The Home Office has refused to pay compensation for more than half the claims made by victims of the Windrush scandal, new analysis by the UK’s public spending watchdog has shown.

The National Audit Office’s (NAO) “government’s compensation and financial recognition schemes report” found that by January 2026, 11,475 claims had been received to the scheme. It was set up in 2019 to compensate mainly Black Britons whose lives were upended by being wrongly classed as illegal migrants by the Home Office.

The data shows that of the 9,224 claims concluded, only a third (3,148) resulted in a payout, with another 56% (5,203) receiving a nil award. The remainder were classed as ineligible or withdrawn.

The NAO’s report said the Home Office denied compensation to “applications from people who successfully applied to have their legal status confirmed … but did not suffer any financial detriment, or people who have experienced other detrimental treatment, impacts or losses that are not covered by the Windrush compensation scheme, such as lived experiences of racism on arrival to the UK and throughout their lives.”

But campaigners believe some people should be entitled to more compensation.

The scheme breaks claims into 13 categories, including homelessness, loss of earnings and impact on life. This means that even where the Home Office agrees to compensate for one loss, it may refuse to compensate for another.

Vanderbilt McIntosh, from Manchester, first applied in 2021 and received five “nil awards” before finally given an award on 27 February this year for impact on life. However, the Home Office has offered to compensate him only for loss of employment for one month, despite his ordeal lasting decades.

He entered the country legally in 1960 as a British subject, the son of a midwife recruited from St Lucia, then a British territory, to work in the NHS. But when his passport expired in 1984, McIntosh was told he was no longer entitled to a British passport because St Lucia had since become independent.

He lost his job as a paint chemist and the home he owned with his wife, Hetticia. In 1985 he had to move to St Lucia.

Hetticia McIntosh was also denied UK status when officials refused to renew her British passport after her birth country, Barbados, became independent. The couple are now legally settled in the UK, and Hetticia has been campaigning for legal aid for Windrush survivors.

Hetticia said: “We’ve never asked for payments for racism. [My husband and I] were born as British subjects and we came to the UK as British subjects – not migrants – and I still don’t know under what law we were demoted.

“I honestly feel that people don’t understand the trauma of losing your status. I will fight this to the end because there is a deep-seated injustice that has gone on.”

The average payout for a successful Windrush claim was £32,100, the NAO report found. It described reports of how “some cases initially turned down by the Home Office were reconsidered and compensation awarded when solicitors filed the same cases”.

In June 2025, the home secretary appointed the Rev Clive Foster as Windrush commissioner to oversee the government’s work and speak for survivors.

The NAO report said Foster had raised concerns that the “high rate of nil awards contributes to retraumatising of claimants and undermines trust in the scheme” and thta he “intends to carry out a sample-based review of nil award decisions to understand reasons for nil awards, identify trends and propose ways to reduce the proportion of nil awards”.

Some community advocates have said the Home Office has responded positively to feedback. A statement from Windrush Defenders Legal CIC, based in Moss Side, Manchester, said: “Operation of the Windrush compensation scheme has improved due to the Home Office building better relationships and trust with communities and community groups.”

The Home Office was approached for comment.