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Home Office

Answer

Mrs. Roche: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken to ensure the quality and accuracy of information in the Country Information and Policy Unit's report on Algeria. [221807] Mr. Browne: Standard instructions are given to the Country Information and Policy Unit (CIPU) staff about ensuring that the Reports are as accurate, balanced, impartial and up to date as possible. All Country Reports by CIPU go through a quality assurance procedure that includes internal scrutiny, and consultation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, before issue. In addition the independent Advisory Panel on Country Information provides rigorous external scrutiny of country information material produced by the Home Office and makes recommendations to help ensure that it is of the highest quality. The Advisory Panel rightly considered it essential that the Home Office's country information material should not only be objective in fact, but that it should also be perceived as being objective and have the confidence of all its users. That is why I announced on 8 September 2004 that in future, the production of country information material used by the Home Office will be undertaken by a country information unit dedicated solely to that function. The Home Office Country Report on Algeria was last updated in April 2004. No further update was issued in October 2004 because Algeria does not currently come within the criteria we use when determining for which countries we produce regular reports.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

432 c392W;432 c390W; 221807

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Asylum Standards Algeria Country Information and Policy Unit

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk