Asylum and immigration is the social care area on which the government has performed most poorly according to professionals working in the sector, a Community Care survey has revealed, writes Amy Taylor.

Almost one third of social care professionals rated Labour’s performance on asylum and immigration as ‘very poor’ double the amount which gave mental health services the same verdict - the next worst performing area, according to the poll.

Last week prime minister Tony Blair said that if Labour was re-elected it would detain more asylum seekers whose claims have failed and use electronic tagging to keep track of those it believes could disappear. He added that the party would also recruit an extra 600 immigration officers to patrol Britain’s borders.

Rules on appeals introduced this month will mean policy that asylum seeker’s solicitors will only get paid after an appeal has been heard if the asylum claim is successful or the High Court think that the case was worth pursuing even though it eventually failed.

The government argues that the rules are to stop solicitors taking on hopeless cases but campaigners and the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee argue that asylum seekers with genuine cases may be unable to find solicitors to take them on.

A third of survey respondents think that the treatment of child asylum seekers has got worse under Labour.

Last December the government introduced laws, under section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, that could result in asylum seekers whose claims have failed and who refuse to go home having their children taken into care.

The measure, which is being piloted for this group in the north-west and several London boroughs before being rolled out nationally, has caused outrage amongst campaigners. It previously only applied to single asylum seekers whose claims had failed.

The government has also been strongly criticised by campaigners and Kathleen Marshall, the children’s commissioner Scotland, over its policy of detaining asylum seeker children.

Community Care surveyed 1, 096 social care professionals on a range of election issues.