‘Woeful Budgeting’ In Home Office Causing Asylum Overspends

August 29, 2024 Ukadmin UK News, World Politics - Geopolitics

<h2>‘Woeful Budgeting’ In Home Office Causing Asylum Overspends</h2> “Woeful budgeting” at the Home Office has caused repeated overspends on asylum, a fiscal watchdog has said. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the department has frequently spent far more than it had budgeted for asylum, border, visa and passport operations – and that the budget for 2024/25 is repeating mistakes made under the previous government by submitting figures it “knows to be insufficient”. Between 2021/22 and 2023/24, plans put before parliament by the Home Office at the start of each year budgeted an average of £110 million for asylum operations, but it ended up spending much more – an average of £2.6 billion per year. The IFS report claims that the “woeful way” the Home Office and HM Treasury have budgeted for asylum costs lies at the heart of the recent disagreement between Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her predecessor Jeremy Hunt. Credit to : TalkTV