News from the New Party

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Think of a number

Another week, another scandal at the Home Office. This time it's the decision to suppress the information that five thousand (eight thousand? eight million?) illegal immigrants have been cleared to work in security. The essential facts have been known since July, but the information has only been prised out of the government this week. The clear implication is that the figures were covered up in order to avoid embarrassing publicity for the government - which at the time was, as we all now know, gearing up for an early general election which it later decided not to risk.

These scandals are nothing new, of course. This isn't even the first one of its kind for Jacqui Smith, in her short tenure at the Home Office. A couple of weeks ago the question was over the number of migrant workers in the British economy, which it eventually transpired after much to-ing and fro-ing, the government had underestimated by some 700,000. Whether or not this is the true figure is anybody's guess. The evident incompetence of the Home Office has been demonstrated so thoroughly that the only certainty is that nobody knows how many migrant workers there are, or how many illegal immigrants have been cleared to work in airport security, or how many foreign prisoners have not been deported on release (remember this golden oldie from Dr John Reid?). Think of a number - then double it: your guess is as good as the Home Secretary's.

On the face of it the situation at the Home Office does not seem to have been improved by hiving off half of the department into Jack Straw's new empire at Justice. So what can be done? Is a ministerial resignation called for in the current circumstances? We have argued previously that ministerial changes are unlikely to bring about the wholesale reform of the Home Office that is so desperately needed. Daniel Finkelstein argues differently today, and he may have a point:

The problem is not, as admitted by the Government, that 5,000 of these staff are illegal immigrants. Or that such people have been guarding airports, Scotland Yard and the Prime Minister's car. No, the problem is that if 5,000 illegal immigrants have been adjudged “fit and proper” people, it suggests we don't really know anything about any of those that have been cleared. It calls into question the whole system.

Bad. But worse is that when the Home Secretary and her ministers discovered the problem, they elected not to tell anyone. This was a deliberate strategy, the press office having concluded (imagine the meetings and then the moment of inspiration) that “it would not be presented as a positive story by the media”. It seems almost certain that, if Gordon Brown had called an autumn election, the Home Secretary would have sought to conceal the story throughout the campaign.

So my side of the argument is this: if not actually a resignation issue, this comes close. The failure is catastrophic, the decision to conceal it an outrage. It ought to shake the careers of everyone involved...

How can you police the competence of a chronically incompetent organisation where the probability of discovery of any single error is very low? Answer: make the consequence of discovery very high. That way you provide the correct incentive to staff and ministers to be competent. They will multiply the probability by the consequence - knowing that it is unlikely that their mistakes will be unearthed, but that if they are unearthed they cannot expect the press and public to be all sweet reason...

In a rare, rare moment we have caught a glimpse of what really goes on in the Home Office. We have discovered that they gave government security clearance to illegal immigrants, let them guard the Prime Minister and then covered up the story. Imagine the lesson learnt by politicians and the Civil Service if even a scandal like this, upon reaching the newspapers, turns out to have little or no consequence.

It certainly does seem to be the case that the culture of incompetence - one might even say the culture of scandal - at the Home Office seems now to have become an accepted part of the political landscape in this country. If so, then this is an intolerable state of affairs. It needs to be made clear not just to ministers, but also to senior staff at the Home Office, that heads will roll if improvements do not materialise. And the deliberate suppression of inconvenient information for electoral purposes ought to be a resignation issue - although we do not for a minute suppose that Jacqui Smith or even Gordon Brown will take the same view. An enthusiasm for public accountability is hardly an abiding characteristic of the current administration. In the circumstances, improvements in the performance of the Home Office could still be some way off.

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