Loss of refugee legal charity leads to drop in asylum-seeking families receiving help
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Provision of free legal help for families and children fleeing persecution has dropped since a major charity went into administration, CYP Now has learned.
Figures obtained by CYP Now show that in 2009/10, when Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ) was still operating, a total of 98,643 new asylum and immigration cases were dealt with. According to Legal Services Commission (LSC) documents following a new tendering process, capacity among contracted providers will run to 93,655 cases a year until 2012/13, a drop of around five per cent.
Campaigners have said the drop in provision comes despite continuing high demand for legal services and despite government assurances that capacity would not fall after the demise of RMJ.
Jonathan Ellis, director of advocacy at the Refugee Council, said: "Late last year, we did a major service review and the one thing our clients told us they wanted improving was access to legal support. We are really concerned about this. For our clients, this is literally life or death. Difficulty accessing help undermines the chances of children getting status and protection."
Ellis said a number of providers have ceased operating in the past year and blames systemic problems caused by changes to legal aid introduced by the last government.
Refugee and Migrant Justice closed due to financial trouble in June 2010, attributing the situation to changes that now see organisations paid a flat fee on completion of cases rather than based on how long they take.
Ellis said the fixed-fee system makes the work barely profitable, causing firms to leave the marketplace.
It can also lead to solicitors spending less time on cases, potentially weakening their client's position, he added.
The LSC told CYP Now the latest contracts were tendered on the basis of providing services in areas of high demand and it has not been made aware of any issues with provision by the profession, representative bodies or tribunals.
But the Children's Legal Centre points to an absence of offices in Kent, which contains the entry port of Dover, as indicative of a system under strain.
Kamena Dorling, policy and programmes manager at the centre, said the lack of offices in Kent meant that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children staying in the county faced having to travel to London in the search for legal help. "In certain parts of the country, there just aren't providers," she said.
Across England and Wales, the number of offices providing services has fallen from 247 in 2008/09 to 233 in 2010/11.
At the Immigration Advisory Service conference last July, Hugh Barrett, LSC executive director of commissioning, said his commission had increased the number of contracted offices.
However, in a statement to CYP Now last week, he said last year's tender process resulted in the awarding of contracts to almost the same number of providers as in previous years.
He added that the number of new legal proceedings or "matter starts" available for immigration and asylum "needs to react to events" and "can be increased if demand requires it".
