Summary of Section 4 monitoring: 1st May 2017 – 30th April 2018 1. General information 147 applications are included in this monitoring update. 1.1 Applications by agency Agency Applications submitted BRC 43 GCP 32 SRC 72 Total 147 1.2 Application criteria The majority of applications were made on the basis of criteria ‘e’ (to avoid a human rights breach), when the applicant had recently made further submissions. No applications were made on the basis of criteria ‘c’ (no viable route of return).1 See Section 2.1 for a breakdown of application waiting times by criteria. S4 criteria Number of applications Figure as % a 3 2% b 6 4% d 13 9% e 124 84% 1 1% 147 100% Unknown Total 1.3 Application outcomes 1 This criteria only applies when the Home Secretary has stated there is no viable route of return to a country and, to the best of my knowledge, no such statements have been made. 1 The majority of applications included in the monitoring have received decisions (aprox.78%). Application outcome Figure as % Count Positive 76 51.7% Pending 32 21.8% Negative 39 26.5% 147 100.0% Total 1.4 Appeal outcomes 28 of the 39 negative decisions were appealed and had positive outcomes in at least 21 cases. Appeal outcomes Number Allowed 10 Refused 5 Remitted 1 Unknown 2 Withdrawn 10 Total 28 For those cases that were allowed, remitted or withdrawn by the HO, this process resulted in an additional 17 days of destitution for applicants. 1.5 Requests for further information Of the 115 cases that had received decisions at the end of the monitoring period, 45% received at least one further information request. Number of RFIs Number of applications 0 63 1 34 2 11 3 5 4 2 2 Total 115 2. Application decision timescales Based on the 115 applications that had received decisions by the 30 th April 2018, the average waiting time between making a Section 4 application and receiving a decision was 37 days. This has increased by 5 days since March 2018. It should be noted that there are four outliers 2 in the data set which, while still providing an important insight into substantial period of time some people have to wait to access Section 4, are skewing the data. The median3 decision waiting time is 26 days and the mode4 is 22 days. This difference between the mean, median and mode means the data is likely to be positively skewed. Data is positively skewed when a large number of observations fall into lower value brackets, as can be observed in the chart below: Number of applications S4 decision waiting times 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 41 34 17 9 8 1 0-20 21-40 41-60 2 1 1 61-80 81-100 101-120121-140141-160161-180 Waiting time (days) It is worth noting that only 7 cases (6% of the 115 cases with decisions) received decisions with the maximum timescale set by the Home Office (5 days). There are several factors that appear to correlate with longer decision waiting times, which are discussed in the following subsections. 2.1 Section 4 application criteria and waiting times 2 An observation that lies far from the other values in a dataset. 3 The middle number in a dataset 4 The number that appears most frequently in a dataset 3 The chart below shows average decision times by application criteria. As may be expected given the level of evidence required, applications submitted under criteria ‘b’ (medical impediment to travel) have the longest average waiting period. Average waiting times by S4 criteria 90 77 80 Frequency 70 60 50 41 40 30 35 28 20 9 10 0 a b d e Unknown S4 criteria 2.2 RFIs and waiting times Again as would be expected, application waiting times increase the more RFIs an applicant receives Waiting time (days) Average waiting times by no. RFIs received 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 85 87 3 4 71 46 22 0 1 2 Number of RFIs 4 2.3 Application submission method and waiting times Applications submitted by phone to Migrant Help have longer waiting times than those emailed directly to AS correspondence. The average waiting time for an application submitted via is AS correspondence is 24 days. The chart below shows the distribution of applications submitted in this way. There are three outliers in this data set (waiting times that exceed 67 days). Waiting time: AS Correspondence Number of applications 40 36 35 30 25 18 20 15 9 10 3 5 1 0 0-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 81-100 Waiting time (days) The average waiting time for an application phoned to Asylum Helpline is 57 days. The chart below shows the distribution of applications submitted in this way. There is one outlier in this data set (an application that took 176 days to receive a decision). 5 Number of applications Waiting time: Asylum Helpline 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 16 8 6 5 7 1 0-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 2 1 1 81-100 101-120 121-140 141-160 161-180 Waiting time (days) 2.4 Pending applications 32 applications were pending at the end of the monitoring period. As of the 30th April 2018, those applications had been waiting an average of 53 days for a decision. This potentially reflects the substantial delays in asylum support decision making after the Home Office introduced a new data management system (ATLAS) in March 2018. 3. Caseworker time Caseworker time calculations are based on data gathered at British Red Cross and Scottish Refugee Council. Section 4 applications at Govan Community Project are generally completed by volunteers and there is not capacity to collect this information. For each client, caseworkers spent on average: 1 hour 30 minutes assisting them to gather evidence for and submit a Section 4 application. When applicable, 1 hour 15 minutes assisting them to respond to RFIs or chase up applications. When applicable, 2 hours assisting them to prepare for appeals. 6