Inspector finds the France returns pilot worked, but says nobody set out how to judge it
John Tuckett's inspection of Operation Hillmore, the small-boat returns pilot with France, says a linked in-and-out arrangement was established and made to work, while warning that success criteria were never defined and a lessons exercise must happen before staff move on.
The inspector who examined the UK-France returns pilot has published his verdict: the arrangement could be made to work, but the Home Office never defined what success would look like. The report by John Tuckett, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, was published on Tuesday, with the Home Office accepting all three of its recommendations. The inspection covered Operation Hillmore, the agreement on the prevention of dangerous journeys, from March to June 2026.
Operation Hillmore began as a pilot planned to last ten months. It tested ways of returning to France people who arrived in Britain illegally by small boat, and at the same time opened a controlled legal route into Britain for eligible migrants in France. Set up at speed, it was originally due to finish on 11 June 2026; the end date was later moved to 1 October 2026. The inspection looked at whether the pilot was meeting its aims, how its effectiveness was evaluated, including how lessons were identified and applied, and what challenges any move from pilot to full implementation would bring.
The inspector's central finding was positive: a linked arrangement, with people moving in both directions, had been set up and operated using existing practices and ways of working, and it was legally robust. He credited the priority and resources the Home Office gave Hillmore, and the strong leadership that coordinated the pilot across the migration and borders system. The Home Office response welcomed that conclusion, and pointed to the pilot's leadership and governance, the way its teams worked together, the robustness of its operational delivery, and a culture of continuous improvement.
I am encouraged to see that work is already taking place to deliver on my recommendations.John Tuckett, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, 10 November 2026
The criticism in the report concerns measurement. No clear criteria were set at the start against which the pilot's overall success could be assessed. Its stated aims were pitched at a strategic level, deterring small-boat crossings among them, in an area where many other factors bear on the numbers, so Hillmore's own contribution to any fall in arrivals is hard to isolate. The Home Office accepted the point: clearer success criteria for the pilot itself, it acknowledged, would help future evaluation and make it easier to assess impact, progress, effectiveness and value consistently.
The report makes three recommendations, all accepted. The first is that the Home Office should run a comprehensive lessons learned exercise promptly, before the staff who know the pilot best are redeployed, to inform future decisions on whether the pilot should continue. The Department said work is already underway to capture lessons across its policy, commercial, analytical, governance, operational delivery and international partnership functions, and it set a completion date of December 2026. Mr Tuckett said the pilot holds lessons that could inform future work, and that the exercise needs to happen as soon as possible, before key staff move on.
The second recommendation is that future pilots of this kind should start with aims defined specifically for the pilot itself, and with critical success factors that make progress and success measurable. The Home Office said future pilots will seek, where appropriate, measurable criteria for success, indicators of performance, mechanisms for evaluation and reviews at set milestones, all tied to objectives specific to the pilot. The third recommendation is that, if Hillmore evolves further or a successor pilot is designed, the design phase should test whether the aims could be delivered more quickly and cheaply by other means, instead of relying on existing processes. The Department noted that the out route was built largely on existing processes adapted for a new purpose, which allowed an early start and reduced operational risk, but it agreed to weigh alternatives, among them simpler processes, digital tools and automation, and ways of improving value for money.
The report was sent to the Home Secretary on 16 July 2026. The Home Office said the findings will feed into its future decisions on Hillmore and on any later migration pilots or operational arrangements. The pilot's future is already settled in one respect: in an answer in Parliament on 3 November, the Government said the UK-France Treaty has ended and the scheme is not currently planned to resume, with an internal assessment underway to inform future plans to tackle illegal migration.
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