 Good morning and welcome to the 7th meeting of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee in 2017. Can I make the usual request that mobile phones are switched on to airplane mode or on to silent? We have received no apologies for the meeting this morning. We have a full complement of colleagues. Moving very swiftly on to our main agenda item this morning, we have an on-going inquiry on destitution, asylum and insecure immigration status. This is our first oral evidence. We have been to visit many of the projects and the organisations involved in this. We are really keen to hear from some of the voices on the record today. What is this morning? We have Fiona McLeod, who is the Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer with the British Red Cross. We have Tam Bailey, the Commissioner for the Children and Young People in Scotland. Judith Robertson, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Graham O'Neill, who is the policy officer of the Scottish Refugee Council. Joe Osgahoo is the policy worker for Scottish Women's Aid. Good morning to you all. Thank you so much for coming to committee. Thank you so much for many of your organisations who have hosted us in our visits over the past few weeks. We are looking forward to working with you on this very important topic. What I was going to do was allow you to open a minute or so of each one of you telling us what you are involved in right now. Hopefully that will inspire lots of questions from us. I suspect it will. Joe, would you like to start? Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to this meeting today. Scottish Women's Aid is a national organisation working to prevent domestic abuse in Scotland. We also are the umbrella organisation and represent the views of the network of women's aid groups working across Scotland who provide direct services, including refuges and support services to women and children. Our concern is, obviously, coming from our membership, women's aid groups working in different areas of Scotland, who are unable to support or give access, refuge access to women with insecure immigration status, either because they have no recourse to public funds or because they are women from the European Union who have no access to housing benefit. It is a serious concern for our membership and for ourselves about the risk that those women and their children face. They are largely then trapped in relationships that they are unable to leave or, if they do, leave. They find that they are unable to get the support and accommodation that they thought that they would be entitled to or that they have been told by the police when they are called to a situation that they should not be living in that situation, that there is, that that is not supposed to be happening and that women have a right to live free from violence, but they find when they are assessed by women's aid groups that they are not going to be able to accommodate them or that they are unlikely to face a long and lengthy process of trying to access financial support. Our serious concern is about what is happening, the risk to women and children in Scotland at the moment. I am Graham McNeill from the Scottish Refugee Council. We are delighted to be here with you today and we are delighted that you are conducting this inquiry. We have worked for 30 years with people seeking and people granted refugee protection. One of the things that struck us, particularly in the last 17 years since 2000, has been how destitution is built into the UK asylum process. It does not need to be like that, but we, in our experiences, are at different stages of the process. One of the most acute stages of the process is when people have been refused asylum and find themselves with no recourse to public funds, but nonetheless they are still physically in Scotland or in Glasgow or wherever they have been dispersed to. One of the things that we are really keen to hopefully through this inquiry talk about is a different approach to combating destitution within the UK and how Scotland is well-placed with the significant devolution of powers that it has to start considering doing that. The Scottish Refugee Council has, for a number of years, worked with people seeking granted refugee protection. Currently, we have a refugee integration service. We also have a service that works with asylum-seeking families. We are also partners with a multi-agency service, the Destitution Asylum Seeker service, which works with people who are at risk of or are destitute in order to try to get people back in to access either UK or Scottish entitlements to support and lift them out of destitution. We can hopefully talk about some of those issues later on today. Good morning, and again thank you for the invitation to give evidence this morning. Clearly our interests from the Scottish Human Rights Commission's perspective is in the human rights framing of the issue within Scotland. As you are aware, there is a limit to our mandate as immigration primarily is a reserve power. The principal focus on immigration issues is that of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. However, because of the impact on Scottish public authorities in relation to the issue, we felt that it was appropriate for us to bring that human rights perspective this morning, which is what I will be doing. I will be framing the contribution that I will be making by looking at destitution as a human rights issue, the implications of that for public authorities in Scotland, echoing some of the comments that have been made by all the panellists this morning in relation to the evidence that I have seen. We will be supporting that in terms of the evidence that we are giving. Thank you very much, Judith. Tam, you will have a particular perspective given your role as a children's commissioner. We will be keen to hear from you. Yes, absolutely. I am very pleased to be here. It is excellent that the inquiry has been prompted by the committee, because those are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. By dinner that is some of the most vulnerable children. That is my main interest. Most recently, we have been quite heavily involved in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. However, in this one, it looks as if we have got very variable practice, given some of the examples that I have been given to the committee already. There is a requirement for us to be much more consistent and much more aware of our responsibilities to those children and their parents and carers. That is really why I am here. I was struck by one quote in the evidence when Janis Scott was quoting the Court of Appeal, and he referred to the impenetrable nature of the legislation. I think that that colours everybody's approach to it, because it is quite difficult sometimes to get our head round the kind of things that we should be aware of. However, I think that there is some other very helpful evidence that will come to light to the committee, which, hopefully, the committee will be able to bring to a much wider audience. There are a few committee members who have got specific topics that they will pursue with each of you, as you can imagine. Fiona McLeod. Good morning, everyone. My name is Fiona McLeod, and I work for the British Red Cross. I will echo everyone else's thanks to the committee for looking at this issue and for inviting us here today to give evidence. The British Red Cross is an organisation that works with refugees and asylum seekers right across the UK. Last year, across the UK, we supported over 30,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland. Our offices are primarily based in Glasgow, and there we provide support, advice and practical assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, both within the system and as they reunite with their families later on when they have refugee status. Like Graham said, destitution is built into the asylum process, and it really does not have to be that way. We are here to give evidence today on the impact that it has on our clients and the belief that we think that a different approach could be much more humanitarian and prevent the breach of rights for those individuals in that situation. I am going to go to our colleagues for questions, and Alex Coleham will come in first to see a particular issue that he would like to pursue. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us today. I would like to pick up on something that Tam mentioned, which is in particular unaccompanied children seeking asylum. I should declare an interest that, before I came to the Scottish Parliament, I worked for Abalara, which works with the Scottish Refugee Council to deliver Scotland's guardianship service for unaccompanied asylum seekers. In England, since the Hillingdon judgement over a decade ago, unaccompanied children seeking asylum have been afforded at risk status, which is slightly different from what they are regarded here. I know that, while I was in the sector, there was a debate about how we could improve the legislative status of children seeking asylum who are unaccompanied in this country, almost to the point of giving them looked-after status, which, given the Children and Young People Act 2014, would entitle them to things such as aftercare on attaining the age of 21. Can those panel members who have a particular interest in the field of unaccompanied children seeking asylum give us as a committee an idea of where we still need to move building on the work of the Human Trafficking Act of last year in terms of protecting the status or giving children in this position an enhanced protection in the eyes of the law? We have been heavily involved recently with unaccompanied asylum seeking children, and I will deal with that, but I want to talk about children in the circumstances of destitution. Unaccompanied asylum seeking children Scotland has responded positively within the confines of the legislation, because children who, first of all, arrived in Kent. It is not easy to effect transfer for those children to Scotland, but there have been children who have come up under the Dubs amendment, and I attended a meeting recently that was chaired by the First Minister to consider the Scottish response to that, and very heartened by the assurances given by Glasgow about the numbers of children that they were receiving and the looked-after status of those children, and all of the legislative responsibilities being honoured for those children. Those are plans, but we certainly think that people were reassured about the approach that has been taken to that group of children. Just ask, because you said the looked-after status. Are unaccompanied children in Scotland who are seeking asylum currently afforded section 25 status now, so they are effectively in care when they are in this country? Yes, specifically for these additional children, there were assurances given that they would be looked after and that they would receive all the new and pending responsibilities that the local authority would have to dispense to them in terms of their looked-after status. Some of the detail is still to be worked out, as I expect there to be more discussion on that, and I certainly was one of the people who went into the meeting seeking those types of assurances. That is the kids who are coming here under the Dubs amendment, but in terms of those who make their own way to Scottish Points of entry and present an request to asylum, are they given section 25 status? There is an issue about section 25 versus section 22, as you might be aware. My understanding is that that is still to be formally agreed. I would be pushing for section 25 so that those children have get the full look-after status as every other child. I think that Graham wants to come in. Just to echo Tam's comments, the legal services agency has done some really great work about two years ago about the issue of local authorities' variable practice across local authorities in Scotland. Some provide support under section 22 of the children's need provisions in the children's Scotland Act 95 and some do it, as they should have done it and were good under section 25. The First Minister has been very clear on that at the round table, and the legislation is very clear on that. An unaccompanied child who does not have a parental or a customary caregiver physically in the UK is a