ICAI follow-up: UK aid to refugees in the UK - A summary

In-donor refugee costs continued rising in absolute terms in 2023, to £4.3 billion or 28% of all UK ODA, despite value for money risks and a lack of connection to the UK’s international development objectives 1.3 ICAI’s review of UK aid to refugees in the UK found that the system of managing the aid spending target means that the Home Office and other departments incur costs but FCDO in effect has. [...] There is no limit to the ODA costs it incurs for the accommodation of asylum seekers, and the effect of this spend is not felt elsewhere in the Home Office, but by FCDO as “spender and saver of last resort”, severely affecting the latter’s ability to plan and execute its international development programme. [...] 1.4 Despite the absence of reference to the use of aid to pay for the costs of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK in the 2022 International Development Strategy, this had become the largest category (‘bilateral sector’) of ODA. [...] 1.29 ICAI shares with the DAC, the body which makes the rules about the use of aid, the concern that the reporting of significant amounts of in-donor refugee costs risks undermining the integrity of the concept of ODA. [...] 1.44 Resourcing of the commercial team: ICAI’s original review found that the commercial team managing the AASC contracts was under-resourced and that the contract management skills and qualifications of the team were not equal to the value and complexity of the contracts.