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Immigration Advisory Service in administration
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Rumours have been circulating over the weekend but the Legal Services Commission has now confirmed [UPDATES: see also BBC news story, Law Society Gazette story and comments and follow-up, Guardian story and subsequent FM post] that IAS, the largest provider of immigration advice and representation in the UK, has gone into administration:
Immigration Advisory Service announce their decision to go into administration
11 July 2011
LSC to secure alternative provision as soon as possible
Today, Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) announced that they have gone into administration.
IAS is a not for profit charity and the largest provider of legal aid services in the asylum and immigration market. It has 14 offices across England and Scotland and operates outreach in a number of different locations nationwide.
Our priority now is to work closely with IAS and the administrators to ensure clients of IAS continue to get the help they need, whilst safeguarding public money. We are now identifying alternative advice provision in the areas affected and arrangements for case transfer will follow as soon as possible.
IAS clients are advised to visit IAS’s website where updates on arrangements will be posted –www.iasuk.org.
Anyone who needs immigration advice should contact the Community Legal Advice helpline on 0845 345 4 345.
Going into administration is obviously not good news, to put it mildly, but it is not necessarily the end for IAS yet. There is massive uncertainty for staff and clients and nothing official yet seems to have been announced by IAS itself either internally or externally. Many staff only found out this morning when they came to work to find that their offices have been shut down.
Despite the shock and uncertainty, this morning I saw an old colleague from IAS who had come in to Taylor House as soon as she heard the news to make sure the judges knew and make sure adjournments were granted for clients.
By strange coincidence this development comes almost exactly a year after the demise of Refugee and Migrant Justice.
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7 responses
Terrible news. I was made redundant from RMJ last year which was bad enough, but from what i’m hearing this is being handled even worse. Quite a few of my friends went straight from RMJ to IAS, so have now been made redundant two Julys on the trot (I felt a bit sorry for myself not being able to secure a job at IAS at the time, seems I escaped in hindsight!).
£c.1.7 million spent on RMJ due to the mess they left us in, how much on closing down IAS? So much for this all being in the name of sorting out Labour’s mess bla bla bla essential savings bla bla bla.
It’s great news for UK residents and taxpayers though, as there will be less paperwork generated with a view to undermining and increasing the cost of enforcing the immigration laws, less taxpayer’s money spent on non-UK citizens and hopefully less damage to the legitimate ethnic interests of ethnic Britons, as explained by the research into the psychology and ethics of ethnic interests by Frank Salter and others.
Wow, the weird trolls that have infested the Guardian are now on FM (saw that exact post on the comments on the Guardian article too).
I would rather not censor. As long as a comment seems to be opinion I’m willing to allow it. I also think it is helpful and important to see the content of these things – the bit about “legitimate ethnic interests of ethnic Britons” is priceless, as in its way is the bit from the claimed PO comparing me to Coulson and IAS to NOTW. It is useful to know who we are up against. Anger is what keeps a lot of us going, after all, otherwise we’d have given up years ago.
Very unfortunate that this has happened to such a useful service. If immigration law were clearer and the HO provided some degree of assistance to potential applicants there would be less need for such a service. As it is, hopefully some parts/offices of the IAS can be salvaged. It should be a right to be able to access the law and understand it and it should be a right to have representation in court.