Legal aid crisis worsens with shortage of immigration and asylum advice throughout the UK

The latest report from Dr Jo Wilding, “No Access to Justice 2” looks at the continuing immigration and asylum legal aid crisis. This is an update to her 2022 report and includes a region by region analysis of demand and provision.

In the 2022 report, London was the only region in England and Wales where there was a (small) surplus of advice in immigration and asylum. That has now gone and demand now exceeds supply in the entirety of England and Wales. Northern Ireland has a deficit in asylum advice. It seems that Scotland does not have a deficit overall, however the issue there is the concentration of provision in Glasgow, and there are shortages in certain areas such as fresh claims and refugee family reunion.

The recruitment and retention crisis in the sector continues and the shortage of supervisors in particular is of concern as that then impacts on the ability to train new staff. The lack of supervisors has also impacted on organisations’ ability to bid for a legal aid contract in the two contracting rounds that have taken place since the previous report.

Jo notes that fees remain too low, and that even with the proposed increase for England and Wales there are still serious concerns that the proposed increase is too low to increase capacity in the sector. The lack of a regular review mechanism to ensure that fees keep pace with inflation is highlighted as an issue.

The findings on remote access were interesting, as the report finds that the “removal of geographical limits enables some firms to take on simple cases such as asylum applications from high grant countries or settlement applications at the end of a period of refugee leave, while refusing more complex work”.

As an AI hater, I am personally very pleased to see that Jo does not consider generative AI to currently be part of the solution to the crisis (page 76).

There are UK wide recommendations, as well as recommendations specific to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The recommendations for the Home Office, tribunals and local authorities are as follows:

For the Home Office:

• Simplify all processes to reduce legal advice need.
• Review all hostile environment measures to reduce knock-on effects on local authorities, public bodies and individuals, all of which generate immigration legal advice and other advice needs.
• Create a genuinely streamlined asylum process for people who are accepted to be from high-grant countries, without requiring a written form or main asylum interview, to reduce needs for legal representation and work by Home Office officials, who could instead focus on security checks and genuinely complex cases.
• Abolish the ten-year route to settlement for people with long-term reasons to remain in the UK (private life, parent, partner, long residence), replacing with either five-year route or two five-year periods of leave. This will reduce legal advice and casework needs as well as rationalising the need for work by Home Office officials.
• Apply the lessons from the EU Settlement Scheme, such as the move to automatic renewals of Pre-Settled Status and the proposed automatic upgrades, and consider ways in which all visa processes could be simplified.

For the Tribunal (Asylum and Immigration Chamber)

• Monitor un-representation in the Tribunal and make the data freely accessible.
• Monitor any additional costs to the Tribunal from serving unrepresented appellants, as compared with those who are represented, including additional time in the hearing, additional work pre-hearing and adjournments.

For local authorities

• As per the ‘It’s a No Brainer’ report, consider funding legal advice and casework services according to need within the area.
• Monitor the lack of access to legal representation for people seeking asylum and others with immigration needs within the area, including how many unaccompanied children and people in asylum support are without representation, and how long they wait to see a representative, if at all.
• Monitor the knock-on costs of lack of access to legal representation and advice in terms of need for subsistence support, inability to leave hospital, public health detriments, rough sleeping and so on, by way of evidence to support better provision of immigration legal advice. This might include joining the NRPF Connect database, if not already a member.