With thanks and respect to Andrea, whose patience with our cutting and pasting of her emails remains a lesson to us all
- Migrant Help Update on AIRE Service
Migrant Help have shared another update on the AIRE service – see letter attached from 13 January. The letter notes that since 9th January the daily average call answer time into the service has been under 60 seconds each day (NB we understand that this is an average across 24 hours). The letter also notes ‘unusually long call durations’, regularly over 30 minutes. Take up of the “Ask A Question” service has been fairly low and organisations are encouraged to use this channel where appropriate. The majority of new staff for the phone lines are now in post and it is hoped that further improvements will be made across service delivery.
Asylum Matters would love to hear about your recent experiences of accessing the AIRE service, including waiting times, length of time on hold, accessibility of the ‘Ask a Question’ service, and the general quality of support and advice received. We would encourage you to get in touch to share your thoughts and case studies to inform collective advocacy on this issue (please email [email protected] and [email protected]). In case you missed it, we launched some resources at the end of last year to support agencies with their own advocacy with the contract Providers and the Home Office available here.
- National Audit Office Call for Evidence on Asylum Support & Accommodation
The National Audit Office is inviting evidence into its study of the design and delivery of asylum accommodation and support. In 2014, the NAO published its investigation into the six regional contracts for asylum accommodation known as COMPASS, which operated from 2012 to 2019. It is now looking at the seven regional Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) contracts, which began operating in September 2019, and the new national Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility (AIRE) contract. The review will assess how the Home Office designed and procured the new contracts; how it is managing the new providers and contracts, and whether the new services are meeting the needs of asylum seekers. Responses will contribute to the evidence used to assess whether the new asylum contracts are set up to deliver value for money.
If you would like to provide evidence for the study, please email the study team on [email protected], putting the study title (‘Asylum accommodation and support’) in the subject line. If you would like to feed into the review via Asylum Matters, please get in touch with Emma and Julia (emails above). The report should be published to Parliament in early summer 2020.
- Map of 150 Newly Elected MPs and Asylum/ Resettlement Data
Since the General Election, 150 new MPs have just entered Parliament, many of whom we’ll be looking to engage with on asylum and migration issues. Andy Hewett has produced an excellent map showing each of the 150 first-time MPs mapped against the relevant Home Office data for asylum dispersal (people on section 95 support), and resettlement under both the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS). If you hover over a constituency, it will show you the relevant data. You can also view the data online in a table format here. You can rank columns in the table by clicking on the column header and then clicking the small up/down arrows. This should help you to identify MPs who have a population of people seeking asylum and resettled refugees in their constituency.
Do note however, that in some instances there will be more than one constituency sharing a local authority (ie Stoke on Trent Central and North cover the LA Stoke on Trent) and the graph does not show the breakdown per constituency but across the whole LA area. Hopefully the resources can help you in making approaches to your MPs – with big thanks to Andy for producing these.
- Scottish Government Fund for Advocacy Support to Asylum Seekers Facing Homelessness
The Scottish Government has committed to provide a £252,000 funding package to organisations to help ensure asylum seekers have access to legal professionals and other services. The funding will support nearly 150 asylum seekers facing imminent homelessness in Glasgow given the lock change evictions. Further funding proposals for longer-term strategic projects are also being developed. The Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said, “Previous UK Governments have failed to fix their failed asylum process…. It is now the time for them to finally find a long-term, sustainable and humane alternative to the asylum process. I will be writing to UK Ministers to remind them of their role to not make anyone who has sought safety in this country homeless and destitute.”
- Report on the Impact of Family Separation on Child Refugees in the UK
Amnesty, Refugee Council and Save the Children have recently issued a report, Without my Family – a piece of research on the impact of family separation on child refugees in the UK. Based on in-depth interviews with children and young people affected by the UK government policy on refugee family reunion, and the officials who work with them, the report shows how this policy is harming them and denying them the fundamental right of being with their family. None of the children interviewed had been aware of the family reunion policies of different countries when they were making their journeys. The report calls on the UK Government to permit the right to family reunion for unaccompanied children and commit to a broad enough definition of family so that unaccompanied child refugees can enjoy their right to family life.
- BBC Briefing on Immigration
The BBC has pulled together a briefing on immigration as part of a new series of in-depth online guides analysing the big issues in the news. The Briefing has had input from academics, researchers, journalists and statisticians and its writers have consulted government bodies in the UK and overseas, think tanks and affected communities to reflect a broad range of perspectives. It looks at the history and trends of immigration, the impact on the UK economy and public services, public perceptions and policy responses. You can access the briefing here.
- Mayor of London Report on Undocumented Londoners
The Mayor of London commissioned a study looking at the current number of undocumented Londoners struggling without immigration status, which was undertaken by the University of Wolverhampton. The report’s central estimates suggest that more than half of the UK’s 674,000 undocumented adults and children live in London (397,000). In addition, there are now estimated to be 215,000 undocumented children in the UK, which suggests that the population of undocumented children in the UK increased by almost 56% between March 2011 and March 2017. It is estimated that around half of all children with insecure immigration status were born in the UK. Only around 10% of the estimated number of undocumented children aged under 18 in the UK have applied to secure their immigration status. The report suggest that those who try to secure their status in the UK face a long, complex and expensive process. It suggests that many more are now at risk of becoming undocumented as a result of Brexit.
The Mayor of London notes his commitment to supporting Londoners to access their rights to residency and citizenship, and calls on the Government to: reinstate legal aid for children’s immigration cases; reduce the extortionate profit-making element of immigration fees; and properly fund the struggling advice sector, to ensure that people can access the citizenship and immigration advice that they need. You can read coverage of the report here. Meanwhile, the High Court in London recently ruled the £1,012 fee the Home Office charges children to register as a British citizen is unlawful and required the Home Office to reconsider the fee and ensure that children’s best interests are taken fully into account in doing so.
- Law Commission: Simplifying the Immigration Rules
The Law Commission has published its report on Simplifying the Immigration Rules which describes them as “overly complex and unworkable” and recommends simplifying them in order to save the government £70m over the next decade. The regulations have quadrupled in length since 2010, now extending across 1,100 pages and “are comprehensively criticised for being poorly drafted.” The report accepts that immigration regulations have an impact on millions of lives every year, and adds that, “it is a basic principle of the rule of law that applicants should understand the requirements they need to fulfil.” The report, which does not make any recommendations around substantive immigration policy, recommends a complete redrafting of the Rules with the aim of creating simplified and more easily accessible Rules that offer increased legal certainty and transparency for applicants.
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