A National Audit Office report on the Home Office has set out numerous challenges faced by the department and warns of "significant funding pressures" in the current financial year.
The overview report from the public spending watchdog, which is intended as a primer for MPs on the work of the department, says the Home Office's approved net resource funding from parliament of £18.8bn for 2024-25 "is unlikely to be sufficient to meet in-year costs".
The NAO pointed to the Home Office's current approved budget of £2bn for asylum support and resettlement, which is £3.4bn less than the department spent in 2023-24. It noted that HM Treasury had agreed a £1.5bn funding boost for the Home Office as part of July's "main estimate".
Last year, the Home Office's Asylum Support, Resettlement and Accommodation Group spent £4.51bn more than it originally planned because of the department's use of hotels as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers.
Previous years have seen the department request additional funding for asylum support through the "supplementary estimates" process, although the Home Office could potentially receive a funding boost in next week's Budget if the new government takes a different approach.
The rocketing cost of asylum support was due to previous Conservative governments' policy of not processing new asylum applications from people deemed "inadmissible" under the terms of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA).
Since it assumed power, the new Labour government has scrapped the controversial "migration and economic development partnership" with Rwanda, which aimed to send some categories of asylum seeker sent to the east African nation for processing. Ministers have also pledged to start processing the asylum applications of those previously deemed "inadmissible" because of NABA.
Nevertheless, according to the NAO report, there were 85,839 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision as of June this year. Of those, 83,948 were "post-NABA" cases.
The costs associated with the termination of the Rwanda scheme are expected to be detailed in the Home Office's 2024-25 annual report and accounts. The NAO said that to date the department had paid a total of £290m directly to the government of Rwanda as part of the scheme. In July, Rwanda signalled that it was under no obligation to repay any of the funding it had received.
Elsewhere, the NAO said the Home Office's Public Safety Group had spent £1.1bn more in 2023-24 than it did the previous year. The 8% hike took spending to £14.5bn in 2023-24. Of that figure, some £9.2bn was the main police grant.
According to the NAO, the year-on-year increase was "in part due to additional police and fire pension costs" as well as "national policing priorities".
One of the new government's five "missions" is to halve levels of serious violence – including violence against women and girls – within a decade. Part of its strategy is to raise reporting levels by increasing public confidence in the poice.
The NAO said key stakeholders had "highlighted inherent challenges" with measuring progress for the mission because of some types of crime being "vastly underreported".
It pointed to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, in July, describing violence against women and girls in England and Wales as an "epidemic".
The NAO said the Crime Survey for England and Wales had estimated that in the year to March 2022, 2.3% of adults – 3.3% of women and 1.2% of men – were victims of sexual assault, equating to around 1.1 million adults.
It said that only a small proportion of those offences had been reported to and recorded by the police, citing a figure of around 189,000 being recorded in 2023-24.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly.
“We are dedicated to providing the best value for money for the British taxpayer and carefully review all spending.”