Border agency paid £13m in error to asylum seekers

The UK Border Agency discovered during 2008-09 that it had carried on making payments for accommodation and direct support to a number of asylum seekers after they stopped being eligible.

Officials found that a system designed to stop payments as soon as a decision was made for asylum support to be ceased had not operated as intended.

Some 9.6m was overpaid in 2008-09 and 3.5m in 2009-10, revealed the agency's annual accounts, published today.

The agency has now introduced new checks to ensure that payments are stopped as soon as a ruling is made that the recipient is not entitled to support.

The accounts also revealed that the agency had overpaid staff some 4.3m, often due to late notification of unpaid leave or employees quitting their posts. Some 1.4m of the cash, involving around 600 cases, was being written off as unrecoverable.

The agency was forced to hand over a total of around 3m last year in compensation – including 2.1m to 40 under-18s who were wrongly detained as adults and sums of around 360,000 each to two members of the public who were unlawfully detained and 330,000 to a refugee who was treated as an adult rather than a minor due to delays processing paperwork.

It is also in dispute over 12m claimed by six organisations which provide accommodation for asylum seekers, the accounts revealed.

A UK Border Agency spokesperson said: "Improvements still need to be made, which is why we have announced an Asylum Improvement Project to ensure the system is faster and better value for money, and why we are committed to tackling abuse of the student visa system."