Staff working in the transformation directorate , the unit handling reform of the Home Office to prevent a repeat of the scandal, were told in an online meeting that the unit would be closing at the end of this month.
Civil servants in two London based teams who are working on the department’s post-Wind-rush clean -up exercise have been told their work will end from 1 July, sources told the Guardian. Staff in a third team were told their work would no longer be led from the Home Office in London and have been offered the chance to work with a Sheffield-based unit.
Some Home Office staff have expressed concern that their work is being wound up before the promised commitments to comprehensive reform of the department have been completed.
In the five years since the government apologised for misclassifying thousands of Commonwealth-born people living legally in the UK as illegal immigrants, successive home secretaries have promised to oversee “comprehensive reform” of the department to ensure a similar scandal would not be repeated.
Over the past six months, Braver-man has been forced to acknowledge she had dropped key reform commitments that would have increased independent scrutiny of immigration policies. But the decision to disband the unit marks a more decisive stepping away from the reform agenda.
This story is from the June 19, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the June 19, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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