looked-after child up to the age of 18, and they should be treated in terms of assessment, review processes and decision making processes, in terms of entitlements to after and continuing care in Scotland's pioneering children and young people Act 2014. That is our position in relation to that status. If there is an inconsistency of application where some local authorities are still only granting children a need support under section 22, is there something that we as a Parliament need to do more in terms of legislation to ensure that local authorities are applying their duties under section 25 and making those children looked after? Highlight it in your report and make sure that looked-after status should be through section 25. I think that you may hear from Kirsty later on about that business of 22 versus 25. We are still not there yet, but it would be another useful lever for it to be highlighted through the report of this committee. Can I just jump back? I am sorry for continuing, but I want to really highlight about the plight of children who do not have an accompanied status but are part of those families who are destitute. My reading of the evidence is that it is quite clear that those children could and should be getting support under section 12. That is very important because it is important for two reasons. One is that we need to make sure that local authorities or people who are responsible for providing service know that that is the case and secondly that we have consistent practice in the application of that. That would again be something that could be very usefully directed through whatever report comes from the committee. Beyond that, we need to make sure that there are standards that people at local authority level—not just local authorities, but local provision—adhere in terms of trying to provide decent services for people who are caught in those circumstances as a result of UK legislation. We have a responsibility at local level to respond to that. One of the issues that I picked up from the immigration practitioners group's evidence that they gave us is that there is an issue between kids who are transferring between local authorities, whether they have a status under an English law and the transfer to Scotland and the issues that that poses. I have seen Fiona trying to get in there because I suspect that you will answer my next question before I even ask it. It is about how section 12 has been used differently, not just by local authorities but by local officers. That was one of the issues that we picked up in the visit when we came to the British Red Cross. There are a couple of things that are relevant. One, just to pick up on a gap around unaccompanied children that the Red Cross has identified through our youth psychosocial support services. We are seeing some children who are dispersed through the UK asylum system. They are age-assessed in England and then dispersed through the UK asylum system as an adult at which stage they sometimes present at our Red Cross offices in Glasgow. They dispute their age. Currently, they are not entitled to the same level of support as someone who arrives and is recognised as a child legally, even though they may not have exhausted all legal means to challenge that age assessment. Sometimes they are not even fully aware of what the process of age assessment has been. That was just a little gap around age-disputed young children. In relation to the work that we do with many women and families, we have certainly seen a rising inconsistency in the application of care and support, specifically in the family context, where families have presented to social work who are destitute, requiring support and help. We have had cases where those families have been told that the local authority has no duty to assist them as an individual and that they would meet their duties to the child by taking that child into care and removing them from the family home. Some of our cases have been with very young children. In one case, the mother was still breastfeeding her child. Obviously, we would strongly argue that in those cases there were no protection concerns and that it would have been hugely detrimental to remove that child from their home. That section 22 should be applied in conjunction to protect that family unit and protect those best interests of the child. We heard some of those stories face-to-face from some of the families that we met that day and it is something that we have very much on our radar in that sense. That is the last thing that we need as families being split up. Mary Watt wants to come in next to Nen Jeremy. Thank you, convener, and good morning. Thank you all for the written evidence that you have submitted and for assisting us in the visits that we have done. I wonder if I could start Graham with you and some of the things that you talk about in the evidence that you have given, because what I am keen to do—and I know the rest of the committee—is to produce a report that gives clear recommendations of what should be done. I was struck by your written evidence when you talked about the freedom of information request that you submitted to local authorities, particularly by the lack of response that you have had, but also the lack of awareness that you have had. In very practical terms, do you think that compelling or requesting COSLA to update the guidance would make a real difference? Is there something else that could be done? I would be keen to hear from the other panel members in very practical terms what we can put in this report that will actually make a difference in health families? Thank you. That is a very pertinent question. The updating of the COSLA guidance is a necessary by no means sufficient condition. One of the things that we took from the responses to the Freedom of Information Act requests was that there was no knowledge of what technical terms that no record to public funds are. There was no practice in relation to human rights assessments, and those are essential bits of knowledge for a local authority to act lawfully. That is to make sure that it is ensuring that, when it makes a decision about whether to give somebody or not support under the relevant legislation that it is doing so, in a lawful manner that it has evidence behind it, it is transparent to the decision making process, and it is something that can be justified and challenged. In terms of practical measures, there is a clear need for, we think, the needs of individuals and families who are in those predicaments to be brought in to the various strategies and policies that we have in Scotland. We have a very good violence against women and girls strategy, we have a very good anti-trafficking and exploitation strategy, we have an excellent perfect framework. We have a lot of good stuff already, but this group of people have been sitting outside of that fabulous work that is being taken forward, and that needs to change, and it needs to change urgently. We have also a new Scots refugee integration strategy, which we would suggest is one of the most obvious vehicles to bring the needs of, certainly, asylum seekers within. The needs of refused asylum seekers who are at risk of destitution and experiencing destitution into the work of key statutory authorities across Scotland. The key ones will be local authorities and health services, and it will be essential that that is done. We need to have a role for awareness raising and training in relation to no recourse to public funds, human rights assessments, child and need assessment tools to be refreshed. All that stuff needs to be brought, because one of the things that we need to step back on when we are talking about destitution in people in relation to insecure immigration status is that it is across roads moment in relation to the numbers, the different groups and the geographical location of people who are seeking or granted refugee protection. We are seeing that, which is a very good thing that Scotland should be and has been praised for, but we need to make sure that we have a system in place to deal with that. One of the most urgent areas that we need to have a system in place to deal with that is that the local authorities, the other local statutory bodies within the areas that people who are at risk of or are in destitution are physically in, know who the people are, know what their legal statuses mean and then feel confident to be working with people in those situations because they have been trained, because they have got a clear awareness, because they have policies and procedures to follow. In England we have a number of good policies and procedures to follow. We should have them in Scotland as well and we just need to make sure that we move quickly to do that. That is one of the practical recommendations that the committee needs to make. We need to have clear policies and procedures, clear awareness raising and training to make sure that this group of people who are at risk of or are in destitution actually get fair practical access to services and protection. In relation to COSLA, who should be involved in updating and making sure that the requirements and the regulations are up-to-date and are actually going to be fit for the purpose? What we think needs to happen here is that we need to move seriously into a multi-agency approach in relation to the development of such guidance. Local authorities absolutely need to be at the heart of that, but so do health services, so do key NGOs such as British Red Cross, such as Scottish Refugee Council, such as the Scottish Children and Young People's Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission. We also need to have some of the key legal practitioners available as well. I have mentioned a lot there. I probably would not expand it too much beyond that, but what we need to have is a multi-agency approach, bringing the different key institutions and agencies around the table to share knowledge so that they have something that is really owned and something that also has a holistic perspective of the person. It looks at the health issues, it looks at the legal status issues, it looks at if there is any child protection issues that has them in mind as well. We talk about a response gap that we have in Scotland in relation to destitution, and we do not do it lightly. We think that it is there, we think that it is real, and we need to fill it in. One of the practical ways for us to do that is through awareness-raising, training and guidance, but we need to develop such in an inclusive multi-agency manner. Judith, I wanted to ask you something specifically. When we went on some of the visits, some of the inconsistency about social work practice, you would have a family that would be destitute, that would pitch up at a social work office and they would either be seen or not seen, but if they were seen, a social work assessment would ensue normal procedure. I asked a question about the human rights assessment. Many people said that that was not done until months later, whereas I would see the two things having to run in tandem, almost the human rights assessment piggybacking on the top of that. Now, would it be a practical assessment, a practical requirement that that is done, that the two assessments take place together, and would that be something where the Scottish Human Rights Commission would come in and give advice on? Certainly, in relation to the evidence that has been here, a human rights assessment is... I do not know if it is a statutory requirement in terms of actually doing an assessment, but it is certainly in terms of recommended good practice in relation to determining what are the human rights implications of the decisions that are being made in front of them. There are a number of factors that would be brought into play clearly in legal terms that the implications of the human rights act, principally article 3 and article 8, article 3 being the right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, article 8, right to private family life. Those are the two key things in relation to the human rights act implications of decision making at an individual level. I have to say that the lack of awareness and understanding of human rights implications of decision making is not just an issue in relation to destitution of asylum seekers and across this. That is a systemic issue across the piece. I