Priti Patel is facing legal action if the Home Office does not hand over control of the widely-criticised Windrush compensation scheme to an independent body.
The home secretary has been given until December 23 to relinquish control of the scheme or face further legal action, the Independent reports.
Just five per cent of the estimated 15,000 people eligible for compensation had received a penny by September – four years after the Windrush scandal.
The Good Law Project and campaign group Windrush Lives are asking Patel to appoint an independent body to run the scheme, and have sent her a pre-action protocol letter.
Jo Maugham, director of Good Law Project, said: “The evidence is that the Home Office can’t be trusted to mark its own homework. The Home Affairs Committee has said what Windrush victims have said all along: the scheme has to be handed over to an independent organisation if it is to work.”
Alongside the two organisations sending the letter, three Windrush claimants are also expected to join the legal case if the deadline is not met. Paul Akers-Smith and Anthony Williams have received only the £10,000 preliminary award, while the letter says Carl Nwazota, who has received nothing so far, tried to take his own life because of the impact of the Windrush scandal.