This post provides a summary of the recent judgement about an age assessment completed by the NAAB. A full copy of the judgement can be found here and a further summary by the Standard can be found here
The claimant is a young person from Afghanistan who arrived in the UK in October 2021. Although he provided a date of birth that made him a child, he was deemed to be an adult by the Home Office and was given a DOB of 26th March 1996 and subsequently placed in adult accommodation in Croydon.
In March 2022, the claimant provided a copy of his Taskira that stated he was 9 years old in 2014 and, with support from his solicitor, this documentary evidence was sent to the Home Office and he was referred to the London Borough of Croydon (LBC) for services as an unaccompanied minor. LBC completed a short form age assessment in June 2022 which concluded that the claimant was 25 years or older, a decision that was challenged through the judicial review process.
On 2nd February 2023, the London Borough of Croydon asked the NAAB (National Age Assessment Board) pilot team, a team of qualified social workers employed within the Home Office Asylum, Support and Re-settlement Team, to complete the age assessment. The NAAB, upon completion of their age assessment, concluded that the claimant was 21 years of age.
The main purpose of the hearing was to consider the probable age and date of birth of the claimant. To achieve this, the Tribunal had to consider;
The Judge’s final decision highlight three main points;
The Judge overall concluded that claimant to be 16 years of age when he arrived in the UK in October 2021 and 18 years of age at the date of the hearing.
There is some very clear learning in respect of this ruling and we have broken these down into 9 learning points –
The judge highlighted that the NAAB age assessment was reliant on sources which were out of date and inaccurate. For example, they relied on an information note from the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board from July 1998, which is both out of date and has been established as factually incorrect.
They also relied upon research from what we could consider to be wholly unreliable sources such as Gillette and Forbes.com. The Judge highlighted these references to be ‘dubious articles’ and was critical that they were used to undermine the claimant’s credibility. In using these types of resources, the judge was highly critical and stated that this practice undermined the whole assessment.
Learning: Consider the evidence you are using – our assessments should be based upon peer reviewed research and responsible sources. Think about who commissioned it and why? Has it been fact checked? Is it biased? Is it still accurate? Can you cross reference it with other sources? Was it published in the last decade?
The Judge overall approached the assessment with a significant degree of caution, as they deemed it reliant upon observations made about appearance, behaviour, and demeanour (with a substantial reliance on physical appearance) which are both subjective and unreliable.
Learning: Our full Merton age assessments should not be placing significant weighting upon subjective evidence such as physical appearance, demeanour, and behaviour. This can inform our evidence base but should not be the primary reasons our decision making.
The Judge highlights that on several occasions, the report states that the claimant failed to provide details (such as the name of his favourite cricketer), but when the notes were reviewed this was not correct, and that the claimant had provided this information previously.
Learning: Preparation for age assessments is key. Look at the information you have already and use this to inform your assessments. When you are writing up your assessment, cross reference your notes, utilise the second assessors notes so you can ensure your report is accurate. We strongly recommend that social workers audio record their age assessments for a variety of reasons, one of which is to ensure that the information included in the report is accurate.
Within their report, the authors completed background research on events within Afghanistan, and drew negative conclusions on the claimants age when cross referencing this information. However, the Judge found they used ‘guesswork and speculation’, as their research was not based upon the evidence provided by the claimant.
Learning: Completing research to cross reference events in a timeline is both appropriate and supports the age assessment process, however social workers need to exercise caution that they are not sourcing information that suits their narrative and to ensure they are not making assumptions.
The report stated that the authors had considered trauma and the impact this would have on the claimant however the Judge concluded that their report makes comments which are at best ‘misguided and at worse not in line with their own guidance’.
The report makes comments such as “anxiety about the age assessment should not be so acute” and “it is fairly easy to remember the truth“. They ultimately conclude that the claimant’s difficulties remembering matters linked with traumatic events is ‘avoidant behaviour’ and advise that “traumatic memories attach more weight and his memory should be better“.
Learning: Trauma impacts upon individuals in a variety of different ways including memory recollection and we must consider this. We don’t necessarily have to draw the conclusion that trauma is impacting upon memory recollection but within our analysis, we must evidence it has been considered and why we have concluded otherwise.
Whilst not specific to this age assessment report, the Judge asked the claimant about several matters which he did not discuss or disclose. However, it appears that the client was never asked about them and so the claimant did not talk about them.
Learning: If you don’t ask a question, you can’t assume the client will tell you of their own volition. If we identify a ‘gap’ in information, we need to ask the question to ensure we are procedurally fair. Similarly, if we want client to bring information to the appointments such as copies of their documents, we need to let them know in advance.
The assessors view was that the claimant lacked of credibility on the grounds that he failed to provide his documentation to immigration officials when he arrived in the UK or within the hotel when he arrived. However, the Judge concluded that he had limited opportunity to do so despite several attempts.
Learning: We know that people’s experiences as they arrive in the UK and at hotels is different to the type of care and support they would receive through children’s services. We cannot make assumptions that clients will have been offered the same standard of care or support and therefore, may not have been able to let professionals know key details until a later date. We cannot assume that clients have withheld information unless we have clear evidence to support this claim.
The assessing social workers questioned whether the Taskira document was authentic and reliable and argued that it was possibly forged or did not belong to the claimant. They also argue that if it was the claimants, his statement concerning how he got it was unreliable and therefore, casted doubt on his credibility. They also argued that as the Taskira does not provide a clear DOB it is unreliable due to the method of issuing these types of documents in Afghanistan.
Learning: Unless you have very clear evidence to dispute a document, our advice would be to weight a document accordingly. Where possible we would always recommend that the document is assessed by a suitably trained expert.
Similarly, if the client provides a plausible and reasonable explanation as to why they do not have a ‘hard copy’ of the document but have an electronic version, then we should not automatically be drawing negative conclusion based upon this. There are very good experts that can authenticate photographs and we would again recommend using these where possible.
Both the claimant’s social worker and the foster carer provided evidence to support the claimants age (although it is unclear if the foster carer was consulted at the time of the assessment). His social worker concluded that the claimant to be his assessed age, however the report was unclear what weighting had been afforded to this professional view.
The local authority argued that the foster carers professional conclusion should be disregarded as they do not have experience in completing age assessments, is not trained, could not communicate in Pashto and acknowledged individuals can have a variety of interests at different ages. The Judge disputed this assertion.
Learning: Professionals who work with clients will have valuable and useful feedback that we will not gain from the artificial setting of an age assessment. It should not be automatically disregarded unless we can provide a good rationale for this.
For more information about our training courses (where we actively discourage social workers from using Gillette as a reference tool 😉) please visit our dedicated pages here or get in touch here
Author: Sarah Edwards
Practice Lead
Immigration Social Work Services Ltd
