The Home Office has been found to have failed to monitor contracts given to private companies to provide accommodation to asylum seekers, which has led to lengthy and systematic delays in the provision of accommodation to destitute and disabled people. In a judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Robin Knowles found that despite the importance of the system, the Home Office systematically failed to monitor the contracts, ignored the evidence from NGOs that the contracts were failing and allowed vulnerable people to be left without accommodation or with unsuitable accommodation for prolonged periods of time. This gave rise to findings of systemic unlawfulness, disability discrimination and a breach of the public sector equality duty.
Zoe Leventhal was instructed by Deighton Pierce Glynn for the Claimant AA in this case (with Ben Amunwa from 36 Group).
Please see here for the judgment.