would say that the knowledge base is most strong when it comes to the rights of the child throughout social work and housing and other public authorities practice. The lack of using the human rights lens through which to make decisions is... The reason that we are talking about it today is because it is most acute because of the extreme nature of what is happening to people at the end of this line, but it is an issue right up the system, if that makes sense. The gap is... I do not want to impugn local authorities just on the basis of this issue. It is a systemic issue. However, the recommendation that the Scottish Refugee Council has made around a human rights assessment is a really important one. I am providing that human rights analysis and understanding to local authority decision makers is very doable. They should be doing that on their own. That is their job, their core duty. Although the justiciable nature of the human rights act means that that is their primary reason that they can be called to judicial review, for example, they have other international legal obligations around the right to adequate standard of living, which would then impact on the right to social security, the right to housing, the right to social care and other right to health more broadly. There are a range of human rights issues that impact on the decisions that are being made. Although they cannot at the moment, and this is one of the reasons that, as the Scottish Human Rights Commission, we are recommending, economic, social, cultural rights are made justiciable in Scotland within the bounds of the parameters of Scotland's law and devolved powers. That is an area where you would be able to see much stronger recourse to using the courts when failures in the system happen and people do become destitute for whatever reason. At the moment, the Human Rights Act provides very high bars, very high thresholds that people have to cross. That is one of the reasons that destitution actually happens, because the thresholds are so high and they have quite arcane arguments about whether or not, from my perspective, somebody is meeting the terms of the difficulty. As opposed to saying that destitution is a human rights issue, it is not allowed under international law and that is what we should primarily be dealing with. Does that make sense? I think that it does. Joe, on Mary's original question, all of the organisations that we have here are obviously talking about people who are seeking asylum and people who are getting insecure immigration status, but on top of that you have people who are in that situation and then maybe in a domestic violence situation as well. In relation to Mary's question, would you want to elaborate a wee bit? I would agree with Graham's and the Scottish Refugee Council's recommendation about needing for a clear multi-agency approach to developing good guidance for local authorities and other public bodies. We know from our women's aid groups working in different areas of Scotland that very different practice goes on in terms of assessments for saving for children under section 12 or section 22. Our children, as Fiona said, the offer being of the children can be taken into care for women who are experiencing domestic abuse and no support given to the mother. I think that we would strongly support that recommendation, that there needs to be much better guidance and training and awareness to enable public bodies to be able to fulfil their duties to a much better extent than they are currently. To recognise the risks of not providing emergency or crisis support is posing to women and children in Scotland and what the likely outcome might be of not doing that as opposed to saying that they cannot do something. That is the situation that women's aid groups often come across and they have difficulty challenging those decisions if there is nothing there to back them up. Mary. Graham, you come back in. I just wanted to ask a further question. I and other committee members to a certain extent do as well. I have a bit of an aversion sometimes towards guidance, because I always have a concern that guidance becomes something that sits on a shelf and gets dusty. I am not saying that nothing is done with it. It is perhaps read and acknowledged, but it is not a live document. We need to be really careful when we are making recommendations that are built into them as some way of putting on record that there needs to be some kind of reporting mechanism or data collection mechanism so that the guidance and the way it is used can be properly tracked and we can physically or tangibly see the benefits that this is giving us. Do you agree with that? I would completely agree with that. A recent example would be the work that was done with the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act and the duty to have a strategy against trafficking and Scotland strategy against this human rights abuse. Deliberately, there was a mechanism put into that act to report to the Parliament periodically, and that was precisely to make sure that there was some checking mechanism, some improvement mechanism, some scrutiny and accountability. This is not the same type of territory, because we are talking about a pretty severe violation. People who do not have life anymore do not have any existence. People who are making survival decisions could basically mean being pretty ruthlessly and horrendously exploited in exchange for accommodation, so it is as serious as that and therefore the response from our Parliament in Scotland and then through this we hope that these recommendations will be commensurate with that. The one thing that I just wanted to add to your question about practical measures is that we think that there is an essential need for practical accessible advocacy for people who are at risk of destitution or experiencing destitution. I mentioned the asylum seeking family service, which Glasgow City Council funds to its credit, which we are very grateful for. Its funding is not long-term funding, but what that service does is provide a holistic key work approach, so it builds up trust and confidence with families. The Immigration Act 2016, when it starts to take effect later on this year, will increase the risk of destitution for families also greatly. If those families do not have access to practical advocacy, they may not be able to access the home office entitlements that they are entitled to, so it would be perverse because what you would have is more destitution, including potentially of families, and not able in Scotland to access those families that are able to access UK support. Whereas if you had a preventive approach through the provision of what we know is needed, which is practical accessible advocacy services, that will prevent costs and humanitarian harm later on down the line, but it will prevent the costs for Scottish public authorities, such as health and local government, as well as NGOs. I stress the importance of recommendations, and the need for practical accessible advocacy is essential. There is no prospect of the home office providing advocacy for asylum seekers. Their contract from 2014 explicitly required any contractor—in this case, it is currently my help—not to provide advocacy for asylum seekers. We know that that is precisely what so many people need, because they are completely new to the country. You may not have the language, but you do not have the cultural and social connections that we have here. You need somebody to help you, and you need to speak to somebody who does not necessarily get that help over the phone or through a call centre, which is the current model that the home office funds. That is a really important practical recommendation. Fiona, you want to come in, and we will go to Jeremy. Just on two small points, the guidance point is a valid point. For the clients that we see, the process of undertaking an assessment where their human rights are taken into consideration, and it is a transparent and fair process, where the local authority is making a concrete decision. That, in conjunction with Graham's point about the practical advocacy, can give the clients that we see and the clients that everyone else has an understanding of why the decision has been made, but also a much clearer route to challenge a decision. At the moment, sometimes assessments are not fully done, and people are turned away practically at the door. That process is completely impenetrable for people to challenge social work and or challenge practice. I think that the process of having to conduct the assessment can help and give some control back to the clients themselves. Just to echo Graham's point about independent advocacy and the need for it, we, in our written submission, argued that we felt that that would be a key recommendation for the committee to consider. It is important for groups that are at the end of the process, as it is important for people at the start of the process, and that independent advocacy could help them to engage more positively in the asylum system, thereby reducing their chances of destitution at a later date. I am sure that you will not put words in your mouth but say that independent advocacy would be good for the group of women that you see with insecure immigration status. Thank you for coming. A couple of questions. Before I say that, I should probably declare at least one of the seven weeks that I am a councillor here in Edinburgh City Council and have that interest. I want to fly a kite, which has just come to me as we have been talking. If I am a councillor in Clackmannanshire or East Lloven or wherever, I am going to presumably see very few individuals. I just do not have that expertise, presumably most of the people that we are talking about here are in Glasgow. Is there a mechanism or do you think that there needs to be some kind of body that takes us away from local authorities and is more of a national body? Because then we would get better practice across the whole of the 32 regions. It seems to be slightly unfair for a councillor in a councillor that maybe has one every two years to have that expertise. How do you think that he or she would be able to deal with that? It is to do with this business of how legislation is implemented. I share some of the reservations that Mary has in respect of guidance, but we do have legislation that could and should be used. Simple as that. We should be accommodating these children and families under section 12 and providing for them. We should be using section 25, as opposed to section 22, so that children who are unaccompanied have their looked-after status. My point is that if I am a councillor in an office somewhere but rarely sees this type of work, I simply do not have that knowledge. I understand the point. We may be able to co-ordinate, for instance, the reception of children and families at national level, and the bodies that they have linked to them can provide that co-ordination. However, the bottom line is that they will be coming into local authorities, local areas. I think that what we should be doing is to make sure that it is as clear as we can make it about how we should be dealing with families who are destitute or children who are unaccompanied. Otherwise, you could be in danger of setting up another cumbersome structure when we have got the capacity at local level. I understand the point about lack of awareness and understanding the legislation. That is why, when we are talking about how the legislation should be implemented, it should be as clear as possible. Right now, I think that we are lacking some of that clarity. By all means, we may look at having a legal requirement, for instance, for advocacy services for families in these circumstances so that, in fact, we make sure that it is safeguarded in terms of the implementation of the legislation. I am speaking off the top of my head right now. My priority is making sure that that happens at local level. I wonder if I can ask Fiona or Graham on that. The feedback that I have had as a local councillor is that the Syrian resettlement worked pretty well, and we did get that right across most local authorities. Are there lessons that we can learn from that project that we can then take back and look at the bigger picture of why we got that right? Was that simply due to lots of money was thrown at it to make sure that