UK Edition
Asylum-seekers must be called “customers” instead of “cases” or “subjects”, the Home Office has told staff as part of its training sessions.
The virtual Face Behind the Case course was introduced by the department in the wake of the Windrush scandal and is mandatory for all UK Visas and Immigration employees.
Those taking part in the course are urged to avoid any further “reputational damage” to the department and told: “A human being sits behind every case file and reference number.”
Windrush became a national scandal in 2018 after ministers threatened to deport the descendants of Commonwealth citizens who arrived from the West Indies between 1948 and 1971 over a lack of official paperwork, despite them having worked in the UK for decades.
The training course, which was first reported by The Guardian and has been undertaken by almost 16,000 people in two years, includes a slide that reads: “Our competence, humanity and reputation have been called into question. Work is ongoing to rectify the mistakes that have been made.”
‘Recognise the human face’
Further guidance insists that prospective deportees should not be called “cases” or “subjects” under any circumstances, with immigration officials asked to take into account the “human face” of the asylum applicants they are dealing with.
“In some areas, such as enforcement, individuals may not be receiving or asking for a service as a customer, but we should still look at how we can recognise the human face of all people who come into contact with the Home Office. This might be as simple as referring to them by their name,” it says.
The Face Behind the Case module also includes a video featuring people from the Windrush generation speaking about their personal experiences with the Home Office.
It goes on to encourage “compassionate and pragmatic” decisions around asylum applications, inviting the officials taking part in the course to improve their empathy skills by imagining they were being forced to flee persecution in Britain to seek refuge in Iraq.
The existence of another new training course – which seeks to teach civil servants about Britain’s imperialist past – was also reported by The Guardian, which said officials declined a Freedom of Information request about its contents.
A Home Office spokesman said: “All UK Visas and Immigration case working staff are required to complete our Face Behind the Case training to ensure that we have a fair and compassionate immigration system.
“This means taking a more compassionate approach to case working, taking time to understand the individual’s circumstances in order to make more pragmatic decisions.”