The authorities will fail to fulfill its asylum backlog goal with no drastic improve within the processing of functions, a Sky News evaluation has discovered.

At current, there are greater than 136,000 asylum functions ready for an preliminary determination, together with 62,000 that have been made earlier than 28 June 2022 - the so-called "legacy backlog".

In December Rishi Sunak pledged to clear the legacy backlog by the tip of 2023. Since then, nevertheless, the Home Office has processed simply 936 such instances per week.

If the prime minister is to fulfill his goal of clearing all 62,000 remaining instances this 12 months, the Home Office might want to work greater than thrice as quick.

At present charges, there are set to be greater than 41,000 legacy backlog instances remaining by the tip of the 12 months.

Home Office figures launched at present present that the prime minister is struggling to make an affect in one other key space of asylum coverage: the usage of costly contingency lodging, resembling inns and B&Bs, to accommodate asylum seekers.

Mr Sunak pledged to finish the follow in December, which value the Home Office £2.3bn within the 12 months to March. However, new information exhibits the quantity being housed in inns has risen from 45,775 to 50,456.

That quantity is unlikely to be considerably impacted by at present's arrival of the first asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm, a barge bought by the federal government to cut back the variety of claimants staying in inns.

Fewer than 50 persons are set to board the vessel at present, which has a complete capability of 500. The authorities has mentioned it hopes the barge will attain full capability by the tip of the week.

Even if the barge is crammed, nevertheless, it'll solely have the ability to home about 1% of the 50,456 asylum seekers presently staying in inns.

As a consequence, the barge is unlikely to place a lot of a dent within the authorities’s £2.3bn invoice for contingency lodging.

That value has ballooned lately amid the rising asylum backlog and a continual scarcity of lodging.

There are greater than 136,000 asylum functions awaiting an preliminary determination, up from about 30,000 in 2019 and fewer than 6,000 in 2010.

Numbers have elevated sharply over the previous 12 months because of a surge in functions, together with from hundreds arriving by way of small boats.

Even earlier than the current improve, nevertheless, the Home Office was struggling to maintain up with the variety of individuals making use of.

Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher on the Migration Observatory, a analysis institute on the University of Oxford, instructed Sky News that Home Office caseworkers are struggling to course of claims effectively.

"It used to be that the average decision maker roughly five years ago was making about 100 decisions a year and that's now fallen to 25," he mentioned.

"Why? Well, the immigration inspector highlighted use of antiquated IT systems, and also low morale and a lack of training. People are going into the role without any experience of the asylum system.

"And employees turnover may be very excessive. That's an issue as a result of it takes anyplace between a 12 months and 18 months to develop into proficient within the function. But persons are really quitting earlier than that interval as a result of their morale is so low."

The fact that applications are coming in at a faster rate than they are being processed means that the backlog is growing - counteracting the government’s progress in dealing with legacy cases.

Not solely has the variety of selections not saved tempo with the variety of functions, however the authorities has additionally been struggling to take away these whose claims are rejected or withdrawn.

The variety of asylum seekers faraway from the UK fell by greater than half (54%) within the 5 years to 2019, earlier than halving once more in 2020 amid pandemic restrictions on air journey.

The variety of removals has since risen, however stays far under the place it was in earlier years.

"The challenge the government faces is getting countries to take back their citizens if they failed to get asylum in the UK," says Mr Walsh.

"It's not entirely clear why that is, but that absolutely is a problem. Countries were not taking people back and the UK doesn't have the kinds of agreements with countries that would enable them to return citizens to their countries of nationality. It's a really, really tough challenge the government faces."

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Rwanda plan will not dent the backlog

Another key plank of the federal government’s plan to cope with the backlog got here into pressure final month.

The authorities hopes to chop the backlog by eradicating asylum seekers to Rwanda earlier than they will lodge their claims within the UK, as a part of a deal signed with the African state in April 2022.

Legal challenges have prevented any asylum seekers from being despatched to Rwanda up to now, but when the scheme does get off the bottom the Rwandan authorities has indicated it might probably deal with as much as 200 functions per 12 months.

By comparability, the UK acquired greater than 75,000 asylum functions in 2022, together with 44,896 from individuals arriving in small boats.

Had the Rwanda settlement been up and operating final 12 months, it could have minimize the variety of small boat asylum claims processed within the UK by simply 0.4%.

That means the Rwanda plan is unlikely to have any vital impact on the asylum.

Similarly, the opening of the Bibby Stockholm is unlikely to have a lot of an impact on the usage of inns to accommodate asylum seekers.

In each instances, the federal government's hopes are more likely to relaxation not on their direct impact, however on their capacity to cut back the variety of individuals making use of by presenting the UK as a hostile setting for asylum seekers.

"Part of this is about messaging and the symbolic aspect of the policy," says Mr Walsh.

"Maybe it might have some deterrent effect. Of course, that's not clear yet. But in terms of just the raw numbers, 500 doesn't make a particularly big dent.

"So, if small boat arrivals proceed on the fee that they're at current, that lodging may in a short time be used up requiring the federal government to proceed to make use of inns, to proceed to speculate sources in retrofitting these disused army amenities and so forth and so forth.

"This is really just a sticking plaster in the grand scheme of things."

The Data and Forensics group is a multi-skilled unit devoted to offering clear journalism from Sky News. We collect, analyse and visualise information to inform data-driven tales. We mix conventional reporting abilities with superior evaluation of satellite tv for pc pictures, social media and different open supply data. Through multimedia storytelling we intention to raised clarify the world whereas additionally exhibiting how our journalism is completed.