 Bei wnaith y byd i ni, Rhyw Рhyw Rhyw Welforddiadol i swyddog yn bwysigol, ond mwy rhai diwethaf, erbyn i'r sgwylwyr, mwy rhai gyffredinol, nolhu'r oblwyr i sgwylwyr i lwyddog yn bwysigol, mwy oedd wedi bod hwnnau gweld o ffilton magegrig, ym ddefnyddio'n amser, yn cyfreithio i ti fel ffilton i chi ac mwy oedd hynny. Ond nad y gallu peth yn gallu ei wneud hynpynyddio ym mwy oedd mynd i gael. is a decision on whether to take agenda item 3 in private. Our committee content to take agenda item 3 in private. Excellent. Agenda item 2 is an update on our report last year on destitution, assignment and secure immigration status. We made a commitment in that report last year that we would do regular follow-ups on what action and progress had been made, so we are really delighted to have this around the table this morning with everyone, just about everyone who gave us evidence last year, so we are keen to hear from you this morning and a new witness in Dr Katie Hawkins, who I will come to and let her explain why she is interested in this topic and why we were interested to hear from her. I am going to go around the table and just let the members of our panel introduce themselves. If I could start with you, Natalia, if you want to start off and give us a way and say what you do, and then we will move around and then we can go to questions. My research has been looking at the experiences for destitute migrant families with no recourse to public funds and how the barriers that they are experiencing when they attempt to access social services support. I have been in conjunction with the asylum seeking housing project, so that is where my research has been based, and it has been for nearly two years now. I am in the final stages of writing up my PhD research, so thanks for inviting me again to provide follow-up evidence. I would like to develop on some of the points that I raised last time. Some of the concerns that we raised last time were around social services assessments, the way in which people were treated during assessments and also inadequate levels of support, so I would like to develop some of those issues and talk about accommodation issues, financial support and the increasing relationship between the home office and social services, as well as the challenges in the legal process that people go through. Hi, I am Fiona McLeod and I work for the British Red Cross. I cover policy and public affairs for Scotland. I work with my operational colleagues in Glasgow who offer advice, support and emotional and practical assistance to refugees and asylum seekers who have been dispersed or are living in Glasgow. We provide numerous services to destitute asylum seekers and other people from the migrant population in Glasgow. Good morning, everyone. I am Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland. Good morning. I am Louise Nebran from COSLA. I am based within a small team, the migration population and diversity team within COSLA. Our role is to support local authorities in seeking to integrate migrants and support migrant populations, including asylum seekers and refugees. We are also the representative voice of local government. There are a couple of things that I wanted to contribute to today's discussion. One is providing an update on the work that we have been doing to take forward recommendations that the committee put forward, particularly around the need for guidance. We are working very closely with partners around the room and with the Scottish Government to make sure that that guidance is available and that it can support local authorities in meeting the needs of destitute migrants, particularly with no recourse to public funds. However, more widely of spending time understanding the challenges that local authorities face. I am keen to reflect on some of the future challenges that we see, particularly the pressures that we are feeling on social services. While the inquiry last year gave us lots of food for thought and some initial and immediate actions to take, there are a few other areas that we would like to raise around the resourcing of a long-term response and a more joined-up national response that hopefully we will be able to share and get the views of other partners on today. Hello, my name is Jenna Ang. I am a founding director at Just Right Scotland. We provide immigration advice and advice around ancillary issues to migrants across Scotland. I am here today on behalf of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association as their representative as well. Just Right Scotland runs an innovative legal rights and advice project with British Red Cross called the Migrant Destitution Project. That allows us to provide supervision of front-line case work, but also to take legal cases in the area of migrant destitution across Scotland. One of the things that I would like to update the committee on is what we have seen over the past year in terms of the learnings from our case work. I wanted to highlight a few areas of concern. One of them being that we realise that the work is under way, but we still see some inconsistency across different types of cases but geographically across local authorities. The other two things that I wanted to highlight are those. I have a concern about the wider reach of the hostile environment and about our statutory authorities' understanding of information sharing and data protection rights. I think that there is a real role here for the committee and the Government to play in establishing that Scotland is a different jurisdiction that has the ability to take a different approach here or not a different approach, but maybe a clearer, more transparent approach. The last thing that I wanted to raise perhaps later, if there is time, is a shift in the demographics in terms of who will require assistance in this migrant destitution context. That is the rise in queries from EEA nationals and the growing understanding across our advice givers, local authorities and the Government as well, I believe, that we see a huge body of additional individuals who will require advice and who may fall into destitution and homelessness because of their immigration status. Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow region. Hi everyone, I'm Graham O'Neill, policy officer at the Scottish Refugee Council. Really I echo what colleagues have said and particularly what Eloise mentioned around the importance of the Scottish public and third sectors working very consciously and coherently together. For us at Scottish Refugee Council we are one of the main refugee rights charities in Scotland alongside Red Cross and others. I think everybody knows really welcomed the intervention that the committee made in really shining a light on a very vulnerable population and a growing population as Jen was alluding to. We see that too in our work. I think for us there are three things that we really want to push on today. The first is that we welcome the progress that the Scottish Government has made in terms of a positive response to the inquiry recommendations, which reflected the inquiry's focus, the committee's focus on what we can do as opposed to what we can't do in Scotland with the significant devolved competence that we have. However, if we are to be honest and constructive, we think that there needs to be a limpetus now going forward so that in January and early 2019 at the very latest we have a strategy that coherently brings the public and third sectors together in Scotland around a shared vision and very much focuses on practical actions. We think that there is a real merit in cross ministerial sign-off from the Scottish Government within the next few months in relation to that coherent approach. That will bring in the housing, the health, the justice and the children's ministers. That is really critical. That can't sit within one part of the Scottish Government. It is not going to work if it does that because it is out in society across different aspects of our public services as well as our communities across Scotland. The second key message for us as it relates to that is involvement. We are here today, but there will be a need for a wider set of actors to be involved in this work. I am thinking particularly for what to bear, but I put it at the mainstream homelessness sector. I have a key role to play in relation to that. I have a key role to play in relation to that. The health community, thankfully, has some colleagues from health today. The second key point about just very consciously broadening out the involvement in that agenda is going to be very important. The third key message is resourcing. The beauty of a strategy, if it is done well, is that it will give real visibility to a group of people who have been rendered invisible for a long time, people with insecure immigration status. In so doing, it will recognise the intersection between very harsh UK immigration rules and a Scottish public and third sector, which is still learning how to work with this group. The strategy at its best will pull resources, in other words. There is a real efficiency preventative spend argument around the strategy, but the flip side of that is that there is going to be a need for additional resources in relation to some interventions. It is best just to say that and not shy away from that. We think in relation to things around advocacy services, investment and local authorities around social work functions. Those are all key things that will need to be put in place going forward. The third message for us is more of an impetus. Make sure that we involve a wider set of actors in developing this strategic response and then making sure that we do not duck the resources question and that we think about it as central to the development of this work. Oliver Mundell, member of the Scottish Parliament for Dumfrieshire. Good morning. I am Edward Isaacs. I am a member of the management board of positive action in housing and I am a member of the sub-committee of that organisation that helps to distribute crisis grants. I am also a past president of Glasgow Jewish representative council. I think that it is important to say why I became involved with positive action in housing and the plight of asylum seekers and migrants. It is really because of my grandparents that they came to this country in the early part of the 20th century to escape programmes in Eastern Europe. They relied on the support of local community groups and charities to survive. I personally and so do the Jewish community feel a great deal of sympathy and empathy with the plight that asylum seekers and migrants are now facing. I think that it is to the shame of all those involved in the administration of, in the way the process works, that we have people who are out in the street, who are destitute and the vast majority with them have every right to be here. They have come to escape problems, hardship, humanitarian problems in their own country and they are not given the basic human dignity of a roof over their head and food to eat on their table. That is why I became involved in positive action in housing. I hope that I have made a contribution to the organisation. I think that it is really distressing from my point of view to see that, over 100 years after my grandparents came here, I do not think that much has actually changed. They survived because of the support of local Jewish community groups and other charities. That situation is really not that much different nowadays. Have we not moved on as a society? Can we not treat people with dignity and respect and provide them with basic human needs? That is whether or not they are eventually allowed the right to remain in the UK. I think that our evidence clearly shows that, by providing them with assistance and funding, there is a fair percentage of those who are eventually allowed to remain in the UK. I implore the committee and, indeed, the Scottish