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'Too little progress' in removing foreign criminals, says NAO

Ministers have made little progress in removing thousands of foreign criminals from the UK, despite up to £1bn spent over the past year and a tenfold increase in staffing, the spending watchdog says.

In a report published on Wednesday, the National Audit Office said government efforts to identify and oust "foreign national offenders" had been too slow, given increased resources and tougher powers now available.

The watchdog added that the situation had remained "broadly unchanged" since 2006, when former Labour home secretary Charles Clarke resigned over the revelation that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been freed without being considered for deportation.

According to the report, there were 12,500 foreign national offenders in the country at the end of March, either in prison or living in the community pending removal from the country. The total number of foreign prisoners in the UK has risen 4 per cent since 2006 and the number of removals has fallen 9 per cent this year compared with its peak in 2008-09.

The risk posed by former criminals living in the UK has been under renewed scrutiny after the murder of schoolgirl Alice Gross. The prime suspect in the case was Arnis Zalkalns, found dead this month, who had served seven years for murder in his native Latvia.

The audit office report identified a number of failures, such as the fact that the UK has opted out of a key database meaning it has less information than European allies.

Britain is one of only four countries in the European Economic Area that has chosen not to connect to the Schengen Information System, which sends out warnings. The UK plans to join the system in December.

The watchdog found that even when police and civil servants do have access to international databases, they fail to conduct overseas criminal record checks on more than two-thirds of arrested foreign nationals.

The NAO estimates that £70m could be saved each year if all early identification opportunities were acted upon.

There are also problems with the tracking of identified former criminals. According to the audit office, 760 of 4,200 - or nearly one in six - overseas offenders have absconded, including 58 highly dangerous individuals who have been missing since 2010.

The watchdog said the government had done "relatively little" to tackle the problems of foreign criminals entering the UK before the National Security Council identified problems and urged better cross-government working last year. Ministers at the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Foreign and Commonwealth Office have now developed an action plan to improve their response.

Amyas Morse, head of the audit office, said while it was "no easy matter to manage foreign national offenders . . . too little progress" had been made.

"The government's focus on preventive measures and early action is promising, but it has only just started to exploit these options," Mr Morse said.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the House of Commons' public accounts committee, said performance so far had been "frustratingly poor".

"It beggars belief that the Home Office and Ministry of Justice are managing the removal of foreign national offenders without knowing basic costs and how best to target their resources," she said.

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Twitter: @helenwarrell

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