Comprehensive new report by Jo Wilding on adequacy and availability of immigration legal advice services in Wales
Jo Wilding of the University of Sussex and Garden Court Chambers has authored a comprehensive new report on the adequacy and availability of immigration legal advice services in Wales.
Image credit: WikipediaThe 73-page report was published by the Welsh Government and can be downloaded here.
The report focuses on immigration legal advice for what is termed 'forced migrants', which includes refugees, asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, and others.
As we have reported before on EIN, Jo Wilding has written extensively about the serious lack in the availability of legal aid providers for immigration and asylum cases in all areas of the UK.
It comes as no surprise that Wales is identified in the new report as a country where demand for immigration and asylum legal aid greatly outstrips supply.
Wilding calculates that legal aid provision in Wales in recent years only covers around 37% of the need. The average number of immigration and asylum matter starts in Wales from 2018 to 2021 averaged 1,380 compared to a need of 3,646 cases in 2021.
At the time of Wilding's research, there were nine separate legal aid providers in Wales with 12 offices in total. 5 in Cardiff, 3 in Newport, 2 in Swansea, and 1 each in Barry and Wrexham.
The report notes: "South Wales has previously been comparatively well-served with legal aid providers, although there was no provision at all in the rest of Wales. A single provider began working in north Wales in 2018, meaning that access improved significantly, but it remains precarious since it depends on a single individual. However, this position was rapidly changing at the time of the research with a serious decline in provision underway in south Wales."
In an earlier report published in November, Jo Wilding highlighted how the widely reported problems with low levels of Home Office decision-making was adding to the legal aid crisis by reducing the demand for appeals. In her new report, Wilding finds this is occurring in Wales, with new case referrals declining sharply. One firm described the situation as 'a car crash'.
Jo Wilding said: "Paradoxically, the findings show both a shortage of legal aid provision in Wales (in the sense that demand outstrips supply) and a collapse in new case referrals to legal aid providers. This collapse in new referrals, combined with Home Office delays on existing cases, had caused a serious financial crisis for some of the Welsh legal aid providers at the time of the research. One provider had a 'nil return' for January 2022, because none of their legal aid cases had reached a stage at which they could bill, and the Legal Aid Agency expressed concern about the drop in their income."
She continued: "Another firm withdrew all of its lawyers from Wales just before the research started because it was not receiving referrals of new asylum cases, describing the situation as 'a car crash'. It now employs one lawyer for 1 day a week in Wales. A third said it had laid off staff for the same reason, and was only able to survive by taking cases from outside Wales. A fourth had effectively stopped taking initial asylum cases, in favour of public law work. Support groups and local authorities reported that a fifth firm, which was not involved in the research, had stopped taking on legal aid work, but this could not be verified with the firm. These five organisations account for eight of the provider offices in Wales. Provider interviewees caution that it is very difficult to restore capacity within an area once it is lost."
Home Office delay causes further problems for legal aid providers in receiving payment.
One legal aid provider in south Wales is quoted in the report as saying: "I did a straw poll of our fee earners, and between three fee earners they're waiting for 80 interviews, and about 50 people are waiting for the Home Office to do something so their appeal gets heard. And in the meantime, we're not getting paid, except for disbursements. "
The report also analyses data for hearings at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in Newport, finding there was a sharp drop off in appeals work in 2020 to 2021, probably due to the slow decision making in the Home Office combined with the current high grant rate for asylum applications. Wilding says this supports providers' accounts of a collapse in referrals of asylum cases from within the main dispersal areas in south Wales.
Further analysis of cases at the Newport hearing centre shows a decline in the number of asylum appeals heard at Newport since 2016, plus a dramatic decline in the percentage of appeals conducted by a representative holding a legal aid contract - down from 73% in 2016 to 42% in 2022.
Amidst the gloom, the report also highlights what works well in the provision of immigration legal advice in Wales. The report notes a number of positives, including, for example: "Interviewees believed that 'most people' do find a representative for initial asylum applications in Wales, despite the difficulties in accessing representation for fresh asylum claims and other matters, and the problem of clients being dropped before appeals. Some of the legal aid providers in Wales were described as doing good quality work (while others are 'best avoided'), and the networks between legal representatives and support organisations are working well in some well-established areas."
Several interviewees highlighted Asylum Justice in Cardiff as being a particular strength of the Welsh legal aid sector, although it was also felt it needed far more capacity than it has.
The report concludes with 25 detailed recommendations. Jo Wilding said: "An aim of this research is to propose viable, evidence informed actions and recommendations for future policy development which could improve the immigration legal advice services provided to forced migrants living in Wales and address the gaps identified in this review. The recommendations include a number of proposals for the Welsh Government and local authorities to consider, all of which have costs attached and some of which would require consideration of rules on fair procurement. There are also recommendations for other bodies including the Home Office and Legal Aid Agency on matters which are outside the devolved powers of the Welsh Government. These are matters on which the Welsh Government could consider lobbying the relevant bodies, which would either reduce the need for immigration legal advice or help to increase provision in Wales."