we did get it right, or were there fundamental principles of how practice took place? We could then say, well, that worked there. Let's apply it there. I think that there was something more fundamental going on in terms of the early success of the Syrian relocation programme in Scotland. Part of the success has been that the commensurate money has been put into that scheme. In the first year, for an individual coming through the Syrian relocation scheme, it is about 8,500 that follows that person. For an asylum-seeker, an adult who is dispersed to Glasgow—the current contractor for the Home Office's circle, as we know—3,500 follows that person. He has a stark inequality in the Home Affairs Committee at Westminster and has articulated that very clearly in its report into asylum accommodation published at the end of January this year. The more fundamental issue is about the manner in which that programme was planned and delivered. It basically empowered Scottish institutions to do what they can do best, which is that they know the country best. They know their populations best and their communities best. They know their services best. They then tried to work in a joined-up way in relation to bringing the benefits of that joined-up approach to the new arrivals. In terms of the UK asylum system, we spent a lot of time in our written evidence and reiterating the point that we have been making for a number of years about destitution being built into the asylum process, what entry to the process. As you are going through the process in terms of chronic poverty, support, denial of the right to work, etc. At the end of the process, which is obvious when people have that particularly acute risk of destitution, as Fiona and myself have said at the start, it does not need to be this way. We could have very good practical preventive approaches in place. We mentioned practical advocacy would be one of those. Clear understanding at the local level of rights and entitlements would be another one with safeguards built around that to make sure that it was being implemented consistently and appropriately. What we said in our written evidence as we talked about an intergovernmental agreement in relation to how all-refugee and dispersal is done so for asylum seekers, for unaccompanied children, etc. What we were trying to get at back to the logic of what dispersal was when it was first designed in 2000 is that the primary relationship should be between two Governments, the Scottish and UK Government. There was nothing political about that. That was just more a reflection of the facts of devolution that most of the issues that relate to the reception, the competence that relates to the reception and integration of people being moved to Scotland, health, housing, social work, other aspects of local government, community planning, community cohesion, crime, if in terms of risks of exploitation, etc. They are all devolved to the Scottish Parliament. There is a real clear logic in terms of having much greater autonomy through an intergovernmental agreement being given to Scotland to make dispersal work better. That is close to what happened with the Syrian relocation programme. If we were to learn the lessons of that success, we could build in a much more inclusive human system in Scotland. One of the things that that would do, because it provides practical advocacy and a clear understanding of rights entitlements, would prevent or lessen the risk of destitution. Destitution does not just have huge humanitarian harm, it has huge financial risk and legal risk for Scottish public authorities also. In Scotland, I think that we would hope that the committee would consider this about the desirability, because of the good sense of having an intergovernmental arrangement. It does not need to talk about devolution, it just needs to focus on very practical measures that reflect the devolution of competencies that we have already within the UK in order to make sure that the good public services that we have in Scotland can actually be brought to bear very clearly and humanely for people, among other things, who are at risk of destitution. I think that, on that point, Jo wants to comment it. Is it actually if you don't mind to the earlier question that you posed about local authorities and perhaps lack of experience due to numbers being concentrated in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas? That's certainly not women's aid experience in terms of the women that go to women's aid services across different areas of Scotland. There are women who have no recourse to public funds or are destitute because they are EU migrants from the highlands downwards. I think that there are different local authorities who have a relatively high experience of having to respond to that kind of issue from women experiencing violence, maybe not so much directly from asylum seekers being dispersed to different areas of Scotland. It is certainly an issue that local authorities need to have a much more consistent approach to and be able to respond to much more effectively. I take the point about guidance and we have a number of issues with guidance as well. There is a possibility of looking at sharing experience and having a practitioner's network that is multi-agency. One of our recommendations is also that we need to be systemically gathering evidence about the numbers and issues of women and girls in Scotland who are experiencing violence and having a secure immigration status, because we do not actually know that at the moment. That is a real gap in terms of the information that we have. In terms of there being a positive duty on public authorities and the Scottish Government to take action to prevent destitution, that is no matter what the context or the environment in which that sits. Thinking of the lessons from the Syrian refugee process, one of the, I suspect, factors about the refugee council's greater knowledge of the system process was the leadership that was shown by the Scottish Government in facilitating that process and bringing together all the different actors and getting them into the room. Because what is being presented here is that there is a route whereby we can positively prevent destitution. That is possible even within the strictures of the legislation that is handed down to us, that the Parliament has no power over, and therefore there is an absolute positive duty on the Parliament and the Government to take action to put in place the steps that can prevent that happening. That multi-agency approach and bringing the local authorities into the room to heighten both the knowledge and understanding and sense of urgency that the changes in legislation coming through are going to generate for people right across the system is a really important recommendation that could come from the committee, which is not necessarily reflected here already. Excellent. As you can see, we are running out of time, which is always invariably the case, because we've always got really good evidence to hear. I've got a question from Willie Coffey. I just wanted to probe this issue about destitution being built in and effectively being created by the immigration process. Many of you have said that it's really about human rights. It's about human rights. It's not about immigration, but it seems that the state is creating in many ways, in many circumstances, the problem that we have. Graeme, in your submission to, as you were telling us, that unless people have got particular vulnerabilities, they've got to travel to Croydon to access the asylum procedure. For goodness sake, do you think that we're getting further away from the kind of scenario that you described a wee minute ago where local authorities could deal with those issues much more robustly and properly locally? Are we getting further away from that scenario? I get the sense that you're giving us the same kind of message that you're whistling in the wind a wee bit, would that be fair? People used to be able to register at Glasgow and they changed that to Croydon. The people who need to get to Croydon don't get any assistance to get there. It's up to organisations like this or charities or friends in order to give them the bus fare to get there. I think that you would be keen to elaborate on that. The Home Office is an extensive network across the UK of offices, which is good. One of which is in Scotland, one of which is Glasgow. As a convener, it is correctly pinpointed. People who arrive in the UK, and most people arrive in the UK to claim protection in-country as opposed to that port, the vast majority do, then have to go to Croydon. The risks to people in that around exploitation are significant. People go into this twilight world and we don't really know how people get to Croydon to access the asylum procedure. Some people will do it through their own means, some people will do it through charities such as ourselves, but other people, we don't know how that's going to happen. We think that that's unacceptable, but we also think that it's quite senseless, given that the Home Office has a network of offices where people can access the procedure. People can access the procedure at London or Croydon, and shortly after, they will disperse to different parts, predominantly the north-west, north-east of England or Glasgow or some parts of Wales. They will disperse back again. Why don't you let people access the procedure where they are and have a mature enough system so that they can then be moved into their forms of support, if they're entitled to forms of support, while they're waiting for a decision in their claim? It gets worse for people who are looking to re-access the asylum procedure, because asylum claims are complex and the evidence doesn't come in a neat box. Circumstances change in countries of origin, and often people can present what's called fresh evidence, which then constitutes fresh representations. One of the things that we pointed to in our report is that statistics show about 20 per cent over the last 10 years or so of people who have been destitute because, among other things, have been refused asylum, have gained protection status through putting in fresh representations a fresh claim. From January 2015, the Home Office made it very difficult for people to re-access the asylum procedure so that people who have been refused asylum are looking to re-access the asylum procedure with fresh evidence. The only place that they can do that is in Liverpool, in less exceptional circumstances, where they're deemed to pertain, which is very rare. What people then have is the same restriction that they had for the Croydon. They're having to re-access the asylum procedure only in Liverpool when they could have been dispersed to Glasgow, they could have been dispersed to Plymouth, they could have been dispersed somewhere very far away. It's just the senselessness aside from the inhumanity of this. Those are two examples of why destitution is built into the asylum process, because, if people are having to be dependent in such ways in order to access a fundamental human right, it may well be that they don't access that fundamental human right, that they're into situations of exploitation. I would hope that Inexpect Police Scotland will talk to some of those issues about the risks, the vulnerabilities that come for this particular group of people who are at risk of their experience in destitution, to exploitation, and potentially also to organised crime. There's, again, gone back to the severity of the issue that we're talking about. That's as serious as we're talking about in terms of that it can be serious forms of exploitation that people are suffering, which are directly stemming from the way that the UK Government through the Home Office has constructed access and re-accessing the asylum procedure. Progress or toll? It's getting worse. The removal of practical advocacy, the changes in terms of access to the asylum procedure and re-accessing the asylum procedure are free examples of how it's been getting worse. As myself and Fiona have said, it really doesn't need to be this way. We could have a much more sensible and humane system. Fiona, how does that work for young people who are maybe in that cusp of age assessment or not, but still a very vulnerable young person on their own? How does that work? Do they need to make that journey