Introduction
This paper represents the submission by Citizens Advice to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into Asylum Applications, announced on 25 February 2003. Citizens Advice is the national co-ordinating body for Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In 2002-03, CABx dealt with some 60,000 immigration and asylum advice enquiries, including an estimated 15-20,000 asylum support enquiries.
In this submission, we confine our comments to the provision of support by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), and to the likely impact of the associated provisions of the Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act 2002.
The NASS-related work of CABx
Since April 2000, and especially since about May 2001, CABx in the asylum dispersal areas and elsewhere have dealt with increasing numbers of advice enquiries from NASS-supported asylum seekers. Many of these individuals have required assistance with contacting NASS to resolve a sudden and unexplained interruption of their subsistence support; some have already been without such support for days or weeks by the time they approach the CAB. Others have required assistance with making an initial application for support to NASS, with notifying NASS of a change in their circumstances, with applying to NASS for a £50 additional single payment (ASP) or maternity grant, with renewing their Form HC2 (health care), or with making an appeal to the Asylum Support Adjudicators.
Some enquirers have required assistance with approaching their accommodation provider and/or NASS regarding a problem with the location, quality or suitability of their NASS accommodation. And others, having been granted refugee status or exceptional leave to remain, have been left in limbo between the NASS support system and the mainstream welfare benefits system; in most such cases, this is due to a failure on the part of NASS to provide a Form 35 (a laminated certificate of confirmation of the termination of NASS support, and of the amount of support previously provided) and the resultant refusal of social security offices/Jobcentre Plus to process the individual’s application for mainstream benefits.
In many of these cases, delay and inefficiency on the part of NASS and/or Sodexho has been (or is subsequently) compounded by administrative error. But in the vast majority of cases, CAB advisers are required to provide not legal advice as such, but a ‘helping hand’ in navigating the unduly complex NASS support system, and/or in overcoming the acute inaccessibility of the highly-centralised NASS, which has no local counter services. This usually takes the form of repeated (and often lengthy) telephone calls to NASS, and/or the completion of NASS application forms and the transmission of these and other information by fax and/or post. In some cases it also includes liaison with Sodexho and/or the asylum seeker’s accommodation provider.
During 2002, Citizens Advice published two major reports based on CAB evidence of such casework: Process error: CAB clients’ experience of the National Asylum Support Service (February); and Distant voices: CAB clients’ experience of continuing problems with the National Asylum Support Service (October).
Both reports characterised NASS as falling well below acceptable standards of service delivery, and as being exceptionally difficult to contact when things go wrong. Furthermore, they concluded that NASS is effectively displacing its costs to other agencies – such as CABx – with very limited human and financial resources, and that NASS itself should be providing effective means for asylum seekers experiencing a problem with the delivery of their support to contact NASS directly. The reports recommended that NASS should establish counter services in the dispersal areas, and in other areas with significant numbers of supported asylum seekers.
Following the publication of Process error, Ministers suggested that the CAB evidence in the report related only to problems with the “past performance” of NASS that had been rectified. In November, however, the Home Office minister, Beverley Hughes, stated that Distant voices “confirm[s] my opinion that NASS has some way to go before it can truly be said to be offering an effective service to asylum seekers”. And, earlier this month, Ms Hughes announced the establishment of an independent review of “the organisation, management and staffing and expertise within NASS to identify changes necessary in the short to medium term to enable it consistently to achieve the appropriate standards of operational and administrative performance”. We welcome this recognition of the need to address the issues raised by our reports.
That NASS is still not achieving appropriate standards of service delivery is very much the experience of CABx, who continue to report endemic delay, inefficiency, and administrative error.
For example, Kentish Town CAB was approached on 28 February 2003 by a single Somali woman with four young children (aged seven, six, 18 months and one month) who had applied to NASS for both accommodation and subsistence support on 17 January, but who had not yet received a response. An adviser telephoned NASS, only to be advised that, due to a three-month backlog in the allocation of accommodation, NASS cannot (or, at least, will not) provide the client with either accommodation or subsistence support until early May. When the adviser queried the decision not to grant subsistence support until such time as accommodation is also available, she was advised that this is “NASS policy”.
