Corporate report

Minutes of the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group: 16 March 2022 (accessible version)

Updated 4 March 2024

Date: 16 March 2022

Time: 09:30 – 11:00

Venue : Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, Westminster (dial in-options available)

Chair: Home Secretary Rt Hon Priti Patel MP and Bishop Derek Webley MBE DL

Secretary: Shakila Bukhari

Attendees: For a full list of attendees see Annex A

Copies to: Members of the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group

Apologies: For a full list of apologies see Annex A

Welcome and opening remarks

1. The Home Secretary and Bishop Webley opened the fifth meeting of the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group. In her opening remarks, the Home Secretary thanked everyone for all their incredible work and focus on implementing Wendy Williams’ recommendations. She also thanked everyone for working with Home Office teams to deliver on priority areas that matter to the community.

2. The Home Secretary was pleased that physical engagements have restarted. She expressed the need to learn from community groups and for members to share learning from the community voices they have heard from.

3. The Home Secretary also asked representatives from other government departments to share their feedback on the traction and impact of the Wendy Williams’ Review across government, noting the Review was not just a Home Office matter and the Group had committed to cross-government work.

4. Bishop Webley paid tribute to Bishop Joel Aldred who resigned from the Windrush Working Group in December last year. Bishop Webley expressed his appreciation for Bishop Aldred’s wise counsel and contributions to the Group. Bishop Webley also thanked officials for their hard work to move the agenda on Windrush forward. Bishop Webley also thanked officials and members of the WCGWG for all their hard work and support.

5. Bishop Webley informed members that he is awaiting the report from Wendy Williams, and looked forward to continuing to work with the Home Office in progressing matters.

6. The Home Secretary expressed her gratitude to both Bishop Webley and Bishop Aldred for their work and support.

Updates on Wendy Williams’ Lessons Learned Review

7. Windrush Programme Team – The Head of the Windrush Programme Team, Kate Ridley-Moy provided an update on the Windrush Programme. She reported that teams across the Home Office have been taking forward the recommendations from Wendy Williams’ Review. Wendy Williams returned to the department to conduct a progress review in October 2021 and was preparing to issue her findings at the end of March. Kate recognised that it has been a long journey for the department, with lots of work and commitment across teams. In our view 15 recommendations have been closed and good progress has been made in many more. The department is particularly proud of The ethical decision-making model and has appointed an Ethics Champion. The Law Commission is starting work to consolidate immigration legislation. Wendy Williams’ report will be published on 31 March, following which the department will continue to drive forward the remaining recommendations and the wider work to embed transformational cultural change in the department.

8. Kate also thanked Martin Levermore for his work as Independent Person and his recent report.

9. The Chair of Sub-group 1 - (Implementation of Wendy Williams’ Lessons Learned Review) Duwayne Brooks said he looked forward to receiving Wendy Williams’ report and was pleased with the work of the Windrush Lessons Learned programme.

Windrush Community Fund, Windrush Scheme and Windrush Compensation Scheme

10. The Chair of the Sub-group, Paulette Simpson, thanked the Group for its work and support. She thanked the Sub-group for its hard work on the Windrush Community Fund from design to delivery. She reported that funding has been awarded to 27 organisations in total across the UK, including Hull, Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham, Scotland and Wales and was not just London-centric. She informed members that Minister Foster had visited three projects to see what they were delivering and how it was making a difference to affected communities. Paulette also plans to visit projects with Martin Levermore (Independent Person). An evaluation of the benefits of the Community Fund will be produced next year. Paulette urged the Home Office to continue building long-term and stronger relationships with communities, and that the Community Fund should be a building block towards this. Paulette emphasised the need for the Home Office to continue building trust and this has been reiterated by the Community Fund groups.

11. Paulette mentioned the Windrush day Grant projects that have been awarded funding through the Department for Levelling Up Houses and Communities. She also reported that work is on track for the unveiling of the Windrush Monument, at Waterloo Station on Windrush Day this year.

12. The Home Secretary thanked Paulette for her update and expressed her interest in visiting some of the Community Fund projects with members of the Windrush Working Group. The Home Secretary added that she was concerned by the lack of documentation and would like to hear from communities who were affected to enable her to understand what more we could do to support Windrush communities. She added that the State can learn many lessons from Windrush and do better.

13. Bishop Webley agreed that the geographical spread was really important for community engagement. He was encouraged to see people who were seeking to engage come out into their communities and emphasised the need to celebrate the work and positive stories incrementally as well as at the end. Bishop Webley recognised that building trust in communities will allow mutual relationships to grow stronger in the future.

14. Angela Wilson, Head of Windrush External Engagement provided an update on three ministerial visits by Minister Foster. These included visits to Collage Arts based in London, Pilgrim Charitable Trust in Nottingham and Derby West Indian Association. All the visits were positive with good engagement and the Minister heard first-hand the experiences of members of the community, including one who had received a £10,000 Windrush Compensation claim payout through Community Fund work. More visits are planned and engagement with community groups has been positive.