on their own to Liverpool or Croydon? If they're assessed as being an adult, even if they haven't exhausted all their legal means to challenge that decision, they would have to make that journey. Some of the challenges that we have is that it's at the point where they have lodged their claim that they are age assessed and then dispersed into an adult system. Sometimes it's not that they've travelled down on their own, but I would imagine that many unaccompanied minors are making difficult and dangerous journeys. What's her reason, actually, Tam? If access has been a child, then they would be provided for as a child within Scotland. All of that should provide even more impetus to get it right when people are in Scotland. We're not whistling in the wind in terms of what we can do about it. We can make sure that we act in a humane way and that we don't have some of the shameful stories that you've heard both out in your journeys and through the evidence. There are things that we can do, and we can do it within our existing legislation. If there's a message to come from the committee, it's to make sure that that clarity is there and that we get on and do that. We don't add to the misery that those people have been put through because of some other matters that are out with our control. Of course, the committee may well want to make recommendations to urge the Scottish Government to take forward to the UK Government, but there's a clear focus for us getting it right more often and better within the framework that we've currently got. We're taking much more evidence from others. We've got a second panel this morning, for instance, and then more panels coming up. We have the cabinet secretary coming to see us in a few weeks' time as well. We have extended an invitation to the UK Government. They have since declined that. We will keep trying, and we hope that they'll give us some written evidence in respect to our committee inquiry. However, we're bang up against our time. I know that we've got a second panel, and I suspect that members want to have a quick comfort break before we go into the second panel. I thank you all for your evidence this morning. I thank you so much for your written evidence, because that's going to help us along with your oral evidence this morning. We could have talked for hours on this, and you know that there's a lot of interest on the committee. We're really keen to take forward some of the recommendations that you have suggested. I thank you so much when we look forward to continuing the work. I'm going to go into a brief recess to suspend the committee briefly to allow you kids to get a quick comfort break and to allow our second panel to come in. Welcome back to the Equality and Human Rights Committee. We move on to our second panel this morning on our inquiry on destitution and immigration. Our inquiry on destitution and asylum. This morning, we have Neil McKittrick, who is the refugee services manager at the British Red Cross. Kirsty Thompson, who is the co-convener of the Immigration and Law Practitioners Group in Scotland. Rabina Keresi, who is the director of positive action in housing. Rani Danda, who is positive action in housing 2. David Bradwell, who is a refugee co-ordinator with the Scottish Faith Action on Refugees. You'll realise that we have a very tight timescale this morning. It's always the same in a Thursday morning, so we've got some specific, quite pointed questions to get on with. What I wanted to do was to give you all a minute or so to tell us about the work that you are doing. Maybe, Rabina, if you can handle positive action in housing, we can get through the 4E very quickly. David, do you want to start? I'm sure. Thank you very much. Thank you again for the invitation to speak with you this morning. The Scottish Faith Action for Refugees is a multi-faith partnership project. We work with Scotland's main Christian, Muslim, Jewish and interfaith organisations to co-ordinate and advocate and support response for work with asylum seekers and refugees here in Scotland and internationally. I am Scottish Faith Action for Refugees with a part-time colleague, so my work is as a national co-ordinator but supporting local congregations all over the country. Thank you very much. David, Rabina. My name is Rabina Caresi, I'm a director of positive action in housing. The work that we do, we're a refugee migrant homeless charity that began in 1995. Primarily, the work that we've been doing in relation to destitution is to do with proactive case work, humanitarian support in the form of online crisis grants, which we're fast developing, and also a flagship project, which is the Room for Refugees refugee hosting programme, which works in partnership with 214 case work organisations across Scotland and the rest of the UK to accommodate people from refugee backgrounds who find themselves destitute at some point in the asylum process into people's homes. It builds human bonds between people, long-lasting bonds, and we've seen life-transforming impacts. The online crisis grants, as I understand it, the biggest grant giving out destitution grants in Scotland at present. This financial year that's about to end, we're giving out about £45,000, and next year it will go between £45,000 to about £55,000 unless other crisis situations intervene, and we do give crisis grants out to the British Red Cross clients that are referred to us for hosting, as well as humanitarian support. Thanks very much, Rabina. We heard in our evidence, we've visited a number of projects, and we heard in our evidence of the actual practical help that positive action every single person we spoke to sang your praises. It was very heartening to hear that work from the people who were receiving it. Thank you very much for inviting me here today. I'm a lawyer with 10 years' experience in the asylum and immigration sector, and indeed I have been involved with some of the legal opinions mentioned in the first session around about children and women. However, I'm here today representing ILPA, which is a charity and a membership organisation, largely comprised of immigration lawyers, advocates and baristers. I convene our Scottish committee, and I'm here to put forward the concerns that our members have in terms of what the committee is looking at. The first session really concentrated on some of the issues and problems that we're having with the current system, and that's with a current centralised asylum support framework where local authority support can pick up. There are residual cases where not to do so would be a breach of human rights or child rights legislation. Unfortunately, our submissions look through the Prism of the Immigration Act and when its provisions come in force, what that will then look like, because the situation that we have will become worse. What that act does is it restricts those who are able to access the centralised asylum support structure. It also restricts those who may be able to access the local authority structure of support. On recognising that, that's obviously going to create categories of people who may be destitute. It has put in place a home office-regulated local authority support system which will provide support to migrant families and also some children who will be excluded from leaving care provisions. We're obviously concerned that that is going to increase problems with destitution. It's bringing in more layers of complexity, potentially more limited assessments, because it's being done through the Prism of the Home Office regulating what local authorities should do. With the current system, there are already concerns about how that will relate to human rights legislation and children's rights legislation. That's going to continue and be magnified in the future. I should have said that we are the British Red Cross in Northern Ireland. Correct, yes. Thank you very much for inviting me along today. I'm the manager of refugee support for the Red Cross in Northern Ireland. In my tenures with the organisation, we have looked quite a lot at Scotland and some of the progress and proactive work that we have done, particularly around the areas of integration. However, one hour out we have advanced in in Northern Ireland has been destitution. The Red Cross administers the Northern Ireland Government crisis fund that specifically tackles destitution across Northern Ireland. The crisis fund provides small amounts of cash to the most vulnerable in our society, with the view to skipping or jumping destitution or mitigating the worst effects of destitution. That has been a significant game changer for people who are destitute in Northern Ireland, as well as providing the tangible resource. It also gathers evidence and allows us to understand what causes destitution and what we can do practically to address that. In your first session, you spoke quite a lot about some practical things that you could do, clear and concise recommendations. I would hope that that would be one of them. I am happy to answer early questions that you might have on any aspect of that. Just before I open out to my colleagues, Neil, I want to ask you something specifically that came up earlier about people having to report to Croydon a Liverpool. If you present in Northern Ireland, do you have to report to Croydon a Liverpool? No, so everybody in Northern Ireland is not a dispersal area for asylum seekers, so if you claim asylum in Northern Ireland, you can stay in Northern Ireland. We do not receive people through the dispersal mechanism from Croydon, but once in Northern Ireland, you do not need to go to Croydon or Liverpool. That can be done in Belfast. Thank you, convener. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I would like to pick up on a number of things that Kirsty covered in your opening remarks. We discussed that in the previous panel, and that is the status of unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum in this country. To me, it was clear from the responses from our earlier panellists that the legislation is actually pretty clear in Scotland. If a child presents at a point of entry in Scotland and asks for asylum, they should be treated as looked after by the local authority in which they come to settle. They should have attract, therefore, section 25 status under the terms of the 1995 children's act. However, what alarmed me quite severely in that panel session was the application of that legal basis that is not consistent in every local authority in Scotland, despite it being a legal duty for them to afford them that status of being looked after. With it, all of the new benefits that that status enjoys after the Children and Young People Act 2014 continuing care after care services is the rest of it. Can the panel give me their reflection as to whether that is an accurate picture as to what is going on in Scotland and what they believe needs to happen so that local authorities consistently apply their duty in respect of the status of children's seeking asylum? I agree completely with the comments that you have made. The legislation is clear. Any unaccompanied asylum seeking child that arrives in Scotland, regardless of their age, should be looked after and accommodated under section 25. A legal opinion by Janet Scott MQC made that clear. The problem is not with the legislation but with its implementation and practice, particularly with its implementation around about children who present when they are 16 and over. Often that does not arise as a problem until those children start to seek obligations under leaving care provisions that you have mentioned. The legislation is clear but there are issues still with the implementation. Rubina, you tell us about some of the young people that you have faced over the years. When a family finds themselves destitute before they could rely on the local authority to take care of that family, there was no issue. I am referring to what is on the ground happening in our experience. We have been doing this for 13 years and we have been able to track what is going on. On the ground, what would happen is that we could safely, as a charity, push the issue back of destitution into the hands of the local authority, because we do not want—although we have this crisis grants and hosting programme—that is not what we set out to do, but it is something that we had to do to alleviate the problem