THE Home Office has been accused of institutional racism over its “slow and inefficient” handling of the Windrush compensation scheme as hundreds of people have been left without support.

Leigh Day partner Jacqueline McKenzie said that no other group of people would be treated “this callously” after meeting with hundreds of people needing help with their claims.

Ms McKenzie said that the firm had clients who were initially rejected for any compensation and then offered tens of thousands when their case was reviewed in what she said is evidence of “poor case working.”

The compensation scheme, which was presented after the 2018 Windrush scandal, is for people who have suffered due to being unable to prove their legal right to live in Britain after they lost access to work and benefits and were wrongfully detained or deported.

Since 2019 and up to April this year, £72.6 million had been offered through the scheme — of which £61.3m had been paid out, official figures show.

Of the 2,235 claims in progress as of April, 16 per cent had been in the system for at least 12 months while over 100 people waited for more than 18 months.

Ms McKenzie said the firm had a client who put an application in and was told he was not entitled to any compensation.

But when it was reviewed, he was told he is entitled to £289,000.

Another saw a mother and two daughters go from being told they are entitled to nothing to between £70,000 and £100,000.

The 2020 Lessons Learned review into the scandal found the Home Office had demonstrated “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush generation.

But author Wendy Williams said the actions did not satisfy all of the features of institutional racism.

Ms McKenzie said: “You can’t have tenets of racism without racism, you can’t be a bit racist — you’re racist or you’re not.

“I think it’s difficult to find any other explanation for me.

“Unless you’ve just got a whole load of inefficient people and I don’t think they are.

“I think it’s a mixture of inefficiency, lack of prioritisation and institutional racism.

“If you’re not seeing how you’ve damaged and traumatised a group, if you can’t see that that [the scheme] is a priority, to me it’s that you’re seeing them as less than human and that is institutional racism.”

Fitzroy Maynard, who ended up homeless because of the scandal, said that his lengthy experience with the scheme was “worse than hell.”

Mr Maynard was unable to get work for around a decade after losing his job as a residential caretaker in 2007.

He said: “Just imagine you have no money, you have no food, you have nowhere to sleep, you’re freezing, you’re in the same clothes for weeks, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Mr Maynard, who came from Antigua as a child in 1980, said he had been offered some compensation by the Home Office but none to cover his loss of access to employment “because they can’t see a reason why it was their fault.”

He said: “I’m not claiming for losing my job, I’m claiming for loss of access to employment after I lost my job.

“They really think either people can’t read, or we are stupid.

“I’m fed up with the behaviour because they know exactly what they’re doing.”

Human rights charity Praxis, which has helped Mr Maynard and others, said the compensation scheme “only adds serious insult to serious injury” for victims of the scandal, and called on it to be made independent from the Home Office.

The Home Office has said the government is “honouring its Windrush commitments and providing support to those affected every day,” and that the compensation scheme “will stay open as long as needed.”