The Home Office has failed to compensate victims of the Windrush scandal quickly enough, a critical National Audit Office (NAO) investigation into the compensation scheme has found. The NAO investigation attempts to explain why only 633 people have received payments, out of an original government estimate of 15,000 potential applicants, two years after the scheme’s launch in March 2019. The Home Office has struggled to encourage the expected number of applicants to come forward, the report finds. The scheme was designed to compensate claimants quickly, to “build trust and confidence in the Home Office” and to deliver a “compassionate, engaging and transparent scheme”, according to internal mission statements. But some potential applicants have described feeling nervous of a scheme that requires them to submit personal details to the same department which was originally responsible for classifying them as immigration offenders. Following an awareness-raising media campaign, the Home Office conducted a survey which revealed 12% of respondents believed that the scheme was set up to send people who are in the UK illegally back to their country of origin, the NAO report notes. News coverage of Home Office deportation flights in 2020 intensified concerns, and some respondents told Home Office researchers that they would not apply for the scheme because they were worried it was “a way to ‘round [people] up’”. The Home Office has consistently employed fewer caseworkers than planned. It originally stated it needed 200 full-time equivalent caseworkers from the outset, but the scheme was launched with just six full-time equivalent caseworkers in post. Later the proposed headcount was reduced to 125 full-time employees, but in March 2021 only 53 people were working on the scheme, according to the NAO. The Home Office had spent significantly less on running the scheme than expected, spending only £8.1m of the £15.8m budget allocated between April 2019 and March 2021, the report notes. The process of making decisions on cases is taking much longer than anticipated – about 154 staff hours, rather than the estimated 30. However, a Home Office spokesperson said staff numbers and spending had been reduced because there was less work to be done as a result of the lower-than-expected application numbers, adding that delays were not the result of understaffing but the consequence of the complexity of individual cases and a desire by officials to ensure that maximum payments were made. The scheme, which was designed to financially compensate members of the Windrush generation and their families for the losses suffered due to being misclassified as immigration offenders, was rebooted in December, following widespread criticism. Preliminary payments of £10,000 to everyone eligible were introduced, the level of documentary proof required was reduced and some payment categories were made more generous; the pace of payments has subsequently improved. Home Office data shows that 21 people have died while waiting for Windrush compensation claims to be paid, and more than 500 applicants have waited more than a year for a decision. Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “The Windrush compensation scheme was rolled out before it was ready to receive applications, and two years after it was launched people are still facing long waits to receive their final compensation payment. Since December 2020, the Home Office has made some progress, but it needs to sustain its efforts to improve the scheme to ensure it fairly compensates members of the Windrush generation in acknowledgement of the suffering it has caused them.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary overhauled the compensation in December, and we are now seeing the positive impact of those changes. The scheme has offered more than £26m, of which more than £14m has been paid. We know there is more to do and will continue to work hard to ensure payments are made faster and the awards offered are greater.” Since the NAO investigation concluded, five additional caseworkers have begun their training and the department is in the process of recruiting a further 20 caseworkers, an official said. Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the home affairs select committee, said: “Three years after the Windrush scandal it is completely unacceptable that the vast majority of those affected still haven’t received a penny in compensation.”