35. The human cost of the Home Office's creaking systems was laid bare by the Windrush scandal; members of the Windrush generation lost jobs, benefits and access to health care.46 We found systemic problems within the Department including a failure to protect the legal rights of the Windrush generation and poor-quality systems and data.47 The Home Office accepted that it should have understood the potential adverse effect of its policies on the Windrush generation.48
36. I am not alone in raising concerns about the Home Office's systems and data, it is an issue that has been raised time and time again, including by the Committee in 2014.49 The Department's quality assurance systems are process-focused, looking at speed and volumes and not the complexity or impact of its decisions.50 The Home Office must ensure that EU citizens do not face the same issues as the Windrush generation upon the UK leaving the EU.51
37. The Home Office's efforts to modernise its Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is an example of its failures contracting with external providers. We found inadequate oversight and that the programme has still not yet been fully delivered, seven years after it started in 2012. The DBS must now contend with disputes with the previous suppliers and we were concerned by the Home Office's overly optimistic timetable to appoint a new contractor.52
38. The Emergency Services Network (ESN) programme is one the Committee knows well, for all the wrong reasons. It is the new communications system that will allow emergency services to communicate with each other, replacing the ageing Airwave system. The Home Office 'reset' the programme in 2018. Switching off Airwave is now expected to be delayed by at least three years and the forecast cost of ESN has increased by £3.1 billion.53 In revisiting ESN for the eighth time in May 2019 we heard little to reassure us that users will be confident to switch over from Airwave when the time comes.54 This saga is an example of over optimism.
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46 Committee of Public Accounts, Windrush generation and the Home Office, Eighty-Second Report of Session 2017-19, HC 1518, 27 February 2019, conclusion 1, p 5
47 Ibid, p 8, p 9, p 10
48 Ibid, para 6, p 9
49 Ibid, para 8, p 10
50 Ibid, para 9, p 11
51 Ibid, conclusion 1, p 5
52 Committee of Public Accounts, Disclosure and Barring Service: progress review, Ninety-Third Report of Session 2017-19, HC 2006, 24 April 2019, p 3 and conclusion 1, p 5
53 Comptroller and Auditor General, Progress delivering the Emergency Services Network, Session 2017-19, HC 2140, 7 May 2019, p 4 and p 7
54 Committee of Public Accounts, Oral evidence: Emergency Services Network: progress review, HC 1755, 22 May 2019, Qq 169, 170, 171