Poor access to immigration advice has widespread impact on people's lives, and funders can't afford to ignore it
Following on from the recent Justice Together Initiative report that found demand for immigration legal advice in London vastly exceeds supply (which we covered on EIN here), a new strategy report considers how the provision of immigration advice in London can be better funded.
The strategy report was commissioned by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation on behalf of the Justice Together Initiative, and was developed by London Funders. You can download it here.
The report says London needs a robust and sustainable immigration advice sector that meets the needs of residents who do not have the rights and entitlements afforded to British citizens. As over a third (37%) of Londoners were born abroad, access to good immigration advice needs to be embedded into all of London's regional and local strategies.
The report notes the importance of immigration advice, stating: "Accurate, timely advice and legal support is a prerequisite to being able to navigate an immigration system that is complex, expensive, and intentionally hostile. Londoners with insecure status may find themselves with no recourse to public funds (the welfare safety nets that we all rely on), and are increasingly pushed towards extreme poverty and destitution."
Despite the need for immigration advice and the importance that immigration status plays in people's lives, funders are said to often view the sector as too complex and regulated and, sometimes, as too political.
London Funders makes the point, however: "But limited access to good immigration advice will increase demand or exacerbate hardship in connected sectors that funders actively support such as children and young people, families, poverty, employment, education, domestic abuse, health, homelessness, criminal justice, strong communities. In effect, if you are a funder in London, poor access to immigration advice is likely to be impacting on your area of interest, and you can't afford to ignore it."
As the earlier Justice Together Initiative report found, the key issue facing the immigration advice sector in London is that there is not enough supply to meet demand.
London Funders commented: "The demand for immigration advice has increased as a result of the changes in the law and policy, at the same time as most immigration cases were removed from the scope of legal aid. The most recent estimate of demand in London, also published in June 2021 in 'A Huge Gulf: Demand for and Supply of Immigration Legal Advice in London', is in the hundreds of thousands. However, the total supply of immigration advice case work has reduced to an estimated 4,000-4,500 per year due to the cuts in access to legal aid and broader impacts of austerity on the sector. There now aren't enough trained immigration advisors to fill vacancies, so simply putting more funds into frontline advice doesn't work unless it is combined with investment into the pipeline of skilled and qualified people into the sector."
With demand about to rise significantly as a result of Brexit and future Home Office policies, London Funders says more investment and funding is needed to support the sector.
The report makes the following recommendations:
• Support grassroots and frontline advice organisations, ensuring the people they support understand how to access their rights and providing crisis support to those who are destitute as a result of their status.
• Embed immigration advice into community settings and others service such as employment, benefits, housing and health.
• Strengthen the pipeline, recruitment and retention of immigration advisors in the sector, taking the cost of workforce development for the sector out of individual organisations.
• Invest in sector infrastructure to co-ordinate partnerships and networks, ensuring there are no wrong doors, and there is always a pathway to help at the level at which it is needed, and no organisation is a dead end.
• Connect the frontline experience to policy and advocacy through the Justice Together Initiative.
• Build advocates for access to justice by investing in the leadership of people with both lived and technical experience.