Toynbee Hall finds systemic failures in provision of immigration advice in East London

The anti-poverty organisation Toynbee Hall yesterday released findings from its research into the provision of immigration advice in East London.

Image credit: UK GovernmentThe 68-page report, Trusting the Dice, can be read here and is the result of a year-long research project involving "mystery shopping" visits to fee-charging providers of immigration advice in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The aim was to gather objective and verified information about the quality of immigration advice provided in the borough.

According to the report, there are 127 immigration advice providers in Tower Hamlets, 10% of whom appear to be operating outside the regulatory regime.

Tonybee Hall's research found systemic failures, with both regulated and unregulated advisors providing misleading and expensive advice to vulnerable clients.

For the report, Tonybee Hall undertook mystery shopping visits to 44 advice providers and found 29% gave inaccurate or misleading advice and 14% acted in an unethical manner, including requesting a fee for advice which could have been obtained elsewhere for free.

Cost was found to be a significant issue in accessing advice, with poor and vulnerable clients finding it increasingly difficult to access services due to cuts to Legal Aid combined with an increased demand for services.

The report states: "There are worrying examples of poor practice reported by voluntary sector providers when they take over cases from other private immigration advisers in borough. They see inaccurate and vague information on fees, promises of work which do not transpire, poor representations to the Home Office based on a 'begging letter' format with nil prospects of success and people being advised to pursue hopeless cases. They also reported worrying instances of status documents being withheld once issued if the client did not pay increased fees, or advisers disappearing entirely once payment had been handed over never to be heard of again."

It continued: "Voluntary sector providers of immigration advice in the borough are increasingly few in number and under considerable pressure. This is translating into difficulties for clients who are trying to access increasingly oversubscribed services, often with inadequate or inaccurate information about the quality and scope of the services they provide. Clients' problems are compounded by an absence of co-ordination amongst many voluntary sector providers: for example, services had closed but lists provided to the evaluators had not been updated to reflect this, and some providers said that they were still having clients referred to them in spite of the fact that they had not been providing immigration advice for a number of months."

Toynbee Hall Chief Executive Graham Fisher said: "Trusting the Dice sought to gather objective information about immigration advice provision in Tower Hamlets. The research found individuals ricocheting through a system, frequently with little accurate information on which to base a choice, paying over the odds for advice which was in many cases with futile or inaccurate."