Our research
As part of developing the Justice Together initiative, we commissioned research including the following:
In response to the withdrawal of allied forces from Afghanistan at the end of the Summer, and the Government’s response that followed, Justice Together commissioned a briefing on the Legal Needs of Afghans in the UK. The Briefing, drafted by Rebecca Chapman of Garden Court Chambers, provides an overview of the different routes to the UK from Afghanistan, as well as an estimate of the number of Afghans using these routes.
This report explores the extent and nature of existing local authority funding and commissioning for immigration legal advice in the UK. It offers case studies of the different ways in which local authority funding schemes can be set up.
Between July 2022 to May 2023 Apteligen was appointed by Justice Together Initiative (JTI), Justice Lab and North East Law Centre (NELC) to provide data practitioner support to NELC and two of their partners in the JTI funded NE Partnership – North of England Refugee Service (NERS) and Justice First.
The original focus of this project was to:
1. Nurture the technical intuition and / or analytical capability of staff in the NE partnership organisations, who have a remit of data within their organisation. The purpose being to expand the technical and reasoning skills of data leads and increase the purposeful collection and use of data, including from easier data sharing between organisations in the NE partnership.
2. Explore what was already possible with regard to shared data standards for understanding client profiles, client engagement with services, the types of services which are provided and referred to, and to reveal challenges for developing data standards.
3. Develop guidance for legal advice and support organisations to develop compelling case studies and stories which draw upon quantitative and qualitative data.
Overall to improve the partnerships data maturity by supporting the organisations to better understand the data they collected about client profiles, engagements and referral pathways.
Throughout the project, NELC, NERS and Justice First as legal advice and support providers; JTI and Justice Lab as funders; and Apteligen as data practitioners were supportive of how the process would need to evolve to respond to the needs of the different organisations, and the realities of the contexts they are working in. The changes to the project scope and lessons learnt are captured in this report.
The report has useful learning for:
– Not-for-profit sector, in particular smaller organisations who are at an earlier stage of their data journey and who have more limited capacity for data work, and organisations working in the immigration legal advice and support sector;
– Funders looking to build the data capacity and capability of the not-for-profit sector; and
– Other data practitioners working in and with the not-for-profit sector.
Please read the full report here.
This research was commissioned by the Justice Together Initiative and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and was funded by the Greater London Authority. It provides evidence about the scale and characteristics of demand for and supply of immigration legal advice in London, and includes an examination of the different types of providers, their capacity, their distribution across the city, funding models and approaches, and the entry points and referral routes through advice networks in the capital.
The research finds a gulf between supply of and demand for immigration advice in London, particularly in areas of advice outside the scope of legal aid, and a bottleneck between advice and complex casework. It also identifies infrastructure challenges for the immigration advice sector, including a lack of trained advisors and a recruitment crisis. It concludes with a series of recommendations for resolving underlying infrastructure issues in the immigration advice sector in London for policymakers, funders and advice providers.
Before setting out on its mission, Justice Together undertook an extensive consultation across the United Kingdom to better understand the needs, challenges and opportunities concerning access to justice in the immigration system. This article pulls out the emerging themes from these multiple conversations.
When the conflict in Ukraine broke out, we reached out to our grant partners to identify what additional needs they may have, in relation to advice and influencing capacity.
A number of advice and support organisations reported a significant increase in demands on their services. Based on this assessment of need, we put out a request to funders for funding to support organisations.
Thanks to funder partners Paul Hamlyn Foundation, City Bridge Trust, Legal Education Foundation, AB Charitable Trust and the Metropolitan Migration Foundation and new funders the Disrupt Foundation an additional £570,000 has been raised. The majority of which has been granted to organisations providing vital advice and influencing work related to the conflict, with the aim of building capacity for organisations over the long term.
This report by Ceri Hutton summarises the remote working methods being used by immigration advice providers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and presents the benefits and challenges resulting from an increasingly digitised approach to client-facing work.
The research provides practical solutions for people working in the immigration advice sector and reflects on the implications of digital transformation and remote delivery for advice infrastructure and policy.
This report provides an overview of the immigration legal sector, examining the different types of immigration advisers, assessing the impact of the changes to legal aid and considering the groups most vulnerable to harm or injustice due to a lack of immigration advice and representation. It provides valuable insight for funders, service providers and policy makers.
The author, Saira Grant, explains how the report evolved and the increased relevance of the findings in the context of COVID-19 in her blog.
This summary outlines how voluntary sector organisations have improved the capacity, efficiency and accessibility of immigration advice provision across the UK. Commissioned by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Trust for London, the research identifies nine methods to increase the capacity of the not-for-profit sector to meet immigration advice needs, and offers valuable insights for funders, service providers and policymakers.