Advice and support provision for migrants in London - Migrants’ Rights Network report

Following concerns raised by Migrantts’ Rights Network (NRM) members that advice and support services for migrants are shrinking, resulting in inadequate provision in some areas of London, the NRM has produced a briefing looking at current provision.

Migrants may seek advice on a range of issues, not all of which can be addressed by generalist advisors. The focus of the briefing is specialist organisations providing advice and support to migrants.

Amongst the key findings are that:

* Advice services are experiencing simultaneous squeezes on funding from a number of directions. In the face of cuts, many Local Authorities have reduced their funding to advice services. The loss of the Area Based Grant means that poorer boroughs have lost a greater proportion of their funding. Additionally, small and specialist organisations find it hard to compete in the commissioning process being introduced by many Local Authorities. The early end of the London Councils grant scheme has removed another source of funding, in some cases earlier than anticipated. Changes to Legal Aid will hit many high level advice providers, such as Law Centres, hard, particularly in immigration work. Due to reduced funding from other areas, there is increasing competition for grants from trusts.

* Organisations have experienced a rise in demand for advice. This is, to some extent, due to reduced capacity at some support organisations leading to increased demand at others. The same, generally larger, organisations reducing their capacity are sometimes also reducing out-reach services, a double blow to the organisations who are now dealing with an increased workload and decreased support. Changes to housing benefit and the closure of several large immigration advice providers have also prompted surges in demand.

* Advice provision is unevenly spread. Understanding the spread of advice provision and how to use what remains most effectively is now important. While central areas remain relatively well provided for, there are several areas in London with very patchy support, especially in the outer boroughs. The most obvious of these are Haringey and Enfield in the north, Croydon and the outer boroughs in the south-east and Hounslow in outer west London. There are reports of migrants travelling long distances from these areas in search of advice.

* Support for networking has been reduced. Lack of funding, particularly for interborough activities, is making networking increasingly difficult at the time it is most needed. There is not necessarily the time and energy to explore possibilities for partnerships when organisations are struggling to cover their basis costs. However, consortia of advice providers are working together in some areas to pool resources and create efficient referral systems.

* Future considerations. Gaps in provision should be taken into consideration when outreach work is considered in the future. The lack of advice in some outer London boroughs could be addressed by outreach sessions from the more stable organisations. Maintaining effective networks of communication in order to understand where the need is greatest and to develop collaboration will be important. More effective advertisement of existing services could also reduce the distance travelled by migrants in search of advice. There is a perception that migrants are increasingly using the internet to search for advice services. Making sure that organisations’ websites are easy to find and up to date could reduce the long distances currently travelled by some migrants.

Advice and Support Provision for Migrants in London: a view from the field (pdf file)