Britain’s asylum system is facing a deepening credibility crisis after the Home Office began recruiting civil servants without previous legal experience to fight immigration appeals, even as rejected asylum claims are overturned at striking rates, and the tribunal backlog approaches 156,000 cases.
The department is hiring so-called presenting officers from across the Civil Service and the wider public to defend decisions to refuse asylum or deport migrants.
According to the Telegraph, applicants do not need formal legal qualifications or prior experience of immigration law, although job adverts require them to develop a “strong working knowledge” of the law and apply it effectively.
The recruitment drive has raised an uncomfortable question for ministers is how can the Government effectively defend its immigration decisions when the officials representing it may be learning the law as they go?
The figures are particularly damaging. Almost two-thirds of asylum seekers challenging rejected claims either win their appeals or see the Home Office reverse its original decision before a hearing. Some 42 per cent win at appeal, while a further 22 per cent receive refugee status after the department withdraws its refusal.
The statistics do not establish that every overturned decision was unlawful or that inexperienced presenting officers caused the high success rate. But they raise serious questions about the quality of initial decisions, the resources devoted to defending them and the administrative burden created when cases have to be reconsidered.
By June, 156,000 immigration appeals were outstanding, including more than 90,000 asylum cases. The backlog has nearly doubled in two years, leaving thousands of people waiting for decisions while the Government struggles to demonstrate control over the system.
The pressure is compounded by continued small-boat arrivals across the Channel. GB News reported that 1,739 people made the crossing between October 1 and 7, an average of roughly one every six minutes. Among them were 609 people who arrived in eight boats in a single day, taking the annual total above 20,000.
For the Conservatives, the figures provide ammunition against Labour’s handling of immigration. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said it was “no wonder” the Home Office was losing appeals when its presenting officers faced experienced immigration lawyers.
The party has pledged to abolish the Immigration Tribunal and immigration legal aid, as well as leave the European Convention on Human Rights to enable immediate deportations.
That prescription would represent a sweeping change to the legal safeguards governing immigration decisions. But the underlying problem is not simply the presence of lawyers: it is whether the state is making sound decisions and defending them competently.
Spending on legal aid for immigration and asylum cases rose by 50 per cent, from £39mn in 2021-22 to £59mn in 2024-25. Ameer Kotecha, a former senior Foreign Office diplomat and chief executive of the Centre for Government Reform, called the recruitment policy a “parable of broken Britain”.
“Lawyers on one side, unqualified learners on the other, and the taxpayer paying for both,” he said, arguing that officials making legal arguments and cross-examining appellants should possess expertise comparable with that of experienced solicitors and barristers.
The Home Office defended the approach, saying the job specification was standard across government departments. It said recruits received comprehensive training and underwent rigorous assessments, while stressing that independent judges — not presenting officers — ultimately decided appeals.
Yet the concerns predate the latest recruitment drive. A 2021 report by the chief inspector of borders and immigration called for the department to professionalise presenting officers, recommending better training, stronger professional standards and more manageable workloads.
Five years later, the backlog has nearly doubled and the department is still recruiting people without previous legal experience to defend its decisions.
The political argument over migration is unlikely to subside. But unless the Home Office can improve the quality of its decisions, strengthen its ability to defend them and reduce the mountain of outstanding appeals, ministers risk spending more public money on a system that continues to struggle to deliver credible, timely outcomes.
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