Evidence submitted by the Joint Council
for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI)
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
is an independent, voluntary organisation working in the field
of immigration, asylum and nationality law and policy. Established
in 1967, JCWI actively lobbies and campaigns for changes in law
and practice and its mission is to eliminate discrimination in
this sphere. We are one of number of NGOs who have just been been
warned we will be losing our contract for second tier specialist
legal advice in July for reasons of the LSC's strategy.
JCWI is a small national NGO comprising 16 members
of staff, seven of whom constitute the legal casework team, including
a casework director and two supervising members. Members of the
team include a mixture of solicitors and barristers, and one individual
who is a specialist in nationality and citizenship rules with
some 30 years' experience of giving immigration advice—a
quality of resource which is otherwise not readily available throughout
the country. JCWI has invested considerable time and money in
ensuring that its casework staff are accredited according to LSC
requirements.
Members of the team carry out legal casework,
including strategic High Court challenges, participate on a rota
basis in providing advice to detainees in Harmondsworth, and provide
a telephone advice line to individual callers on immigration and
asylum matters in addition to fulfilling the Legal Services Commission
specialist advice and training contract.
Our concerns are two-fold. Firstly we are advising
practitioners in an area of law, immigration and asylum, which
is increasingly complex given the rate of legislation and plethora
of new rules in recent years. One effect may be that non-specialist
legal advisers, particularly those working in isolated conditions
in smaller legal firms and voluntary organisations, may not be
able to continue offering advice in these areas of law if they
cannot readily access the expertise and support of their specialist
peers. Secondly, we are concerned that this will in turn impact
on the ability of a generally vulnerable group, immigration and
asylum applicants, to access high quality advice. We are concerned
at the potential impact of this decision on those who, by nature
of their migrant status, may run a greater risk of poverty, disadvantage
and exclusion.
During 2005, under its LSC contract the JCWI
team provided advice during the course of 2,692 calls to advisors
calling from 621 organisations. The vast majority of these calls—just
under 84%—concerned immigration issues or appeals. The remainder
concerned asylum issues or appeals. Most of the people who call
us work in Citizen's Advice Bureaux, advise on a voluntary basis
or are more inexperienced advisors. However we do get called by
very experienced lawyers to discuss more complex questions. We
receive calls from those who are specialists in other areas eg
housing law, who represent clients that may have immigration issues.
While the majority of calls come from traditional urban areas
of migrant settlement, such as London, Birmingham and Manchester,
JCWI is seeing more calls from areas of the new migration such
as the West Country, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire.
We would point out that the supply of legal
services in some respects is a function of demand. In those places,
which are not traditional migrant settlement areas, where there
are not many people needing immigration advice, it is unlikely
that there will exist suppliers with high levels of expertise
in immigration and asylum law. The specialist support service
provides a vehicle through which people living in areas of low
supply and demand may still benefit from high quality specialist
help.
While we welcome the LSC's declaration that
they would like to see more immigration applicants receiving face-to-face
and holistic advice, we are not satisfied that this can be delivered
to a high quality unless the non-specialist and voluntary advisors
who ensure supply lower areas of demand are able to readily access
second-tier specialist advice. We believe that removing the second-tier
service may actually remove the incentives to non-specialists
to practise in more complex areas of law such as immigration.
We do not see how more face-to-face advice can be achieved both
cost- effectively and to a high standard within current budgetary
constraints without the second-tier, or "trickle down",
structure. We also believe that the net effects of this will be
to jeopardise the Government's strategies on social inclusion,
integration and equalities.
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI)
February 2006
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