Government to get over the fact that immigration in asylum is not a devolved power and to see what practical steps they can take to ensure that destitution is not a daily fact of life for people who are coming to this country. After all, I am sure that most members of the committee, if not all of them, and the Scottish Government get into politics because they wanted to make a difference to people's lives. This is one way that they can make that difference and ensure, as I have said, that human dignity is a fact of life in the Scottish tapestry that we now have in this country. Immigrants have made immense contributions to this society and will continue to do so, but the fact that it is difficult for them to obtain leave to remain status and, whilst they are going through that process, a number of them end up in our streets is a shame on us and a shame on our society. My name is Rubina Cresci. I am a director of positive action and housing, a refugee and migrant homelessness and human rights charity based in Glasgow. We work directly and support directly people affected by destitution in 2017-18. We directly assisted 1,400 refugee families and individuals by refugee—I am referring to refugees, asylum seekers and people who are vulnerable migrants. We pioneered the Room for Refugees Network in Scotland. It now has 7,000 volunteers. We also have developed an emergency relief fund, which, in 2017-18, distributed £61,000. That need continues to grow. That fund is also accessible to other organisations—400 external caseworkers across Scotland, primarily within Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, but it is growing in other parts of Scotland as well. The access to the emergency relief fund and hosting for people who are without anywhere to live includes families and individuals. It also includes unaccompanied asylum seekers. We placed unaccompanied asylum seekers in hosted homes, where they have now developed a family relationship. Otherwise, those children would have languished in residential care units. We provided a solution not just a long-term solution but a quick solution very quickly. I am conscious and echo what Edward Isaacson has said from the Jewish Representative Council and also from our board. In the wave of the refugee crisis after the Second World War, we saw human rights protections being enshrined across the globe and being supported and promoted. What we have now is a whole dismantling of human rights protections for the most vulnerable. We are in a situation where we have got over 23 million refugees worldwide, around 65 million people displaced worldwide. Those numbers are going to explode in the next 20 years so that the numbers of displaced persons will be the size of America or the population of America. While, just like Windrush, the whole issue of destitution is yet another disgrace and another injustice of the hostile environment, we are very conscious of working within that hostile environment context, but it does not mean that racism does not exist in Scotland. It is very much alive and kicking. We are concerned about the rise in racism as well against the client groups. Minorities, ordinary people, not just refugees and migrants, but everybody who is affected by this. You will have seen last week the headlines with 2,000 people protesting in favour of the EDL leader who was convicted on contempt of court and there were thousands and the police found it difficult to control that. That is very concerning to agencies like ours because we are seeing a situation where it is visceral and you cannot just feel it on the street face to face. We are witnessing it with verbal physical assaults, not just within certain communities that are happening across the board. If you look foreign, we are concerned about the rise of racism as well. That is the context in which we are working and we are concerned. Was there any point in coming here without any disrespect to the committee? I have to be honest with the response from the Scottish Government that there was no pressure being put on. In the context of Windrush and Grenfell, today is the first one-year anniversary, like many other anniversaries, but particularly today, in the context of Grenfell, there was sufficient momentum, was there not, and in the context of Windrush recently, sufficient momentum to say, excuse me, we need to actually act on the hostile environment. I am in this whole rolling out of the Immigration Act 2016, with the whole rolling out of universal credit, we are going to see and feel the brunt of the people who are being made destitute at our doors. They are not just individuals, they are not refused asylum seekers, and in that statement somewhere it said, in the response to yourself chair, convener, sorry, it said, it is not an issue for us to support people who are, one-off support will never resolve the issue. In fact, we are seeing the converse, which is between 45 and 55 per cent of those who we support. Of that 1,400 figure with emergency relief hosted or proactive casework are actually seeing long-term, their lives are stabilised, they are resolving the crisis and they are gaining long-term resolution, they are getting their papers eventually. I would use the analogy that if you are in the desert and you need water, should one say, well, you will not get out the desert or you take the glass of water and say, okay, just on the off chance that we will, and that is the basis on which we are operating at the moment. We are not getting the funding and we definitely need the funding, but that is not why we are here. It is to highlight that this is an issue for Scotland. It is not a matter of a few people. You are talking about thousands of people, not just those who are refused asylum seekers. They are eventually getting their status as well because they are getting their support. There are people who are very desperate. Hi, I am Jo Wasgaf from Scottish Women's Aid. We are the national organisation