THE UK Home Office has failed to respond to an instruction from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to consider a request from The National for an internal review into its refusal to answer a freedom of information (FOI) request concerning “human error” rejections in asylum seeker cases.
At the beginning of March we asked how many asylum seekers had been removed from the UK after instructions were issued through “human error” and the outcomes of their cases.
It came after we revealed that Isabella Katjiparatijivi, an asylum seeker from Namibia, had been wrongly held at Dungavel and that the order for her removal – which the Home Office initially denied even existed – had been issued through human error.
READ MORE: The Home Office must respond to our freedom of information request
What irritated us was that the department accused The National of getting the story wrong, despite that fact that we had seen the removal order and were able to quote the date, flight number and airport that the Home Office planned to send the 29-year-old on.
Caroline Nokes, the Immigration Minister, told Katjiparatijivi’s MP Chris Stephens that an internal review had been started after the error came to light and that “revised guidance and training is being provided to all officers who authorise the serving of removal directions”.
The Home Office then refused our FOI request, claiming it would exceed the cost limit of £600, because its systems “cannot identify cases where there has been alleged ‘human error’”.
READ MORE: The National wins praise for reports on Home Office's 'incompetence'
We challenged that and on April 1, we sought an internal review of the refusal. When the Home Office did not acknowledge our challenge, we contacted the ICO, which wrote to the Home Office giving them 10 days to respond.
That deadline also passed, which took us back to the ICO, which said in response: “We note that the public authority has not responded with an internal review within the 10-day deadline, as directed by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
“Your complaint has therefore been accepted as eligible for further consideration and will be allocated to a case officer as soon as possible.”
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