Home Secretary Priti Patel said the foundations for changed had been laid (Steve Parsons/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)The Home Office is at risk of another Windrush type scandal because of its “disappointing” progress in implementing key reforms to change its culture, the author of an official inquiry has warned.
Wendy Williams said Priti Patel’s department is at a “tipping point” as she highlighted a series of continuing weaknesses in its approach towards migrants and their descendants.
She emphasised in a “progress update” on a Windrush Lessons Learned Review, produced for the Home Secretary in 2020, that some advances have been made towards achieving the “profound cultural and systemic changes” to prevent a repeat of the injustices suffered by the Windrush generation.
But, she was “disappointed by the lack of tangible progress” in vital areas and that the Home Office was at “a tipping point” as a result.
She said the failings included an “apparent lack of progress in the way the department engages with its public at all levels” and the slow rollout of a “learning and development programme” to improve cultural awareness among Home Office staff.
Another flaw was the failure to appoint a Migrants’ Commissioner to stand up for the rights of migrants.
Ms Williams, an HM Inspector of Constabulary and former prosecutor, said the result was that the Home Office “runs the risk that it may only be a matter of time before it faces another ‘difficult outcome’ with all that entails” and that this would only be avoided if it could “maintain momentum” to achieve the “systemic and cultural changes required”.
Warning of the avoidable “injustice, hardship and untold damage” suffered by “so many members of the Windrush generation” she said her original Windrush Lessons Learned Review” had “sought to make sure wrongs were put right, and that lessons were learned so a similar scandal could never happen again.”
She said this objective had yet to be achieved with a significant number of the 30 recommendations she made two years ago still to be implemented.
She added: “In some areas, the department has shown ambition and a commitment to taking forward my recommendations.
“But in others I have been disappointed by the lack of tangible progress or drive to achieve the cultural changes required within a reasonable period to make them sustainable. Much more progress is required in policy making and casework, which will be seen as the major indicators of improvement.
“The department is at a tipping point and the next stage will be crucial in determining whether it has the capacity and capability to make good on its ambitions ‘to build a Home Office fit for the future, one that serves every corner of society...[with] a long-term focus on wholesale and lasting cultural change’.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel said she was “pleased”’ Ms Williams’ update had shown progress and claimed that she “laid the foundations for radical change in the department and a total transformation of culture.”
Ms Patel added:”We have already made significant progress, including the work we have put into becoming a more compassionate and open organisation.
“Having said that, there is more to do and I will not falter in my commitment to everyone who was affected by the Windrush scandal. Many people suffered terrible injustices at the hands of successive governments and I will continue working hard to deliver a Home Office worthy of every community we serve.”
The Windrush scandal was revealed in 2018 following reports in the Guardian newspaper which highlighted how migrants who arrived here as children from the Caribbean, between 1948 and 1971, were being deported or threatened with deportation despite having the legal right to be here and having spent decades living and working in Britain.
A compensation scheme has been set up for those affected but has been criticised for being too slow in handing over the money and the size of payments.
