Why the Home Office is ‘dysfunctional’ - Sacked immigration chief speaks out
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Neal was sacked last month from his job as Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration for leaking details of critical reports which ministers had not published. In his first broadcast interview since then he tells Amol and Nick why he thinks the Home Office is dysfunctional and in need of urgent reform.
He adds that since his dismissal there is now no one in place to monitor how ministers implement the Rwanda plan, if it goes ahead.
Regular episodes of The Today Podcast land every Thursday and watch out for bonus episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
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The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producers are Hazel Morgan and Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Matt Hewitt. Digital production from Elliot Ryder.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Nick and I have just had a riveting and revelatory chat with someone called David Neal. |
| 0:11.9 | He is a long-time military man who has now left his job in the home office because he was |
| 0:18.1 | sacked. |
| 0:18.5 | He was the chief inspector of borders and immigration. |
| 0:21.9 | And goodness to me, he had a lot to say, didn't he? |
| 0:23.8 | He certainly did, and they won't enjoy listening to it in the home office. |
| 0:28.3 | It's got a lack of grip. |
| 0:29.4 | It's got poor leadership. |
| 0:30.4 | It's got a culture of defensiveness. |
| 0:32.0 | It's got a reluctant to engage. |
| 0:33.6 | It sacrifices quality for speed. |
| 0:40.5 | And, and, and you will hear. |
| 0:47.3 | He just doesn't believe that the people who are in charge of our borders, of our immigration system, understand delivery. |
| 0:50.5 | This isn't an argument about whether this policy or that policy is right or wrong, |
| 0:57.2 | whether you're hard on immigration or you think people are too hard. This is a guy who gets things |
| 1:03.1 | done saying we're not very good at getting it done inside the home office. We were going to sit on |
| 1:10.2 | this until Thursday when our episodes usually land, |
| 1:12.9 | but it is frankly such a good listen that we didn't think we could sit on it until then. |
| 1:16.8 | Let's do it. |
| 1:31.4 | It's Nick in the Today Podcast studio. |
| 1:33.2 | And alongside him, it's a mole here. |
... |
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