House of Commons - Work and Pensions

Select Committee on Work and Pensions Minutes of Evidence

Memorandum submitted by The Refugee Council (SD 15)

1. INTRODUCTION

The Government's Strategy for Refugee Integration Full and Equal Citizens (2000)[1] argues, "employment is arguably the key factor to integration of refugees". Access to the UK labour market, however, is a big challenge faced by almost every refugee jobseeker. DWP does not have any official statistics of refugee unemployment. However, evidence suggests it is by far above the national average for any disadvantaged group in the UK. A recent DWP study reveals only "29% of respondents were working at the time of the study compared with 60% ethnic minority population". The report puts unemployment among refugees stands at 36%. However, previous research reports suggest refugee unemployment rates between 60 to 90%.[2] Unemployment among refugee women is even higher compared to refugee men.[3] According to the DWP report "they [refugees] are the most disadvantaged group" in the UK labour market.

2. THE WORK OF THE REFUGEE COUNCIL ON EMPLOYMENT

The Refugee Council is the largest charity working with refugees in the UK. We have been involved in employment policy development and delivery for many years. The following paragraphs illustrate our efforts, and our commitment to work with government departments, the rest of the voluntary sector and others, to support the employment needs of refugees.

Our Training and Employment Section (TES) provides learning, development and employment opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers. TES has 20 years' experience of working with asylum seekers and refugees to help them overcome the barriers they face in accessing education and employment, thereby assisting their successful integration into society. Our training centre, based in Clapham, London, provides a uniquely supportive environment in which students gain the confidence, skills and recognised qualifications they need to achieve their goals.

The Refugee Council is currently leading the ASSET UK EQUAL Development Partnership (DP) which is working UK-wide to support the vocational and social integration of asylum seekers and is involved, as a partner, in the LEADER EQUAL Development Partnership (DP)[4] which is supporting refugees into employment in London.

The Refugee Council and the British Medical Association have set up a voluntary Refugee Doctors Database and is working in partnership with the Department of Health and other service providers involved in the BMA-led Refugee Doctor Liaison Group to support the needs of refugee doctors in the UK. It is also supporting the needs of other refugee health professionals through the Refugee Dentists Steering Group and Refugee Nurses Task Force.

The Refugee Council is currently contributing to refugee integration strategies in London, East England and, recently, to the Yorkshire and Humberside strategy. We are also working through National Connexions Service Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Forum to ensure the needs of refugee and asylum seeking young people are met. We are also supporting the efforts of Refugee Teachers Steering Group to support the needs of refugee teachers in the UK. We provide awareness- raising training for employers about the economic potential of and how to recruit and support refugee jobseekers.

The Refugee Council has developed a refugee learning, skills and employment strategy, which we are implementing through our constituted Education, Training and Employment Working Group (ETEWG). We are also working with DWP and the Employment, Training and Adult Education Sub-group of the Home Office's National Refugee Integration Forum (NRIF) to develop a long-term strategy to support refugees into employment. We have recently contributed to the London Development Agency's research about maximising the economic potential of refugees in London and are currently assessing the impact of the Home Office decision to withdraw permission to work on asylum seekers.

3. CONTRIBUTION OF REFUGEES TO THE UK

Throughout history, refugees have been contributing to the UK economy and cultural diversity. The Home Office's survey The Settlement of Refugees in Britain (1995) "discovered the majority were highly qualified people, successful in their home countries, often coming from professional backgrounds" and that "the skills level of these refugees in fact exceeds that of the general British population". Credit to the Nation (1997) shows clearly the enormous contribution of refugees to the British society and economy over the last 450 years or so. Such prominent refugees as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Georg Solti and Oliver Tambo have made significant contributions. We believe ordinary refugees equally did, and many more would if they could, contribute to this country and society. Research evidence[5] and that from existing refugee health professionals skills databases suggests that refugees have a huge untapped economic potential:

(a) 56% of those aged 18 or over had a qualification;

(b) 23 to 33% had a degree or post-graduate qualification;

(e) The Refugee Council-BMA Refugee Doctors Database Project has registered more than 920 unemployed refugee doctors in the UK;

(f) Royal College of Nursing is maintaining a database of Refugee Nurses containing data about over 150 refugee nurses, the vast majority of them are unemployed, in the UK; and

(g) The Refugee Council-British Dental Association Refugee Dentists Voluntary Database has over 100 unemployed refugee dentists currently living in the UK.

This body of evidence suggests that asylum seekers and refugees have a huge untapped economic potential.

4. BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT OF ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES

Refugee jobseekers face multiple barriers to employment. These barriers are well documented by recent research reports which suggest that the following are the barriers, not presented in order of importance, that impede access to training and employment of refugees and asylum seekers:

1. Due to lack of knowledge of entitlements,[8] many service providers and individuals are confused. As a result, many potential service users fail to, or are denied, access to services that could support them to develop their skills and improve their employability. Many asylum seekers and refugees do not know about, and, for this reason, fail to take advantage of, training and employment support opportunities. Consequently, they miss opportunities that could make the difference to their lives.

2. Lack of adequate English language skills is identified as a major barrier to employment.[9] Many asylum seekers and refugees cannot enroll for education and training programmes because the medium of instruction is English. As a result, they cannot improve their knowledge and skills. Likewise, they cannot access employment in the UK because almost every employer expects their potential employees to have, among other essential requirements, at least good verbal and written communication skills. Lack of access to childcare support for refugee single parents with children under five restricts access to education, training and employment support services. Although the Learning and Skills Council funds childcare places in FE colleges, the number of those they can support is limited. Besides, asylum seeker single parents are not entitled. Cost of travel tends to discourage many asylum seekers, in particular, and refugees, in general, from following learning programmes, especially, in FE colleges. So, despite the fact that they are entitled to free ESOL courses, the vast majority of those who live on vouchers cannot afford the bus fare and miss opportunities to improve their language skills.

3. Lack of recognition of overseas qualifications is a major obstacle for the vast majority of asylum seekers and refugees who arrive in the UK with qualifications from their home countries.[10] Recent research suggests employers experience difficulty in assessing the UK equivalence of foreign qualifications. Some tend to think they are not as good as the UK qualifications.

4. Funding requirements are also a barrier. Due to their unrealistic eligibility criteria, they tend to restrict access to training and development programmes. Currently, the vast majority of asylum seekers are not eligible for DWP services. For example, asylum seekers, who applied to the Home Office for asylum after April 2000, are not allowed to join New Deal 25+ programmes even if they have been granted permission to work. Training and development programmes funded by the European Social Fund, among other requirements, are not accessible to anybody who do not have permission to work and who have not been unemployment for at least six months.

5. Confusion over permission to work documentation is another major barrier. In spite of the availability of an electronic code of practice for employers (on the Home Office's website) and quality advice from voluntary sector organisations on this matter, the UK employer is not yet well informed and needs help to make sense of the plethora of the permission to work documents produced by the Home Office. As employers are liable to legal prosecution for employing individuals who do not possess the permission to work from the Home Office as stipulated in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, the UK employer are prompted by the prospect to avoid asylum seekers.

6. Attitudes of employers—which tend to be affected, in part, by negative press coverage of asylum issues—are a major barrier, too. Participants in a recent Personnel Today[11] and The Refugee Council survey complained of, and claimed they cannot get jobs due to, racism and racial prejudices. Employers who took part in the same study revealed they were afraid of breaking the immigration and asylum law; they experience difficulty assessing overseas qualifications and cannot attach value to overseas work experience because it is difficult to equate it to a UK work experience.

7. UK immigration and asylum legislation is hindering participation of asylum seekers and refugees in the labour market.[12] Section 8 of Immigration and Asylum Act 1996, Immigration and Asylum Act (1999) and sections 147 and 153 of Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act (2002), continues to restrict access to employment.

8. Unfamiliarity with the UK jobsearch culture is also a major barrier. Many asylum seekers and refugees come from cultural backgrounds where "selling yourself" is regarded as not appropriate. As a result, many of them tend to under sell themselves at interviews and many others do not know how to conduct an effective jobsearch.

9. Lack of UK work experience continues to impede access to the labour market for the vast majority of asylum seekers with permission to work and refugees. This is mainly due to the value unnecessarily attached to it by almost all the UK employers. As there are very few opportunities for volunteering, work placement, mentoring and, in the case of refugee doctors, clinical attachments, they tend to be excluded from the labour market because they do not have any UK work experience.

10. Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are restricting refugee jobseekers accessing jobs with children and other vulnerable people. This is mainly because their records cannot be obtained easily from Overseas.

11. Lack of UK references is another hindrance that asylum seekers and refugees must overcome before they are employed. As they cannot produce such references, they hardly prove they, in fact, did what they claim to have done and/or their capability to do the target job.

