A scrapped Home Office team responsible for reforming the department in the wake of the Windrush scandal has been reinstated by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, amid a “fundamental reset” of the government’s response to the issue.
The post-Windrush transformation unit was set up after the 2018 scandal to help introduce cultural change within the Home Office to ensure similar disasters could not occur. It was quietly disbanded by the former home secretary Suella Braverman in 2023.
Staff were said at the time to have felt frustrated that the unit had been closed before the promised reforms were delivered. Cooper made a manifesto commitment to reopening the team and seven people have been hired to work within the relaunched unit, on ensuring the department maintains “humanity” within its decision-making processes. Officials said the new staff felt passionate about improving the department’s response to the scandal.
The government will also be appointing a Windrush commissioner to act as an “independent advocate for all those affected” by the scandal, which saw thousands of long-term UK residents, most of whom were born in Commonwealth countries and traveled to Britain in the 1950s and 60s, wrongly classified by the Home Office as illegal immigrants. Many people lost jobs, homes and pensions as a result and some were wrongly detained and deported.
The Windrush commissioner will also be responsible for driving improvements to the compensation scheme, which has been repeatedly criticised for slow decision making and low payouts. New grant funding of £1.5m will be made available to pay for support for people applying for compensation.
“For many, filing a claim is intimidating and requires them to revisit past traumas. By sharing their experiences with impartial community members, we want to make this process as supportive as possible,” Cooper said.
The Home Office has previously committed to creating a migrants commissioner, a post with a wider remit, responsible for speaking up for migrants more generally and scrutinising the whole immigration system. It was not clear from officials whether this position would be subsumed by the narrower responsibilities of the Windrush commissioner role.
In a written statement, Cooper said the reopened unit would report to the Home Office’s ethics adviser and would be “dedicated to driving forward the action needed to ensure that what happened to the Windrush generation can never happen again to any part of our society”.
Cooper said: “The Windrush scandal caused terrible pain and heartache for so many families in the Windrush generation and in wider Commonwealth communities. It is rightly recognised as a period of national shame. The hurt and anguish felt by so many has been compounded further for those who haven’t received the compensation and justice they are owed.”
Committing to a change in the government’s approach, Cooper said the department would be working more closely with victims and communities “to ensure a scandal of this kind can never happen again and dignity can be restored to those so tragically affected”.
Judy Griffiths, 63, who traveled to Britain from Barbados at the age of nine, and who was told she was an illegal immigrant in 2015, and prevented from working, said she hoped the announcements would lead to accelerated justice. “A lot of people affected by this have developed illness from the stress. This is something that stays with you for the rest of your life. The last government added salt to the wound by not delivering on promises. We need to stop talking and get things moving,” she said.
