Migrant Help: now more helpful?

In order to access legal aid, a difficult enough feat as it is, people need to provide evidence of their financial situation. For most of those in the asylum system, that means asking Migrant Help for assistance. Below I have set out some of the issues and hopefully a recent change for the better.

Who are Migrant Help?

Migrant Help UK are a charity whose primary funding is by way of government contracts and whose published aim is to support asylum seekers, refugees and victims of trafficking and slavery. They provide a range of services including immigration advice and care for victims of trafficking and modern slavery. In particular, Migrant Help administers the asylum support (formerly referred to as NASS) payments to both asylum seekers (section 95 support) and some failed asylum seekers (section 4 support) on behalf of the government.

Obtaining proof of asylum support

Migrants facing immigration or other legal issues, are likely to need to seek legal advice from a solicitor on a legal aid basis (if they can locate a provider who can assist). Legal aid is subject to a means test, and it is only after a rigorous financial eligibility assessment has been completed that a solicitor can begin work. Given the meagre level of asylum support those in receipt will almost always be eligible for legal aid, but substantial difficulties can arise in obtaining proof, especially as asylum support is often provided by way of free accommodation and financial support through an “Aspen card”, neither of which come with detailed documentation.

Those receiving asylum support have to provide proof that they are in receipt of asylum support. This should usually be written confirmation from Migrant Help or the Home Office, and must be no more than six months old at the time of applying for funding.

In order to obtain written confirmation, the only process in place is that an email must be sent to proofofsupport@migranthelpuk.org. Migrant Help process this request, and pass on the request to the Home Office, and the Home Office then produce a letter confirming payment of asylum support and sends this directly to the individual who receives the payments. It is perhaps not surprising that this round about way of doing things is subject to frequent extensive delays.

The delays are often problematic as the legal matters which migrants often approach solicitors with are often urgent matters – for example many seek help once their initial asylum claim is refused, having only 14 days in which to file an appeal.

Where the matter is urgent, the solicitor can call Migrant Help and evidence the receipt of asylum support by way of a detailed note on the client’s file. This note must be made in the presence of the client, and include the type and amount of benefit, the details of the person spoken to, any unique reference number, and their current entitlement to asylum support.

Legal aid rules mean that evidence must also cover the ‘computation period’, which is one calendar month up to the date of the application for ‘Legal Help’ matters. For example, if an assessment is being made on 7 June, the computation period runs from 6 May – 7 June and any evidence provided must cover this whole period.

Issues experienced with Migrant Help

We have had repeated instances at Duncan Lewis where the process of obtaining evidence on a potential client’s needs has been frustrated, and for some clients, this delay has had severe consequences. We raised two concerns formally in a letter before action threatening legal action over the delay.

Firstly, Migrant Help have frequently refused to take calls where the client is joined in on another line (conference calls) on a number of occasions. These calls are made for the purposes of the client providing consent for Migrant Help to speak with us on their behalf, and to take the detailed note required by the Legal Aid Agency, as explained above, in order to grant public funding.

Many of the clients we assist are vulnerable, and are not able to reliably follow instructions to phone Migrant Help independently, or to make the suitable request to enable their solicitor to speak with Migrant Help on their behalf. Therefore, it is important that we can make use of conference calls to facilitate this.

The fact that Migrant Help have not been accepting conference calls is also difficult, as these arrangements are being made before funding has been granted. The only alternative is for the client to travel to the solicitor’s office, rather than being joined into the call, however clients on asylum support often have very little means and no assistance can be provided as there is no legal aid funding in place at this point.

Secondly, we have been experiencing frequent problems with delays in receiving responses from Migrant Help regarding proof of support. There was a very sad instance where a support organisation, aware a client desperately needed legal assistance, helped an individual receiving asylum support to request written proof of support on 20 June 2024 and 12 July 2024 before referring him to Duncan Lewis.

The urgency in this matter had been raised with Migrant Help from the start, but the matter was still unresolved by 22 August 2024, by which point the urgency had grown significantly. Although the means issue was resolved shortly after our letter before action, by the time it was resolved it was too late to assist the client.

Migrant Help’s response

Migrant Help responded to the letter before action and have confirmed the following:

Conference calls

Migrant Help have now stated in writing that they do accept conference calls with solicitor and client. Even after that written confirmation, we have experienced repeated instances of further refusals, so we wrote re-raising the issue. Migrant Help have now given assurances that suitable training has been given to those on the Migrant Help helpline to ensure conference calls are accepted in the future. We hope that is so, and reference to this article should assist where any further instance arises in the future.

Delays and complaints

The response from Migrant Help was disappointing, given that we identified and evidenced significant flaws in the way in which the process for obtaining proof of support works in practice for migrants and the organisations that support them. In respect of the delay, Migrant Help did not accept that there is a general problem (practitioners may disagree) and stated that where there is a delay in receiving a response an escalation should have been made, and that details of the escalation process are provided in their emails. We pointed out in reply that that is little assistance to those who have only contacted Migrant Help by telephone.

The relevant email address they gave: escalations@migranthelpuk.org if not actively hidden, was included at the very bottom of an automated response to a mail to the proof of support email address, underneath a misleading subheading, in small type. We have raised this in our reply, and also further pointed out that there was no reference to this email address anywhere in Migrant Help’s published complaints policy, and queried why their complaints policy was not available on their own website.

Conclusion

As in many matters, a key lesson is to make sure that any contact with Migrant Help is followed up with an email. Although there has been no response about the escalation email address, a further positive outcome has been that Migrant Help have now made their complaints policy available (albeit difficult to locate) on their website, so at least there is now formal guidance available on how to raise a concern and the process that will be followed.