of destitution. Before, we could safely assume that the local authority, once pressed a little, would take the family and accommodate them. What is happening recently in the past year, possibly a year and a half, is that that is not going to happen. Certainly not in Glasgow, it is not happening. What happens is that the family are presented—let's say the British Red Cross—who refer to us as families who have to be hosted through our refugee hosts. They will go to the local authority and say that the family are homeless, they are destitute, they need assistance until they can gather the evidence to submit their fresh claim or judicial review or whatever it is that they are doing in terms of their asylum case. The local authority or the social worker will turn around, and that is what we are seeing recently, is that we will take the child and will accommodate the child, but we will not be accommodating the parents. What they are saying is that we will take the children away from otherwise loving responsible parents. The parents cannot take that and what ends up happening is that they go underground and therefore the child is placed in further vulnerability and you do not get to know whether there are issues that they could get support with. When it is presented at our door from the British Red Cross or within our own organisation when we get families, what we have to really consider is the level of fear that the families feel regarding the social work, that they do not want to go back to the social worker. The social worker will take her children away or will take my baby away, and we have been involved in cases where we are trying to make sure that the children are not being separated, so we then have to do what we do not want to do, which is to turn to refugee hosts, volunteers, families and say, would you take in this family? That is what is happening at the moment in Glasgow. I would just like to ask Kirsty a little bit further in terms of when we talked about issues with the implementation. Is that that there are certain local authorities, I am not asking you to name them, but local authorities that are consistently not applying section 25 status to the young people who present, or is it just depends on the social worker that that young person encounters, or what are the issues that we are seeing with implementation of that duty that local authorities have? From our member's perspective, I think that there are a number of factors that come together. I would say a couple of years ago there may be were certain local authorities who chose to apply section 22, maybe say over section 25, but I would say that that has improved, but I would say that there is still a lack of awareness out there, a lack of confidence in terms of how to apply the right legislation when faced with a lone child seeking asylum, what that actually means down the line when they are 18, when they are 19, so I think that there is a lack of consistency, still a lack of clarity in terms of the legislation and what that actually means in practice, and a lack of awareness across the board about how to apply that. On top of that, you can provide legal opinions and reports, which were done a couple of years ago, but you still require all sections of the sector to hold local authorities to account, to ensure that all children are still being supported under section 25. For that, you need specialist legal service providers, specialist advocacy services—it is the same for what Rabina was saying when families are being turned away when those families should not. Under the current system, the legislation is again clear. When it is not happening in practice, there is a whole host of things that come together. One of the things is that somebody needs to get in there with that family and say that the legislation is clear on this, it is not being implemented and we are going to hold you to account. I am sure that I speak for all my colleagues here when I say that we, as a committee, would be keen to take some action to address that. If we were to do so in tackling that lack of awareness, to whom should we direct our correspondence? Should we be writing to directors of social work in every local authority or the chief executive of every local authority? We are looking for your guidance here because I am sure that we would all want to have some output from this meeting. My understanding was that, again, coming from the Janice Scott legal opinion and the report on some of the freedom of information requests that were done around this issue a couple of years ago, that it had been taken up within the Government and that some kind of guidance was to be prepared clarifying the situation and that was to be distributed to all the relevant individuals that you have mentioned. I am not sure of the status of that, so there may be a point there to follow up on that. However, my understanding was that things were in motion that might address some of the points that you made. I think that the committee would have chased that up with no qualms at all. Good morning, panel. You will have heard from the previous evidence session the question that I asked panel members about recommendations that will make a practical and tangible difference. You will have heard that there was wide agreement that there needs to be updated guidance to local authorities, there needs to be a multi-agency approach, there needs to be more data collection and better access to advocacy services. I would be interested in hearing your views. You might agree with everything that has been suggested in the earlier session, or there might be something else that you could suggest that would make a practical difference. I wonder if I could start with Neil, because I was particularly interested in the brief description that you gave us of the crisis fund in Northern Ireland. I appreciate that we are fairly short of time this morning, so you may not be able to go into a huge amount of detail of how that operates, but that would seem to me something quite practical that could be established here. Could you give me a bit of background into the practicalities of how that works and how you measure the success of that? Yes, absolutely. It came about in an incident in Northern Ireland when a leary lost a leg to frostbite, because she was sleeping in a doorway, because she was destitute. And there was a campaign as to what can we practically do to support people who are facing this day and daily across Northern Ireland and equally across Scotland. So what we did was the Northern Ireland Government came up with a part of money and a pilot project, and they appointed the Red Cross. The Red Cross was used to doing destitution support across the UK. We took the money on board, developed guidelines to support people and then used 13 projects across Northern Ireland, geographically spread, where people could come to access the small amounts of money. The idea was that the partners to the project were people who already provide support to minority ethnics or asylum seekers, so leks of ourselves, so people come into us and ask, I have to put in a fresh claim or my benefits haven't come through or something's been sent to the wrong address or all the practical issues that can lead to temporary destitution or I'm refused. What we would do would be, we would look to tackle the cause of what that destitution is. What this money does is provide an opportunity for people to jump or avoid the homelessness, the starvation, all the things that are impacted by whatever that cause of destitution is. So we've run it over a number of years now and the stats for last year, we have £54,000. That led to 1,511 claims and that was 564 people, including their dependents. The sort of stuff that you can gather data that nobody else across the UK has in destitution, so for example, 31 per cent of the people who accessed the fund were aged 31 to 40 and the average age was 35. The average age for people who are destitute is about 35 years. There's something we didn't previously know. The time in Northern Ireland, 14 per cent of people accessing the fund had been in Northern Ireland for less than two years, so you would imagine the majority of people would be destitute when they don't know the system, they don't have networks, they don't have friends, yet 18 per cent of people who accessed the fund have been in Northern Ireland longer than five years. I've been working in a sector for years, that's not something that I knew before this information was available. Only 51 per cent of the people only made one claim and 46 per cent of the people claimed less than £50 from the fund, so this is very very small amounts of money but they're having a major impact. That £50, for example, maybe one of our key partners in this are women's aid, so if somebody comes in late in an afternoon somewhere, this can provide hostile accommodation over a weekend while statutory contacts are made. It allows people to, when somebody comes in to you and they're destitute, you deal with their direct issues, I'm homeless, you have to try and source that, it takes time. This money can immediately address that issue and the experts who deal with destitution can go about resolving the situation, so all the groups reported that they were able to concentrate on what they're good at and that spend all day phoning charities or phoning faith groups to try and access support. So that's the strength that it has but what it has done more than that is it allows to gather that data but it allows to identify themes on destitution. One of the main areas is the transition period between somebody getting refugee status, so becoming a transition from asylum seekers to refugees. There's a lot of destitution in there because at 28 days support is provided is not long enough and I'm sure you've heard that in your evidence. Refused asylum seekers are obviously crucial. A number of people who have been helped by the fund who were refused have them on down to get status later on, so again this money was able to help them through that period. Refugee family reunion, so families who arrive, maybe there's one sponsor here apparent, the rest of the family come over, they have to wait for benefits for that family, they have to transition from their support into family support and they will be temporarily destitute. Domestic violence is a key issue so you heard earlier from women's aid. People who are destitute stay in relationships in order to have a roof above their head. This money allows people to break from that relationship and to get some practical support while the core issue of the domestic violence is addressed. I could go on and on with multiple, multiple examples. The key point that I want to get across is we now have this so we convene working groups to look at these issues. A practical issue, a lady who is in the asylum system who's been refused and is pregnant can access sex and force support after 34 weeks, but if they're pregnant up at 26 weeks, what do they do until they get to 34 weeks? The crisis fund will provide during that gap until the person can access the state support. We're actually overwhelmed with things that we can do. We now need to just try and prioritise these things. From what I've heard this morning, youth don't yet have this level of information, so a small amount of money will definitely help people. People who need money will be helped, but more than that, you will start to gather this data that will allow you to address and tackle the problems through your working groups and through policy and all those sorts of things. It's mutually beneficial across a whole range of sectors and really understanding what the issue of destitution is. David, you wanted to come in and then I can bring Robin Ann. Thank you very much. Following the earlier panel, the additional group that might be involved in training or guidance for awareness would be the civil society voluntary organisations. When preparing the evidence for today, working with some of the church clergy who work with asylum seekers in their congregations as members, the lack of any understanding about how the systems of immigration work, how access to support, and actually I think for many people, their church family or their friends might be an equally useful point of where do you discuss how do you access services, how do you get your rights articulated and