𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Soaring numbers of staff at the department responsible for asylum and immigration are not up to scratch, according to its own figures. The Home Office disclosed that 820 staff last year had measures put in place to improve their performance – up from 400 in 2023 and 531 in 2024. The findings triggered claims that the department is in a state of “chaos”. Nearly 70,000 people have arrived in the UK by small boats since Labour won the election in July 2024.

A BBC investigation has revealed how a “shadow industry” of advisers are charging migrants for advice on how to pose as people facing persecution for their “sexual orientation, their religious beliefs or their political views” so they can stay in the UK.

Conservative MP Peter Bedford, who obtained the figures, said: “Public confidence in the Home Office is already low; not least because of their appalling record on immigration, policing and crime matters. The lack of effective management of poorly performing staff doesn’t inspire confidence that the department is willing or indeed able to turn things around.”

Zia Yusuf, who is expected to serve as Reform UK’s Home Secretary if Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister, said: “It is no surprise that more than 800 Home Office staff – a figure that has doubled since 2023 – are now on performance plans, given the sheer dysfunction of our asylum system. Britain is paying the price for a chaotic immigration system which is clearly made worse by sustained underperformance.”

He pledged his party would “cut through a bloated civil service and rebuild an asylum system that delivers value for taxpayers”.

Of the 820 staff identified as needing to improve their performance, 703 were receiving “informal focused support”. This is for reasons including “lack of will or motivation”, “workplace relationships” and their personal lives.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp claimed the “Home Office is in chaos,” adding: “We saw this week that asylum seekers are making up claims to be gay or be domestic abuse victims to stay in the UK – and the Home Office is fooled by it.”

Pressing for bold action on immigration, he said: “We need to leave the ECHR so that illegal immigrants can be deported within a week of arrival, and not even allowed to claim asylum at all. But Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is too weak to do this.”

Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch argued more staff at the Home Office should be on performance plans.

He said: “Given the shambolic state of a once great department of state and the failure to control legal and illegal immigration, logic suggests the numbers should be much higher.”

Tory MP Mr Bedford also uncovered that at the Department for Work and Pensions, 406 employees were placed on “performance action logs” in 2024-25, as were 410 in 2025-26.

At the Department for Education, 310 employees were “identified for informal or formal performance action” in 2024-25, up from 285 2023-24 but down from the 315 in 2022-23.

The Treasury, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Transport were among major departments which did not have a central record of the number of employees on performance management plans

Mr Bedford said: “It beggars belief that the civil service does not have robust performance management processes in place to ensure that the public is rightly receiving the services they rely on from the state. It’s no wonder my constituents ask why ‘nothing works anymore’ when there is a lack of basic processes to monitor, manage and correct poor performance of civil servants – whom after all we, as taxpayers, all pay for.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office should be somewhere everyone is proud to work, with pride that comes from high performance. We are strengthening our performance management approach, with robust processes in place to deliver on our promise to protect the public, by keeping our streets safe, securing our borders and upholding homeland security.”