Advice and Representation grants

We want to work with advice partners in every part of the UK to strengthen local capacity and co-ordination in delivering specialist immigration advice, as well to draw on case data to support regional and national influencing work.

We are interested in a wide range of approaches by different types of organisations towards achieving these change goals:

3. A more accessible, sustainable, collaborative, and coordinated sector to strengthen and increase access to immigration advice and legal provision.

We expect to fund grant partners for an initial 3-year grant period. We anticipate making grants in the range of £90,000 – £200,000 for individual applications and £200,000 – £500,000 for multiple organisation partnerships/collaborations. For each region the available budget is £500,000, therefore realistically we would only be able to fund one partnership application per region to a total of £500,000.

Please see our grant partners page here for orgaisations awarded grants from previous rounds.

What we funded

As part of advice applications, we would welcome:

• Partnership work including developing and testing new or existing co-ordination structures between community organisations, legal advice providers and other stakeholders in a geographical area.  
• Alongside an application that increases specialist advice provision or referral pathways, we would welcome activities that improve organisational and individual understanding of racism and implementing structures to tackle systemic racism.
• Expansion to cover new and emerging populations in need, as well as geographic desert and droughts areas.
• Developing and improving triage and referral systems within and between organisations. 
• Promoting management capacity to build organisational resilience.  
• Training and supervision for staff and/or organisations to become registered at OISC level 2 or 3.  
• Promoting collective care strategies for front line workers.   
• Developing organisational data recording and case management systems.

We welcome applications from any organisation that can offer immigration advice at OISC Level 2 or above. We can only fund work that is charitable, but applicants do not need to be registered charities. For private law firms, we will need confirmation that a grant does not contribute to profit.

In prioritising applications, we will consider the balance across different areas of immigration law, beneficiary groups and geographical locations.

London grants

For London , because of the extent of the need [and the number of potential applicants] we have developed some more detailed criteria for advice applications. We encouraged applicants to review the following report: A Huge Gulf: Demand and Supply for Immigration Legal Advice in London, as a guide to the immense needs across London that the Grants Committee will be considering. The report, amongst many other things, identifies a bottleneck between community groups and advice as well as lack of qualified people at specialist levels.

Our goal is to:

• strengthen the connection between community groups and legal advice.
• increase capacity through supporting the development of structures, networks, referral pathways or frameworks into which future funding can flow.

We welcomed applications that:

• include training, support and coordinators not just new positions at specialist levels.
• meet multiple needs, which can be done through partnering with different groups, either formally or informally.
• connect borough deserts identified in the report with areas with more resources.

What we will not fund

• Work that operates in isolation from other stakeholders within the area. 
• Delivery of advice at OISC level 1. 
• Replacing statutory funding, including Legal Aid (where available). 
• Work that does not contribute to Justice Together’s change goals.
• Work whose main focus is influencing around access to or provision of housing, healthcare, destitution, the right to work or challenges to the existence of detention, bail from detention or conditions in detention. We will consider applications that focus on providing specialist legal advice in detention settings.
• Work that is not legally charitable including work for private benefit.

Roll-out of advice and representation grants