Home Office release report on the discontinued ELAP project, as Asylum Aid calls for continuing reforms of the asylum system
The Home Office yesterday released a report on the evaluation of the Early Legal Advice Project (ELAP), which has been testing the efficiency of providing early legal advice to asylum seekers in one region of the UK, Asylum Aid said in a press release.
You can read the Home Office report here. The report was commissioned by the Home Office to evaluate the ELAP, operational in the Midlands and East of England UK Border Agency region between November 2010 and December 2012.
According to Asylum Aid, ministers have decided against continuation of the project. The project was considered too expensive, with the Home Office report noting that, under the project, asylum cases cost between £222 & £538 more on average than cases receiving publicly funded legal aid.
Patrick Jones, Development Manager at Asylum Aid, called for reform of the asylum system, saying: “Refugees are left stranded every day by a system which makes too many mistakes and helps too few of the people who need it."
“The Early Legal Advice Project tested one way to introduce those reforms. On the evidence of the evaluation, it is too expensive to carry out this out now, when there are cuts falling across all government departments. "
“But this needs to be the beginning of conversations about reform, not the end. ELAP also showed more people being the chance to stay in the UK because they got better legal advice, and this isn’t something we should ignore."
“In March Theresa May described the UK Border Agency as ‘closed and secretive’. The Home Office can prove its commitment to improving the asylum system by continuing to work with charities and campaigners on innovations which will help ensure better asylum decisions, right first time."
“The alternative is for the Home Office to put its head back in the sand and settle for a status quo of poor decisions, bad management, and exploding costs. That won’t do.”