12. Lack of support to overcome barriers to self-employment and entrepreneurship.[13]

5. RECOMMENDATIONS

In the light of these barriers, it is evident that asylum seekers and refugees need support to be able to make the transition to employment and avoid the risk of social exclusion. The Refugee Council would like to make the following recommendations, which we believe are necessary measures if DWP is to make a difference to refugees' lives:

5.1. Jobcentre Plus should ensure the proposed Jobcentre Plus Operational Strategy improves the standards and delivery of Jobcentre Plus services to refugees by doing the following:

(a) Raise awareness of staff about the needs of refugees and asylum seekers and how such needs could be supported to ensure they effectively improve refugees' participation in training and employment.

(b) Establish systems to ensure refugee clients receive accurate, up-to-date and sufficient information about Jobcentre Plus services to improve refugees take up of the services especially training programmes.

(c) Ensure Personal Development Plans are developed for asylum seekers and refugees who wish to improve their employability to access the labour market to ensure support to individual refugee jobseekers is targeted and their progress is measured.

(d) Support and encourage employers to develop positive attitudes towards and recruit refugees and asylum seekers with permission to work.

(e) Audit refugee-specific projects, services and job creation schemes to ensure availability of such services for unemployed refugees.

(f) Assure the quality of services for unemployed refugees to ensure they are referred to high quality services to make the transition to work.

(h) Engage employers in programmes for unemployed refugees to ensure high success rate.

(i) Engage the voluntary sector in the delivery of programmes for unemployed refugees.

(j) Give refugees the necessary support to acquire the business skills and/or business start up capital to enable them to start and sustain their own businesses.

(k) Establish a system to ensure data about refugee unemployment or participation in the UK labour market is collected, collated, disseminated and effectively used to inform policy development or to improve policy delivery.

(m) Survey and bridge gaps in provision of customised re-qualification programmes for refugee professional groups.

5.2. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to set up a national refugee employment task group to develop, implement, monitor and review a strategy to support employment of asylum seekers with permission to work and refugees in the UK.

5.3. The Home Office is strongly advised to do the following:

(a) Permit all asylum seekers to work during the reception phase.

(b) Provide funding for projects to encourage volunteering for asylum seekers.

5.4. DWP to work with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to improve access to and the quality of English language coursers for refugees and asylum seekers.

5.5. DWP to work in partnership with Connexions partnerships to support the needs of 13 to 19 year-old asylum seekers and refugees who wish to access employment opportunities in England.

5.6. DWP to work closely with the Regional development agencies (RDAs) to ensure Framework for Regional Employment and Skills Action (FRESA) in each region supports the skills and employment needs of refugees.

5.7. DWP to work in partnership with regional asylum seeker and refugee integration consortia—which the Home Office is funding to develop strategies for refugee integration—to support the learning and employment needs of refugees in all regions and address any adverse effects that the dispersal policy may have on asylum seekers and refugees.

5.8. DWP to work in partnership with information, advice and guidance (IAG) service providers to ensure their service respond to and meet the specific needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

6. CONCLUSION

The Refugee Council is pleased to be able to provide evidence to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee on the important services of DWP to refugees. We believe the barriers to employment are well documented and known to DWP. What is needed is action to tackle the issue of refugee unemployment and combat social exclusion of refugees. We believe refugees' untapped economic potential needs to be fully utilised. This has clear benefits for refugees, UK businesses and the people of this country. The Refugee Council is willing to continue working with DWP, other government departments and others key stakeholders to achieve this important goal.

Bharti Patel

Head of Policy

5 December 2003

1 This is the Home Office's refugee integration strategy. Back

2 Mayor of London (2002) Missed Opportunities published by Greater London Authority; The Refugee Council (1999) Creating the Conditions for Refugees to Find Work, published by the Refugee Council; D Shiferaw and H Hagos (2002) Refugees and Progression Routes to Employment, published by The Refugee Council, London. Back

3 Peabody Trust (1999) Refugee Skills-Net: The Employment and Training of Skilled and Qualified Refugees, London. Back

4 Education Action International's Refugee Education and Training Advisory Service, London, leads LEADER EQUAL Development Partnership. Back

5 Alice Bloch (2002) Refugees' Opportunities and Barriers in Employment and Training, published for DWP, by Her Majesty's Stationery Office's Corporate Documents Services, Leeds. Back

6 Refer to the report of The Guardian (2001) Welcome to the UK: A Special Investigation into Asylum and Immigration, The Guardian, London. Back

7 The Home Office statistical report. Back

8 The Refugee Council (1999) Creating the Conditions for Refugees to Find Work, published by the Refugee Council. Back

9 Alice Bloch (2002) Refugees' Opportunities and Barriers in Employment and Training, published for DWP, by Her Majesty's Stationery Office's Corporate Documents Services, Leeds Back