Outstanding immigration tribunal appeals up 20% to 31,000 – Free Movement

Quarterly tribunal statistics released today show that the overall immigration tribunal caseload is up 20% on last year to 31,000 outstanding appeals. Waiting times are high but stable, at an overall average of 43 weeks. The average for asylum appeals is a tad longer at 48 weeks. It was running at about half that prior to the pandemic.

The statistics are for July to September 2023 and there’s no sign yet of the increasing number of asylum refusals jamming up the system. But the number of decisions per month has been increasingly rapidly, so the current picture today in mid-December 2023 may already be rather different to that at the end of September 2023.

The Upper Tribunal is faring less well. The number of judicial review applications was up 3% but disposals down 23%, leading to a 47% increase in outstanding caseload to 1,400 cases. Not sure what’s going on with that but it doesn’t sound good.