LONDON - The Home Office is “outdated and far too reliant on other departments” for support, a Whitehall figure has claimed amid mounting pressure on Priti Patel to stem deadly Channel migrant crossings.
In comments reported by PoliticsHome, the civil service source described Home Office leadership as “outdated” and the department as “completely incompetent”, adding that their view was so widespread in Whitehall that “it’s not even an open secret”.
Patel, who is “ineffective and unpopular”, is still in place only because of personal support from Boris Johnson, they continued, adding: “Under their watch, so much fails.”
The blistering attack on the department is not the first of its kind. The Guardian reported in May that the Home Office “strains to be seen as competent and tough”, but repeatedly “struggles to show evidence that its policies are working”.
So is the Home Office really broken – or are its critics getting it wrong?
Troubled history
Despite being one of the four “great offices of state”, the Home Office has a long history of internal criticism. In 2006, the then Labour home secretary John Reid declared that it was “not fit for purpose” following a scandal relating to foreign prisoners.
While Reid later told the BBC that the quote was actually spoken by a senior civil servant, it came as his department was being roundly criticised after it was “revealed that 85 serious foreign offenders, released from prison without being considered for deportation since 1999, were still on the run”, The Guardian reported at the time.
Amid what the paper termed a “tidal wave” of crises, Reid submitted a written answer ahead of an appearance in the House of Commons that read: “Our system is not fit for purpose. It is inadequate in terms of its scope, it is inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes.”
According to the Daily Mail, Patel has this month privately repeated Reid’s criticism of the department, also describing it “not fit for purpose” while considering writing to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to “lambast” its “failure to get a grip of the migrant boat crisis”.
In response, one Home Office figure told the paper that “she hates us and we all hate her”. Another added: “What’s become abundantly clear is that she is out for herself and only interested in how this plays out publicly.
“If we actually worked collaboratively, then we could get things done,” they said. “But instead we just have cloud cuckoo land public statements from the home secretary and we all look and think: ‘Well, that won’t work’.”
The current dispute within the department has been triggered by a record number of deaths among migrants attempting to cross the Channel from France to England.
Despite strong rhetoric from both Boris Johnson and his ally Patel, migrants have warned that they will not be dissuaded from attempting the dangerous crossings.
However, the department has repeatedly courted controversy in recent years, most prominently after the Windrush scandal, which claimed the scalp of former home secretary Amber Rudd and was a result of the so-called “hostile environment” overseen by Theresa May.
Allegations of “institutional racism” followed, with the Windrush Lessons Learned Review prompting Patel to tell the Commons: “There is nothing I can say today that will undo the suffering… On behalf of this and successive governments I am truly sorry.”
Speaking to The Guardian, one former Home Office official said that a major problem with the department is its focus on immigration, describing “a constant battle against the numbers” of people coming in and out of the country each year.
With immigration back on the agenda due to the spate of Channel crossings, that does not look likely to change anytime soon.
“New leadership might help. Reform might help,” The New Statesman’s Elledge said.
But as another scandal hangs over the department, “it’s hard” to avoid the conclusion “that anything less than a completely new institutional culture will be enough”.