advocated for. I'm thinking about that and then perhaps a question for the cabinet secretary if she comes. The development of the second stage of the new Scott's refugee integration strategy, which I understand is now being developed and actually whether something around training and advocacy for local authority, statutory providers and civil society groups could be included as an element in the development of this. But something new that I want to suggest is that we've done a bit of finding out about the situation that the churches and asylum sector in the Netherlands have been engaging in over the last four or five years with regard to the provision of emergency accommodation for refused asylum seekers, irregular migrants and that it's been initiated there as a kind of social movement rather than as initially a legislative or human rights approach. They've talked about the bed, bath and bread campaign, which has brought together a whole range of different organisations to try and bring about a greater awareness in public knowledge and public life about the situation facing people in the situation and how people can help. Now eventually the conference of European churches, which is a European-wide umbrella group, took the Dutch Government to the European Committee on Social Rights because they found that by not providing sufficient support for people in this situation they were in breach of their European social charter obligations. Now the Church of Scotland is a member of the conference of European churches, so we're really interested to know how this case had proceeded, that the complaints against the Dutch Government were successful. So now in the Netherlands, municipalities are required to support the provision of emergency shelters for bed, bath and bread and that also these places are centres where the irregular migrants can get access to mental health support and discussion about either a reapplication or discussion about return to country of origin. It seems like a much more humane way, much more a better way that there's no need for that, and then attempts to eliminate street homelessness because of irregular migration and asylum. But it's delivered often through shelters running church halls and the involvement and support of voluntary groups in making this happen is also really important. So it's not so much a thing for legislation, for Parliament, but for the wider sense of political and civic leadership. So whether it's a matter for motions and debates or having some things discussed in integration strategies or so. It's a collective responsibility of an issue. But it's been very politically controversial and different political parties in the Netherlands, just yesterday it's been very topical. I also think that the scale in the Netherlands of the number of people in the situation is likely to be much higher than Scotland partly because it's much harder for anyone to get to the UK through the asylum or immigration route. So there's something to learn, but also the scale of the situation for us is perhaps easier to respond to at this age, but also of course working with positive action and the other fantastic work that goes on in terms of getting people to individuals, private citizens to step up and respond in a way. So it's to match the legislative framework also to rely on philanthropy and charity and goodwill. Robina, do you want to come in at that point? I didn't hear, maybe we were on the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, so we didn't hear the panel, but I'm feeling like our organisation is a bit confused because our organisation seems to be coming on crosses a bit invisible in the paper that was submitted by the British Red Cross. On the one hand, we have a crisis grant system that matches what's happening in Northern Ireland and yet zero reference has been made by the British Red Cross who applies to our organisation for crisis grants for their clients, which we are happy to do and which we are now rolling out and we spent the money on the IT to do it to distribute £50,000 minimum in the new financial year 2017-18 in crisis grants to people who are destitute. Not only that, we have considerable networks and resources to make that happen and have direct contact with the case workers as well as the people who are affected, so I would have liked to have seen some recognition from Neil and the British Red Cross that they actually take crisis grants from us, but zero mention and now we're pushing this thing, which is fine, but I think that we shouldn't detract from the programme that we have right now, which is Scotland has pioneered a refugee hosting programme in 2002, which others across England. I think that Scotland should be proud of it, but not only proud of it, promote it because I'd like to hear the Scottish Parliament. I appreciate, I know that Christina knows about our work and you as chair, sorry, but at the same time I think that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government should give recognition to that, but we sit silent and get on with the work, which is what we're quite happy to do, but not for it to be detracted from and said, by the way, that fund that you rely on individual donors to contribute to it and to keep full in order to be able to give out crisis grants is now going to be administered by, let's see, the Scottish Government, which I'm not against, but what do donors then think that the problem is solved and therefore we don't need to assist, but with due respect a crisis grant, which the Red Cross in Northern Ireland is giving, is between £1 and £50. Believe me, on our experience of the last 10 years of dealing with crisis grants and getting it to this level, where it's now an online crisis grants in case workers, 216 case work organisations are now affiliated, every refugee aid organisation is now making referrals. Lots of departments of the British Red Cross are applying for those grants, including the London-based refugee council and the Scottish refugee council. This is not a small network and therefore that should be supported rather than detracted from and therefore government should step in with us to be able to kind of show it up and give us the support and we strongly welcome it, but I think that Scotland should be promoting it rather than, well, that's not necessary because the danger is is that the people who are most vulnerable will not be reached and we have that contact and between £1 and £50 may put somebody in a hostel for a weekend. It will not sustain them in the time that they need in order to gather the fresh evidence or prepare the judicial review or find a decent lawyer and then to try to achieve the stability that they need long term so that eventually they get leave to remain or find their place in life and can get a job, study and become productive taxpayers of tomorrow. Unlike which is the British Government's approach is leave them destitute, let them languish in the asylum process for years on end, Theresa May presided as Home Secretary over 100,000 letters that were stuck in an office in Liverpool or Croydon and nobody opened those letters. They were recorded, delivered, secured, registered, post letters and she presided over that and that backlog still remains so we're stuck with that and we also have a residual destitution problem of refugees. We use the word refugees, we're not going to use the word migrants because we think it insults what's happening to refugees and the refugees that are coming here to try and claim some form of stability and resettle their lives, can get the assistance that they need through the hosting network and we see that by putting that patchwork programme in place we've been developing rapidly the expertise and I would invite you to come along and see what we're doing. I mean really it would you know it would blow your mind you know for one of a better phrase if you like. We were very keen Rubina to have positive action at the committee and we've got about 100 pieces of written evidence I think in total and about 25 per cent of those are from asylum seekers themselves and many of them mention your services, that lifeline and that lifesaver so we did want to have you here along with the other organisations because as David put it and others have put it we don't do this by juice government directive, we do it by ensuring that everybody works together in order to provide a service and I did want to shine a spotlight on I know the destitution project I've been involved with it for before I was a politician so I know it well and it was a good opportunity to bring you along and get your evidence on the record and to use that. Sorry I would do respect you but I would appreciate it if the British Red Cross would actually recognise that. They're a big organisation, we're a small charity doing a big thing and that needs to be recognised not detracted from. We've got recommendations to make as part of our inquiry so let's get on with some of that right now and we can take that forward. Jeremy. Thanks to me now and good morning again to everybody here. I suppose maybe just following up from what I was talking about with the first panel maybe first to David and then to Kirsty if that's okay. David obviously you've got a national experience and I suppose a lot of us focusing on Glasgow because of the majority of the work that's being done. What experience do you have from across other parts of Scotland of working not working and how church is involved in that and then my second question back to Kirsty is from a legal perspective having now developed from my thinking even in the last 15 minutes would it help to have a cluster of councils coming together so rather than having to go to say Edinburgh City Council or West Loving Council you came to maybe the old loving regional and where you would have that expertise in a cluster and that could happen across Scotland. I just wonder what your view might be but David maybe first of all in regard to other things outside Glasgow positive negative. I think if I can start with Glasgow I think because of the experience of asylum dispersal Glasgow faith groups have got a phenomenally better experience of working around interfaith, intercultural dialogue, tackling racism which many parts of the rest of the country could really learn from. I think also the just going by numbers the number of people who seek asylum in Glasgow as the dispersal programme and also as part of the other refugee resettlement programme so the Syrian resettlement for instance Glasgow has many more than other local authorities and so there's a degree of can that experience be shared but also from when working with destitute asylum seekers or people in this situation are there things that churches and faith groups in other parts of Scotland can do to support congregations in the city especially because in the dispersal areas are often the more deprived parts of Glasgow so if a minister has got a benevolent fund they might not have a lot of money that they could give to people who need 10 or 20 or 50 quid but actually more affluent areas or churches that have got more resource could maybe support it so one of the things I try and do is encourage groups out with Glasgow to think of this issue as a national priority not just an issue for Glasgow congregations some of the the positive things that happening in other parts of the country are really in my experience we're relating to the Syrian resettlement programme just because this is what's new and what people are engaging with but the perhaps the lessons to be learned for this are positive collaboration between different sectors and it's going to repeat what we said before if the local authority and the churches and the mosques and the fire and rescue service and the police and the schools and the GP practices are all working together and discussing positive work then it's sharing ideas and information so it works when all of the sector all the sectors want to participate and discuss and share ideas and see that the outcome for the community and for the new arrivals is better by working together and again drawing on the Glasgow experience of the integration networks and the work specifically of Gladan the Glasgow asylum destitution network which is this a group of organisations often working on a voluntary basis local churches and so on coming together every couple of