Stoke-on-Trent CAB assisted a Cameroonian man to make an application for accommodation and subsistence support on 29 October 2002. On 4 November, an adviser telephoned NASS to check receipt, and was advised that the application had been received and would be processed “within the next two days”. Over the following weeks, the adviser repeatedly telephoned NASS to enquire about progress; on each occasion he was advised that, due to a backlog of work, the application was still awaiting processing.
On 23 December, however, NASS suddenly claimed never to have received the application; at the suggestion of the NASS regional manager, the adviser faxed copy applications to two fax numbers at NASS. In further telephone calls to NASS on 6 and 8 January, NASS claimed not to have received either of these faxes, and so a further copy was faxed to NASS. Only on 6 February did NASS offer the client accommodation and support; by this time, he had been without any form of financial support for more than three months, had run up rent and utility bill arrears of more than £1,000, and had been surviving off money and food given to him by friends.
But perhaps the key frustration for CAB advisers is the acute difficulty they (and their clients) face in making effective contact with NASS in such situations. For such contact is – and must be – the starting point for resolving the perhaps inevitable (but in our view far too common) problems associated with delivering subsistence support to some 100,000 individuals nationwide.
For example, Fulham CAB telephoned the NASS general enquiry line (TEB) on 14 January 2003, regarding a substantial underpayment of subsistence support to a young Somali woman. The TEB was unable to assist and referred the adviser to the voucher enquiry line (INEB), which was also unable to assist but advised the adviser to put the matter in writing to “the exceptional payments section”. The adviser did so that day. On 12 March, not having had any response, the adviser telephoned NASS, only to be advised that there is no ‘exceptional payments section’, that receipt of the adviser’s letter had been logged but no reply sent, and that the adviser should simply send the letter again.
Communication with NASS
In the absence of local NASS counter services, the main way to contact NASS urgently is by telephone. This must be done via two dedicated, lo-call enquiry lines: a voucher enquiry line (0845 6000 914), operated by the Home Office’s Immigration & Nationality Enquiry Bureau (INEB), and a more general enquiry line (0845 602 1739), operated by NASS as the telephone enquiry bureau (TEB).
CABx continue to report considerable difficulty getting through to these enquiry lines, with waiting times of 30 minutes or longer not uncommon. In October 2002, NASS managers conceded that the TEB had just two operators, and gave a commitment to increase the number to ten “by the end of the year”. On 31 January, NASS confirmed that the number of operators had been increased to six, and that the average number of calls answered by the TEB each week had as a result increased from 400 to over 1,000.
Given the continuing difficulty in contacting NASS by telephone, CAB advisers commonly send urgent letters to NASS by fax, using fax numbers set out in the NASS telephone directory and other guidance posted on the Home Office IND website, and in training materials provided to CABx by the NASS-funded reception assistant agencies (e.g. the Refugee Council and Refugee Action).
In January 2003, however, NASS managers advised Citizens Advice that fax machines at NASS are not routinely monitored for incoming faxes, and asked that faxes should not be sent to NASS unless the sender has first telephoned NASS to confirm (a) that the fax number is valid, and (b) that an official will await the incoming fax.
In our view, this is not an acceptable standard of accessibility for a public body charged with providing an essential service.
Causal factors in the failings of NASS
We believe there are number of key factors in the poor operational and administrative performance of NASS. These include:
- The establishment of a parallel welfare system for asylum seekers, based on forcible dispersal, was an unprecedented experiment in social engineering which, in terms of knowledge and expertise, the Home Office seems to have been extremely ill equipped to undertake. In 1999, the Government underestimated the task it was setting itself.
