Free Movement, somewhat depressingly, is the list of immigration and nationality fees. The fees charged by the Home Office for processing visa, settlement and nationality applications are high, set far above th ...

The government has proposed the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration as the interim monitoring body for the EU citizen settled status scheme. This briefing examines the powers, remit and impact of the Chief Inspector. The Chief Inspe ...

A new report from the independent immigration inspector shines new light on how enforcement officials get their hands on data about migrants from other government departments. David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, als ...

Almost half the recommendations made by the independent immigration inspector over the last three years have not been followed by the Home Office, the inspector’s annual report shows. David Bolt’s survey of the 2017/18 financial year says ...

Government measures aimed at stopping irregular migrants from renting a home are not being properly evaluated, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has found. The controversial Right to Rent scheme is “yet to demonstrate it ...

Countries are being declared safe for refugees to return to, but only if they have criminal records, a new report by the government’s immigration inspector suggests. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, found t ...

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has urged the Home Office to fundamentally overhaul the country of origin information it gives to officials making asylum decisions. David Bolt’s latest report, published today, says tha ...

The hostile environment policy is making it more difficult for the Home Office to keep track of foreign national offenders and could even push up crime, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has said. David Bolt’s inspection ...

For some reason the Home Office has just released a swathe of inspection reports into a wide range of Home Office operations. In practical terms, this makes it impossible for the press to pick out more than one or two stories from the reports and it t ...

According to estimates, there are 10,000-13,000 victims of modern slavery living in the UK. In order to tackle this problem, the UK government operates a Modern Slavery Strategy, and the Border Force plays its part by identifying potential victims, an ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a new report on the Home Office approach to sham marriages. The report is critical of the change in approach brought about by new powers conferred on officials by the Immigration Act 2014: T ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has published five new inspection reports. The most interesting is on the “hostile environment”, specifically the powers to deny driving licences and bank accounts to migrants unl ...