Excessive delay in dealing with an application from a vulnerable asylum seeker

What happened

Miss P, who is from Rwanda, came to the UK in 2002 and claimed asylum as a dependent of her then partner. UKVI rejected her partner's claim, and she subsequently separated from him because of domestic abuse. In spring 2005 Miss P made an application on compassionate and human rights grounds. UKVI failed to record the correct category for her case, and did not identify that it should have been dealt with as part of a backlog of asylum cases. Instead it placed it in long term storage, and did not retrieve it until summer 2011 when Miss P's MP contacted UKVI.

UKVI did not then reach a decision until spring 2014. It acknowledged that it had mishandled Miss P's case and that she was vulnerable due to psychiatric problems.

It accepted that its delays could have had a negative effect on her wellbeing. Therefore, exceptionally, instead of giving her a fixed period of discretionary leave it granted her leave to settle in the UK.

What we found

We considered whether UKVI should have prioritised Miss P's case before 2011 because of her vulnerability but she did not bring this to UKVI's attention before then. Nonetheless, UKVI's delay in dealing with Miss P's case was excessive. Under its policy for dealing with its backlog of asylum cases, it should have reached a decision by summer 2011. Instead, Miss P faced a further delay of two years and eight months. After 2011, UKVI should have prioritised her case in line with its policy to help vulnerable applicants, and it failed to respond to her MP's requests for information.

It was likely that if UKVI had concluded Miss P's case in summer 2011, it would have granted her leave to settle in the UK at that stage. We considered that the long delay caused deterioration in her mental health.

Putting it right

UKVI agreed to apologise to Miss P and has paid her £1,000 compensation for the delay in deciding her application and the worsening of her mental health that this caused.