A Home Office unit established to verify the ages of young asylum seekers is at the centre of a fierce row after evidence emerged that its flawed assessments have wrongly placed hundreds of children in adult settings, with some ending up in prison and suffering severe psychological harm.
The National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), launched in March 2023 under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, employs more than 50 social workers. However, a coalition of over 100 refugee support organisations has published a report demanding it be scrapped, claiming its methods are traumatic and putting vulnerable young people in danger.
Children subjected to the process have described it as “interrogatory, hostile and terrifying,” with some saying they feel the assessors are “out to get them.” The report, titled “Lost Childhoods: The consequences of flawed age assessments at the UK border” by the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, finds the experience is “far more severe and traumatic” than assessments by local authority social workers and has led to deteriorating mental health, including incidents of self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Scale of Misclassification and Immediate Risks
The consequences of being wrongly assessed as an adult are severe. Young people are placed in adult accommodation alongside unrelated individuals, increasing risks of abuse and exploitation. Some have been charged with offences relating to their journey to the UK, such as steering a dinghy, and detained in adult prisons. The consortium cites the case of one child who was 15 on arrival but was assessed by the Home Office to be 22; criminal charges were only dropped last year after his true age was confirmed.
Data reveals a systemic problem. In the first half of 2024 alone, 63 local authorities received 603 referrals concerning young people wrongly placed in adult settings due to age assessments, with 262 subsequently found to be children. Freedom of information figures show that between January 2022 and June 2023, over 1,300 children were wrongly assessed as adults by the Home Office, with many later confirmed as children after detailed assessments by local authorities.
Flawed Methods and Lack of Objectivity
Judges have found the NAAB assessment process to be flawed, criticising it as adversarial, inconsistent with current guidance and lacking objectivity. In one case, the Home Office conceded a judicial review, accepting a 17-year-old was a child despite having treated him as a 23-year-old adult for over four months; the judge found the NAAB assessment unreliable.
The report raises concerns that “political discourse may influence professional judgment,” undermining impartiality. It criticises the reliance on visual assessments of appearance and demeanour, a method with a high margin of error. While the use of X-rays and MRIs has been scrapped, concerns persist about the reliability of proposed alternatives like AI and facial recognition. Critics argue the NAAB’s position within the Home Office creates a “blurring of boundaries” between immigration control and child safeguarding.
The system is also branded inefficient and costly. The NAAB costs £1.7 million annually, and the consortium highlights that one in seven of its assessments are ordered by the Home Office despite local authorities already accepting the young person’s claimed age.
Calls for Abolition and Independent Assessments
The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, which includes the Refugee Council, Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, calls for the NAAB to be disbanded. It proposes redirecting its funding to local authorities to boost their capacity to conduct independent, child-centred, trauma-informed assessments. The consortium says local authority decisions to accept some young people as children without a full age assessment should be respected.
If the board continues, the report demands independent oversight. Broader calls for reform include establishing a right to appeal against age determinations and repealing Section 57 of the Illegal Migration Act, which makes applications to judicially review an age determination non-suspensive, meaning removal can proceed even if the assessment is challenged.
Kama Petruczenko, senior policy analyst at the Refugee Council, said: “Courts have found its assessments flawed, delays are common and local social workers’ judgements are often overridden. Because NAAB sits inside the Home Office, immigration control and safeguarding are blurred.”
Maddie Harris, founder of the Humans For Rights Network, said: “It is our view that the NAAB often starts from the position that a person is an adult, searching for evidence to fit this narrative.”
Inspections, Context and Official Response
The independent chief inspector for borders and immigration identified concerns about the NAAB in a report last summer, focusing on its efficiency, effectiveness and consistency. The Home Office has accepted all eight recommendations from that inspection.
A separate Home Office-commissioned report by the National Centre for Social Research was largely positive about the NAAB, but included the caveat that its sample was small and evidence was primarily from the Home Office and local authorities.
The previous government set up the body citing concerns about adults “gaming the system” by pretending to be children. This approach has historical precedent: in 2019, the Court of Appeal ruled in *B.F. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department* that previous Home Office age assessment policies were unlawful due to unreliability and risks of detaining children with adults.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Robust age assessments are vital for safeguarding and border integrity, and we continue to improve the service in line with independent recommendations. We will review this report carefully. The national age assessment board provides specialist, trauma‑informed expertise to support local authorities, and all assessments are carried out by qualified social workers following nationally recognised guidance.”
