- The Observer,
- Sunday November 30, 2003
A routine tracing exercise by the Audit Commission reveals that the claimants, who have no right to work in the UK, may find it surprisingly easy to get lost in the system, even while working for the state itself.
The study, to be published next spring, also reveals how reliant the public services may be on immigrants to carry out often poorly paid menial and unappealing jobs, particularly in inner cities. Those identified worked in auxiliary posts, such as hospital porters and cleaners.
'We are not talking about medical professionals, we are talking about ancillary workers. It's quite hard to get people to do these jobs,' said an Audit Commission source.
The staff - unmasked when Home Office data was compared with NHS staff lists in a routine exercise - are thought to have been recruited legally while their claims were being processed, and simply stayed on when their claims were rejected.
The disclosure follows last week's furious row over plans to strip benefits from families whose asylum claims have failed, leaving children destitute and at risk of being taken into care.
Last night, children's charities attacked plans to repatriate more unaccompanied child asylum seekers - under-18s arriving without their parents - to countries regarded as 'safe', including Kosovo and Albania, from next April. Such teenagers are almost always permitted to stay on welfare grounds.
However the Home Office insisted last night that it already removed unaccompanied children in some cases and would only do so if they could be returned to their families.
