The Home Office gave out 275 certificates of sponsorship for care workers after “forged” documents were used to make an application, a damning report into the department has shown.
The probe, by the former borders and immigration inspector David Neal, claimed the Home Office had a “limited understanding” of the care sector after it was added to the UK’s shortage occupation list in 2022 – allowing more people to come to the country to fill jobs.
And as a result, it created a system that “invited large numbers of low-skilled workers to this country who are at risk from exploitation”.
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The report was released on Tuesday afternoon as MPs wrapped up business in parliament for the Easter recess, alongside another into Border Force operations at London City Airport.
In that investigation, Mr Neal highlighted “failings at a local, regional, and national level” over the arrival of private jets, with high-risk flights not being met by Border Force staff.
The figures on how many high-risk flights were met by officials at the most central airport in the capital were redacted, but Mr Neal said the number was “shocking”, adding the issue needed to be addressed by the Home Office “as a matter of urgency”.
Mr Neal was fired by the Home Office last month after he leaked details of the City Airport report to a newspaper, with the department saying he had “lost the confidence” of Home Secretary James Cleverly.
But the now ex-inspector had repeatedly complained the Home Office was too slow to publish his critical reports, with 15 dating back to April 2023 still unpublished when he was dismissed.
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‘Totally inadequate’
In Mr Neal’s report, entitled “an inspection of the immigration system as it relates to the social care sector”, he criticised the department’s “underestimation of demand for the care worker visa”.
While the Home Office had predicted between 6,000 and 40,000 would come through this route each year, between February 2022 and October 2023, 160,991 applications had been made and 146,182 – 91% – had been granted.
The report criticised “the inappropriateness of its sponsor licensing regime for low-skilled roles”, and said the “mismatch between its meagre complement of compliance officers and ever-expanding register of licensed sponsors” – with one officer for every 1,600 employers – was “totally inadequate”.
In the example of an employer only known as “company b”, an application had been submitted using forged documents in the name of a real care provider, along with a forged bank statement.
But despite online checks showing the address they provided showed “no trace” of links to a care home, 275 certificates of sponsorship had been secured, with 181 assigned to workers, “none of whom have arrived to undertake genuine roles”.
It took more than two months after the sponsorship licence was granted to the company for Border Force officers to raise their concerns about those arriving on the visas.
Another example included 1,234 certificates being granted to a company that said it had only four employees when it was given a sponsorship licence.
“In just these two examples, up to 1,500 people could have arrived in this country and been encouraged by a risk of hardship or destitution to work outside the conditions of their visa,” said Mr Neal.
“While the inspection does not detail the extent of this abuse, my inspectors encountered migrants with care visas working illegally in two out of eight enforcement visits they observed during my inspection of illegal working enforcement [from] August to October 2023.”
‘Reliant on handouts’
The report said those coming over to work in the care sector “faced long working hours and were not paid for travel time, or given sufficient hours to meet the minimum earnings threshold in line with sponsor guidance and UK employment law”.
The inspector pointed to a story from Sky News, where a care worker paid £10,000 to an agent in Nigeria only to find that there was no job for her when she arrived in the UK, leaving her “reliant on handouts”.
He also pointed to the report highlighting how many of those who could not find employment as care workers were struggling to survive, turning to food banks and sleeping rough.
Stakeholders from local councils and the care work sector also said there was a lack of clear and transparent information provided to migrants about UK employment rights, legitimate and illegitimate fees, and how to obtain support and advice in relation to worker exploitation.
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The report praised frontline staff at the Home Office dealing with care workers and their awareness to the “serious risk”.
But Mr Neal said: “What worries me most is that the Home Office does not appear to have any process to identify the lessons from this debacle and then bring those lessons into core thinking in order that they are not repeated.
“Accountability for failure is all too often lacking. While ministers are ultimately responsible, they depend upon the advice of senior leaders within the Home Office; once more this advice has either been ignored or has proved to be poor.”
‘Robust measures’
The former inspector called for a full review of the visa route, sponsorship licensing and compliance, as well as the creation of a multi-agency agreement so each part knows what they are responsible for.
But Mr Neal sounded less than optimistic in his conclusions, adding: “When this report is published, its findings will doubtlessly be explained away. The remedial measures I have mentioned will be highlighted despite their remarkable slowness in coming.
“Such a response should not be allowed to distract from the damage that has already been done and a reflexive, defensive response should not prevent a critical examination of what has gone wrong here and what steps must be taken to prevent its recurrence.”
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A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have already intervened to stop the flow of overseas care workers entering the UK where there is no genuine role for them to undertake and taken robust action against businesses committing labour exploitation.
“We do not tolerate illegal activity in the labour market and we will continue to revoke licenses from those who abuse the system. New measures already in force will cut the rising numbers of visas granted and address significant concerns about high levels of non-compliance, worker exploitation and abuse.
“As with all our policies, we will keep them under close review and if needed, we will not hesitate to go further.”
But Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called both reports from Mr Neal “scandalous”, saying they “expose a Conservative government which has lost control of our borders and our border security”.
She added: “Even now ministers are hiding the true scale of the flaws, redacting much of the vital information, and slipping the reports out when Parliament can’t respond.”
The Home Office said all redactions were made due to “reasons of national security”.