IFS report on Home Office budgeting and asylum overspending – Bond reaction
Today the IFS has released a report on the Home Office budgeting and asylum overspends, finding that the Home Office has repeatedly spent far more than budgeted for asylum, border, visa and passport operations in recent years.
In 2023, the UK spent a quarter of the UK aid budget (£4.3bn) on asylum costs, increasing year on year. The Treasury is warning of a £6.4bn spending pressure for asylum and illegal migration for 2024-25.
In response to the IFS report, Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said:
Today’s report highlights an ongoing concern we’ve raised: The Home Office has mismanaged its asylum spending over recent years. Since 2021, the Home Office has consistently underbudgeted and overspent its asylum budget and increasingly used the UK aid budget to cover these costs.
Providing support to refugees and asylum seekers is vital, but the current budget mismanagement reflects poor financial oversight and value for money. We’re concerned that this will further strain the already squeezed UK aid budget, leading to more cuts that harm the most marginalised people living in poverty and on the frontlines of global humanitarian and climate crises.
We urgently need to see better planning, value for money and transparency from the Home Office, alongside reforms to the current approach the new government has inherited for reporting spending on asylum seekers and refugees as UK aid.
ENDS.
Notes for editors
- In 2023 the total UK aid budget was £15.37bn, amounting to 0.58% of gross national income (GNI). Bond is calling for the UK government to allocate the funding required to ensure that the UK aid budget is maintained at this current level at the very least in 2024, to avoid further UK aid cuts.
- Bond is the UK network for organisations working in international development. Bond unites and supports a diverse network of over 350 civil society organisations from across the UK, and allies to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice.
- For further information or interviews please contact Jess Salter at [email protected] or call 07493200979.