- The idea that NASS could effectively administer such a national welfare system – and one serving a particularly vulnerable and largely non-English speaking client group – without a significant local presence, let alone local counter services, was unrealistic. The Home Office now concedes that “the operation of NASS has proved less straightforward and less practicable than the Government is able to accept”.
- The NASS system is unduly complex, with a lack of clarity about the respective roles and responsibilities of NASS, Sodexho, the reception assistant agencies, and the (many) accommodation providers. NASS has had just 14 inspectors to monitor over 35,000 contracted properties nationwide.
- The One Stop Shop support services provided by the NASS-funded reception assistant agencies are grossly inadequate, and in some areas have been withdrawn completely.
- The system often gives the impression of being run for the convenience of NASS, which in turn seems largely incapable of empathy with its largely non-English speaking client group. For example, on 17 February 2003, without prior consultation or notification, NASS introduced a new system of issuing Emergency Support Tokens (ESTs) to individuals whose regular support has been interrupted. The ESTs are delivered direct by courier “within 48 hours” of the interruption being brought to the attention of NASS, and must be signed for. Thus, as NASS has indicated, “it is essential that applicants remain at their address” for up to 48 hours to await delivery. Not surprisingly, by early March NASS was finding that “nearly 50 per cent of ESTs are not deliverable on the first attempt”.
- We detect a mindset, at both manager and caseworker levels, of all asylum seekers being ‘on the make’ and thus undeserving of NASS support. There has also been an inward looking and stakeholder-averse culture among senior managers. For example, nearly two years after Ministers agreed that NASS should establish a national stakeholder forum, it has still not done so.
- This inward focus and lack of empathy with asylum seekers, perhaps compounded by inadequate training, appears to contribute to poor decision-making. We note that, in 2001-02, some 65 per cent of appeals to the Asylum Support Adjudicators against decisions of NASS were allowed by an adjudicator, remitted to NASS, or conceded by NASS.
- We detect serious weaknesses in the systems and processes used to manage and monitor casework, correspondence and telephone contacts. In October 2002, senior NASS managers conceded to Citizens Advice that there may well be “disjoint” between their performance indicators and reality.
- The failure of NASS to foster relevant community support in the dispersal areas has resulted in unmanageable demands being made of local services, thus introducing or exacerbating racial tensions and weakening social cohesion.
The planned regionalisation of some NASS functions from 1 April 2003 may go some way towards addressing these issues. For example, the local recruitment of regional staff and the introduction of outreach visits to newly dispersed asylum seekers may help change the culture of NASS and thus help bring about a more ‘customer focused’ approach. However, we note that all operational (i.e. post-dispersal) casework – the bulk of the NASS related work of CABx – will remain centralised in Croydon.
We believe that much more radical action is needed. This should include the separation of NASS from the Home Office IND (possibly with agency status), and the establishment of local NASS counter services (possibly utilising facilities of the Jobcentre Plus network).
The likely impact of the 2002 Act
A key plank of the 2002 Act is the establishment of a new, “seamless” support system of induction, accommodation and reporting centres. In 2002, the Government expressed its intention to establish, on a pilot basis, four rural-based accommodation centres with a total capacity of 3,000. However, the Home Office has so far identified only three possible sites, with a total proposed capacity of just 1,900. Officials have indicated that, subject to planning permission being granted, the first of these pilot centres will now not open before 2005. Even if the pilot centres are judged to be a success, therefore, it will be many years before a significant proportion of all asylum seekers are so supported. NASS currently supports 100,000 asylum seekers and dependants, whilst local authorities and the mainstream benefits system still support as many as another 30,000.
This means that it is essential that Ministers address the ongoing administrative and operational failings of NASS, which looks likely to continue as the principal provider of welfare support to asylum seekers for at least the next decade.
As for section 55 of the 2002 Act (denial of NASS support to those who do not apply for asylum “as soon as reasonably practicable”), the need to apply this provision fairly (as recently directed by the Court of Appeal) will impose a considerable administrative burden on NASS, to the detriment of its overall performance.
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