House of Commons Papers

In response to a Government request made in April 2004, this NAO report i) considers the data reliability of the quarterly asylum statistics released by the Home Office, ii) assesses whether the compilation process used meets Office for National Statistics guidelines and standards; iii) examines whether recent changes in the number of asylum applications has had any significant impact on other forms of migration; and iv) makes recommendations for addressing any problems identified by the audit. Key findings reached include that the asylum data and statistics are in most respects reliable, including the Home Office reporting that the number of asylum applications halved between October 2002 and September 2003. However, there are several weaknesses in the compilation process and in their presentation, some of which impact on other items in the published statistics. There is no clear statistical evidence that the reduction in the number of asylum applications has had any significant impact on other forms of migration.