Backlog of asylum claims doubles

The backlog of asylum cases has more than doubled to 8,700 in the past 12 months a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the Home Office has says. It also argued that the Home Office has failed to deliver an increase in removals of failed asylum seekers, with fewer than one in 10 of those refused asylum being removed. The NAO says the new asylum model where a single immigration officer manages an application from start to finish has led to claims being settled more quickly, however, the backlog of new cases threatened to undermine efforts to clear an existing bank of more than 200,000 cases, with some cases dating back more than 10 years.