months to share news about changes in law about practice about how asylum dispersal might be taking place across the city it's the sharing of information which is really really important and so it doesn't work when local church groups want to set up their own projects and not engage with what the local authority is doing or if the local authority wants to manage it all by themselves and not engage with so it's a for me yes it's about communication and networking is is what makes the real difference yeah I think going forward as well what you've got to remember is the the success of serian reseltmond and it's true with us across the UK you have people including people from Syria who are destitute through the normal asylum mechanism and they're looking very much at serian reseltmond and saying well I'm from Aleppo the same as you know and these people meet at events and gather and you know one person is starting a new life they feel very supportive very linked in the multi-nc support and then you have somebody from maybe the exact street somewhere location and they don't have the ability to they feel destitute they're homeless they're hungry so that juxtaposition between people is unsettling for everybody who kind of works works in the sector so it's something that we must keep an eye on as serian reseltmond progresses over the next sort of four or five years yes so do you want to come in the second part of Jeremy's question yes so in response to the proposal of a cluster of councils together I'm very aware I'm here representing Aleppo and I have to put forward their position and they would have a position on this so I can't comment in my role about that however what I would I would say in relation to that is that as an individual is that the I mean that the legislation is quite clear in terms of where people are resident um it's that local authority who is responsible and indeed the immigration act creates a whole scheme for the transfer of certain children from one area to another and that and then it's a complete transfer of responsibility but certainly from our members perspectives we are struggling with some of the same questions in terms of where we have increased dispersal or increased children refugees families living in other areas of the country and yet our expertise our legal expertise is contained within the central belt what do we do there what our roles and responsibilities and trying to share that expertise because you know shuttling someone up and down is is maybe an intermediate situation but it's not a long-term situation so for us and in terms of our members it is really about how do we you know if dispersal is going to happen and we need that knowledge and awareness within the legal community in other areas what what can we do as a legal community in order to facilitate that but what can also the government do to to facilitate that sharing of knowledge and expertise thank you that might be actually where I can bring Rani in Rani I know your role at positive action is in is in research and one of the things that Neil had said in his initial opening remarks was about data and how you can use data I was wondering whether there's any connection what we may be the work that you do for positive action and whether that connects to any of the work that anybody else does well I've just been listening to all the speakers as well and I think the data is there it is available but what is not is this because we're also identifying it's not a kind of uniform approach by the different city councils in Scotland also the legislation is there it's not being it's in the implementation I often this you know it could be unwittingly they don't know how to implement it or whether it's deliberate as well you know it's very much open but what is needed is a from the Scottish Government guidance but that guidance needs to come from the ground from the organisations like ourselves who have got experience of working with the city councils and you know we're very aware of what comes in the way and what works and what doesn't work so it really needs a type of a working group to advise the Scottish Government and then to follow it through not to leave it because it's actually an implementation and working with each local authority to ensure that it is being implemented in the correct manner and it takes you know it's not a one-off thing it really needs a political will there and it would need to let a few years kind of constant work on to it. Rubina, you wanted to come back in? Just regarding the prospect of dispersal to other local authorities outside Glasgow we anticipate that that will happen I think most people kind of accept that that is going to happen and we have the network in terms of we anticipate destitution getting worse as a result of that plus also to do with immigration act as well but in terms of the dispersal we actually have refugee hosts in almost every part of Scotland to be able to take people in and I'd be very happy for you to be kind of see where people are based it's not to say that that is a solution because it's not a solution to have to turn to individuals private individuals to resolve what should be a kind of a response of local authorities or the government to make sure people are not left destitute the reality is is that people are being made destitute and we have this combination of online crisis grants that we spend a lot of money and IT developing and also in terms of the refugee hosting programme the networks are there the resources are considerable when you factor in the voluntary effort and the level of pastoral support that can be offered as well which has effectively resulted in people's lives being turned around as well I think that we will come back to talk to you about that in the future I've got a final question because nobody else has indicated from willy so very much convener we heard from the previous panel that destitution is basically being effectively being created by the UK government through its immigration act and it's getting worse I'm interested in where we stand in terms of international law here if a state creates circumstances that causes or creates destitution amongst its citizens or people applying for citizenship where do we stand in terms of international law and have there been any cases brought so far to try to test this yes I mean the the submissions that we put forward about the forthcoming immigration act to make it clear that in behind it is to create a more hostile environment and the underlying principle is if you can go home you should go home and you wouldn't be destitute but for that in terms of the law I mean there have been many challenges taking using human rights legislation around about destitution and there have been some successful challenges in that area and Janet Scott in her opinion which is part of the British Red Cross submission comments on that and what interests me from from the perspective of being in Scotland is that a lot of these provisions that do relate to devolve matters are coming from an immigration act that is saying it's about immigration it is reserved yet its provisions are undoubtedly when we have a home office regulated framework of local authority support if that comes into play now no consent was obtained about those from the from scotland if those provisions do apply to scotland it will come into force through secondary regulations now there is a lack of scrutiny in that however there is also the option that if those provisions do create increased destitution and increased risks of families children and being in situations where their human rights are breached then in scotland lawyers could take a challenge to bring down that secondary legislation that has come in on human rights grounds so we could have the situation in the future that there will be legislation and I would anticipate that there will be that would actually strike down some of these provisions within scotland yet they cannot be struck down in the rest of the UK and that's interesting and that's an interesting position to be in for ILPA and it's an interesting set of affairs for ILPA as a UK organisation to to consider so there is the the option using human rights and international human rights legislation as well as our national human rights legislation to potentially strike down some of these provisions within scotland is there also an offence in terms of the failure to even consider applications i mean mrs creysi raised an example layer of 100,000 letters unopened presumably which were letters of application i mean does that fall within international law that a state doesn't even consider applications i mean there are always obligations on on the state including you know that be it the home office be it the local authority to to protect and promote human rights and where there are individual breaches like that then there may be something that could be done using human rights legislation the key there though is how do you when bringing it back to destitution when we have so many people being turned away when we have such complexity in terms of the processes in the legislation how do people know one what their rights are two that there may be a human rights breach in there that could be litigated on and three where to go in order to get that specialist advice to hold that authority whoever they may be to account so yes in principle that that route is there but in practice without a clarity of guidance a clarity of approach and access to services to then you know hold those authorities to account we can have a deficit how much sorry sorry rubina how much of a backdrop of concern to what you do now of our repeal the human rights act and a potential withdrawal from ECHR how does that complicate things it increases the worry and take away that right to justice well it it it it takes away some of the tools in the the pot or that that a lawyer has in order to assist individuals in order to to hold authorities and governments to account so yes it takes away our tools as lawyers in that regard and certainly I mean our members are are very worried about the state of affairs as it is and our members are very clear that with this you know with all of these things that you mentioned that the situation is only going to become worse and then if our tools are taken away in order to to provide that accountability and direct support and no recourse to public funds and no recourse to justice yeah yeah rubina you wanted to come in um yeah I think I forgot no I think I yeah no I was just thinking that of those 100 000 letters it's and I was the fact that Theresa May presided over that as home secretary I think it was 2012 or 2010 and I'm just wondering how many thousands of letters are lying on open and downing street so that's just yeah David um thank you yeah um I just will say um I can send the the committee the the decision of the European Committee on Social Rights which was the one that I mentioned earlier um and I've also got a a short comment piece from Nils Muesniak's the the commissioner for human rights for the council of Europe um and he talked about these things so it might just help also give a little bit of context we're up against your time we've got it's general questions this morning so it's always really tight in the thirsty morning we tried to draw the best and the quickest evidence we can but we've got lots of excellent written evidence as well we thank you so much for that if you go away and you think there's other things you should have told us please let us know our clerks will be in touch with no doubt all of you probably in continuation of this inquiry it will continue we've made an invitation to the UK immigration minister that's not been accepted but we're still going to try and push that so this piece of work will continue on for the next few weeks anyway and we have more evidence to take but we want to thank you for coming along this morning and as I say if there's anything else that you think would help us especially if you think along the lines of recommendations you know we're looking for sharp pointed you know couple of sentences of this would fix that that would fix this we were really really keen to hear that so we'd be happy to hear that this morning but thank you so much for coming this morning we really appreciate it thank you and I'm going to move the committee into private