To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average time was between a person claiming asylum on arrival in the UK and a final decision being made on their application in the latest period for which figures are available. (323021)

[holding answer 22 March 2010]: The public service agreement (PSA) Delivery Agreement 3, Indicator 2 refers to the reduction in the time to conclusion of asylum application. The measure is to ensure a target percentage of cases should be resolved within six months.

The method of reporting against the target is based on the performance of the specific monthly cohort of cases reaching six months. Hence all reporting is done against a six-month timeframe. A cohort is specified as those new applications received between 1 and 31 of each month.

The conclusion measurement requires applications to be granted asylum or some form of leave to remain in the UK, allowed at appeal or removed within 182 days (six months) to be counted as concluded.

Performance against the targets has been published in National Statistics as follows:

61 per cent. of new applications received in June 2009 were concluded in six months by the end of December 2009.

Published information is not available in relation to conclusion of applications in timescales other than six months.