15. Loanna Morrison observed that the success of government work on Windrush should be captured in a central repository and took an action to develop a podcast on Windrush communities. Members agreed with Ben Biddulph’s remarks that the media is not interested in publishing or promoting positive stories on Windrush. It has proven difficult to celebrate the successes across the mainstream media platforms. Members agreed to consider alternative ways to take ownership of the narrative and promote this collaboratively, which would be a good way to showcase the work and draw out key messages. Paulette reminded members of the power of Community Fund groups who can help share positive stories. Kunle observed that over 100 organisations had applied for the Windrush Community Fud which showed there were many groups to engage with. The Home Secretary agreed to continue engaging across community groups and explore continued engagement with Community Fund applicants.

Update from Independent Person, Martin Levermore

16. Martin Levermore observed that the compensation offered and paid was remarkable, particularly because in most cases, caseworkers were working remotely. He acknowledged that there were a lot of individuals who needed to feel reassured about progress of the Windrush Compensation Scheme. Martin fed-back on a visit to the West Midlands where he observed community engagement between the metro-mayor and faith and non-faith groups. He agreed with earlier discussions that it was a good idea to have a structured comms platform which representatives can lead on and take forward.

17. Bishop Webley thanked officials for their clarity, commitment and engagement which had been noted by members of the Windrush Working Group.

[The Home Secretary left to attend another meeting].

Update on Windrush Compensation Scheme

18. Gabi Monk shared an update on the Windrush Compensation Scheme including that 15,000 individuals have been issued with status and the Vulnerable Person’s Team have supported approximately 2000 people. There is no end date to the Windrush Compensation Scheme and the Home Office is dealing with claims more quickly now, acknowledging it takes time for people to find the information required to support a claim. The department is seeing high value claims in recent months, two extra teams have been recruited to speed up the casework and the Home Office would like to continue to improve.

19. Paulette thanked Gabi for her work and offered to share insights into local communities with her.

Updates from other government departments

20. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – Greg Quinn of FCDO reported that reported that Minister Ford had met Caribbean Heads of Mission on two occasions and that engagement and activities with them were notably positive across a range of issues, including Windrush. FCDO were committed to remaining active on the topic of Windrush, would continue to engage with Heads of Mission in London at all levels, and were looking at what could be done in the region going forward.

21. Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – Ben Greener reported that the Windrush Monument will be unveiled at Waterloo Station on 22 June. Its location will mean that it will be seen by millions of people. DLUHC has worked with the Windrush Committee on this. In the interests of time, Ben Greener invited questions on the Windrush Day Grant and thanked Paulette and Loanna for their work on the Day Grant. Ben expressed his support of the discussion on Communications.

22. Ministry of Defence – Sam de Forges provided an update on the Non-UK Service Action Plan which recognises that many people from non-UK and Commonwealth backgrounds will be carrying experiences of being part of the military that they may wish to share, which the MoD needs to listen to and learn from.

Closing remarks

23. Bishop Webley and the Second Permanent Secretary, Tricia Hayes closed the meeting and thanked everybody for their work and support.

Annex A: Attendees and Apologies

Stakeholder members:

• Duwayne Brooks (Managing Director, Active Community Engagement and Development)

• Loanna Morrison (Journalist and founder of London Apprenticeship Fair)

• Kunle Olulode (Director, Voice4Change England)

• Dr Tony Sewell (Chief Executive, Generating Genius; Chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities)

• Paulette Simpson (Executive Director, ‘The Voice’)

Martin Levermore (Independent Adviser to the Windrush Compensation Scheme)

Other government department representatives:

• Tom Foster (Deputy Director, Service Planning and Delivery, DWP)

• Ben Greener (Deputy Director, DLUHC)

• Samantha Des Forges (Director, HR, MOD)

• Jerome Glass (Director general Policy and Race Champion, MoJ)

• Greg Quinn (Deputy Head of Caribbean and SIDS Department and Head of Caribbean Team, FCDO)

Myles Stacey (No 10 Special Adviser)

Home Office representatives:

• Tricia Hayes (Second Permanent Secretary)

• Kate Ridley-Moy (Deputy Director, Windrush Lessons Learned Review Implementation Team)

• Ben Biddulph (Windrush Communications)

• Nigel Hills (Head of Windrush Compensation Scheme)

Angela Wilson (Secretariat, Home Office)

Shakila Bukhari (Secretariat, Home Office)

Harrison Worrell (Private Secretary to Home Secretary)

Annabel Green (Private Secretary to Tricia Hayes)

Apologies:

• Blondel Cluff (Chief Executive, West India Committee)

• Kirsty Watt (Deputy Director, Policy Design and Equalities, DfE)

Mimi Kojakovic (Secretariat, Cabinet Office)