Key findings include: The average (mean) total time taken by the Home Office to conclude the Section 4 (1)(c ) application process from application to grant letter where a dispersal bail address was provided was 103 days (over 14 weeks), with a range of 5 to 503 days (1 to 71 weeks).  Where Initial Accommodation was granted as bail accommodation, the Home Office took on average 9 days (range 1-88 days) to make the grant.

For the cases in our study, the Home Office took on average 46 days (more than 6 weeks) simply to acknowledge an application for a bail address and decide what type of accommodation they will provide, even before any request is made to contractors for this accommodation.

After that, accommodation providers (G4S, Serco and Clearel) with COMPASS contracts to provide bail accommodation are taking on average over 3 weeks to give a bail address to the Home Office. Although in 66% of the cases we studied COMPASS contractors sourced a bail address within 7 days, in the other 34% of the cases studied there were often significant delays (30 days, 84 days, 99 days).  The contractual requirement is for accommodation providers to deliver a dispersal address within 9 working days.

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