National Audit Office: managing and removing foreign national offenders

"The Committee of Public Accounts has said that deporting foreign national offenders would be the best way of reducing the cost of the prison system, and yet the Government’s performance in reducing the number of foreign national prisoners continues to be frustratingly poor.

I am astounded that the number of foreign nationals in prisons has increased to 10,649 since 2006 and that, of those released, 760 currently waiting to be deported have disappeared and around 150 are thought not to have been considered for deportation.

It’s appalling that only 30% of potential foreign national offenders in custody were searched on immigration databases to see if they had committed crimes overseas.

All this is despite the ten-fold increase in the number of officials working to deport foreign national offenders, from fewer than 100 officials to over 900, and an estimated £850 million of taxpayers’ money spent on managing and removing foreign national offenders in 2013-14. It beggars belief that the Home Office and Ministry of Justice are managing the removal of foreign national offenders without knowing basic costs and how best to target their resources.

Government is not helping itself – continued use of outdated IT and too much reliance on form-filling mean that crucial checks and information gathering are not happening at the right time.
Given its poor track record, Government will need to make huge strides to improve its management of foreign national offenders through its still-evolving 2013 cross-government action plan. 

I look forward to hearing from officials from the Home Office and Ministry when they appear before the Committee on 5 November."

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