Home Office launches inquiry into poor care standards for child asylum seekers

The Home Office has launched an inquiry after staff made unaccompanied asylum-seeking children play a game in which they had to guess who had been placed in foster care, a watchdog's report has disclosed.

- Rajeev Syal

147 Children who left hotels without supervision from 2021 to 2023 and remain unaccounted for

The report, one of 13 written by the borders inspectorate and released yesterday, also found that agency workers employed to look after children as young as nine had received "insufficient" background checks and training.

The findings from David Neal were set out in stark terms finally published by the Home Office after months of delays.

Neal, the former chief inspector of borders and immigration, was sacked last week after he was embroiled in a row over concerns he was raising in a report submitted over security checks at airports - one of two outstanding documents still yet to be published by the Home Office.

An inspector working for Neal at one of four hotels where dozens of children were living was shocked to hear that they were gathered together when one of their number was to be placed with a foster family.

"One team leader described the process by which they would disclose to the children who would be the next to leave for a placement," the report said.

"This involved 'making a game of it', asking them to guess who would be next, before revealing their name.

"Inspectors considered this to be insensitive in the extreme and undoubtedly upsetting to the children."