Report shows Home Office granted 275 visas to defunct care homes

A damning inspection report found numerous failings in the Home Office system for granting visas to care workers, including 275 granted to defunct care homes.

The report said the entire system of allowing care homes to sponsor visas to import workers from abroad was “shocking” in its implementation and the net effect was “a system that invited large numbers of low-skilled workers into this country who are at risk of exploitation “.

The report was authored by David Neal, who was sacked as Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration last month after falling out with the government over concerns he raised about the Home Office.

The Home Office published two excellent Neal reports on Tuesday, including a scathing verdict on the sponsor licensing system for care worker visas.

Neal’s report outlines “the consequences of the Home Office’s limited understanding of the social care sector, the Home Office’s underestimation of the demand for care worker visas, an inadequate sponsor licensing system for low-skilled roles, and a discrepancy between the modest set of compliance officers and the ever-expanding register of licensed sponsors “.

The report said it was inappropriate to copy a program that has proven its success in largely compliant sectors and apply it to a high-risk area, concluding that “migration to a fragmented and low-paid sector is miles away from sponsored recruitment of highly skilled employees by multinational.

It said this “should be obvious to Home Office decision-makers” and highlighted that for every 1,600 employers licensed to sponsor migrant workers there is only one compliance officer, following a huge influx of over 132,000 visas granted – compared to estimates of 6,000 to 40,000 projected for use.

Neal highlighted the case of 275 sponsorship certificates awarded to a defunct nursing home and 1,234 certificates issued to a company that reported that at the time it received its license it had only four employees.

“In these two examples alone, up to 1,500 people may have come to this country and been encouraged by the risk of hardship or deprivation to work outside visa conditions,” the report said.

In its response, the Home Office said the scheme had successfully enabled migrant workers to fill “a reported 160,000 vacancies in the care sector and meet the Department of Health and Social Care’s targets for the use of care facilities to facilitate the discharge of people from NHS resources to ease pressure “winter”.

It added: “Unfortunately, some entities operating in the adult social care sector, or pretending to do so, have taken advantage of this opportunity. The Ministry of Interior identified these abuses as quickly as possible despite the operational focus on Ukraine’s response, ordering compliance activities as early as June 2022.

“The Government has introduced and will continue to implement strong measures to tackle non-compliance. As with all our policies, we will review them carefully and will not hesitate to go further if necessary.”

Neal’s second inspectorate report at London City Airport found a “significant risk to border security”, although the number of high-risk flights involving border staff was redacted.

The report said: “The Home Office must address this as a matter of urgency. Guidelines aimed at keeping the country safe state that Border Force personnel operate all GA (general aviation) flights deemed high risk, except in exceptional circumstances. Only in LCY [redacted] were met in 2023. The guidelines also recommend that one-third of low-risk flights be met. Just [redacted] we met at LCY in 2023. This is shocking and clearly something is wrong.”

In its response, the Home Office said the report gave “an incorrect picture of the outcomes that national leaders had already identified and sought to address, and that this was an issue that required clarification before the inspection was completed.”

Last month, the Home Office published 13 reports from Neal’s border inspectorate in one day. One report revealed that the department launched an investigation after employees made unaccompanied asylum-seeking children play a game in which they had to guess who would be placed in foster care next.

It also found that agency workers hired to care for nine-year-old children received “inadequate” background checks and training.