campaigning to prevent domestic abuse in Scotland. We also are the affiliated umbrella organisation for women's aid groups working across the whole of Scotland to provide services to women and children experiencing domestic abuse. Our concerns that we raised at the initial inquiry remain. Unfortunately, we have seen very little progress or any changes for women and children experiencing domestic abuse, who either have no recourse to public funds, or EEA nationals, or have uncertain immigration status or students being able to access accommodation and support services. We have serious concerns about what happens to women and children who are unable to access accommodation and support services, who have to return to an abusive partner or who are faced with destitution. We have women's aid groups who are trying with very limited resources and are doing considerable amounts of fundraising to support individual women in these circumstances but are unable to do so for all women that require that kind of support and accommodation. We see very inconsistent responses across Scotland from local authorities on how they respond to women and children who are experiencing domestic abuse and requiring accommodation and financial support. Some completely refuse to provide that support and some have definite protocols in place where they will assess and accommodate women and children. Others will say that they will provide resources to children but not to their mothers, so that does not really help the situation. We were glad to see the recommendations incorporated in the Equally Safe Delivery Plan but, unfortunately, there has been no progress on that work in relation to women experiencing destitution. We were disappointed that the homelessness action group did not take an equality in human rights and children's rights perspective on developing their recommendations. We felt that if they fail to gender policy to tackle homelessness, particularly in relation to this group of women and children, and to address women's distinct experiences of homelessness, those are the key things that we would like to explore at this session today. Gil Ross, MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. Hi, thank you for inviting me. I'm Katie Hawkins, GP working at the Edinburgh Access Practice. We see patients here who are either homeless or vulnerably housed. We often see patients who have insecure immigration status, many of whom are undocumented. Our patients are experiencing barriers in many areas to accessing basic health and social care. First, they are often unable to register with the GP where they live. Secondly, they are charged for maternity care. Thirdly, they experience fragmented care where the impact of rejection, for example, from housing, can directly impact on their health, public health and then consequently the public purse. We would like to see easy and accessible primary care registration for everybody. Our patients are often excluded from primary care due to having no address, photo ID or being refused registration due to either not having completed or starting the asylum process. There is also unfair and unclear charging for healthcare, leading to many people fearing that if they are charged for their care they will be reported to the home office. For example, we have been seeing a lady whose visa expired. She now has a baby. She was too afraid to start the asylum process because she was fearful of being deported and potentially separated from her son. She appears very vulnerable and anxious when she has contact with us. She finally managed to successfully register her son with a local GP but has been refused registration for herself with the only grounds of the fact that she was not claiming asylum. She is now being charged for each consultation, resulting in neglecting her own healthcare needs, including contraception, and her registration being completely separate from her son, contrary to best practice. Secondarily, we would like free maternity services for everybody. Patients who have not started the asylum process are being charged for maternity services. We had a lady who did not attend many of her maternity appointments due to fears of escalating costs. When we were seeing her, she was five months pregnant and street homeless at that time being ineligible to access accommodation. We realised that the law has just changed. She disengaged from services, however, and we have no idea what happened to her or her baby. Unborn babies should not be unequatably impacted. We would like holistic and well-coordinated health and social care, particularly for complex cases. For example, we have been seeing a lady who has untreated HIV and insecure immigration status. That has meant that both accommodation and social work funds have been difficult to access, leading to concerns that she may return to selling sex for money. That is an example of the direct impact of threats to one aspect of care, housing, having a direct impact on another, health. One case of complex homelessness can cost up to £83,000 a year of public funds. Add to that the public health implications of a new case of HIV, which can cost up to £380,000 to treat over a lifetime. That is a huge impact on the public purse as well. We therefore welcome the Scottish Government's recommendation that people with a communicable disease are suitably housed, but we would like those people to have easy access to all services. We have three main recommendations. First, we welcome the recommendation for clear guidelines for health professionals working with asylum seekers. However, we feel that there needs to be more than clear guidance in Scotland. We would like to see the Scottish rights-based approach extended to health, backed up with clear legislation so that everybody can access primary care as a human right, regardless of their legal status, and have the right to appeal this as well. A start would be something similar to the public health England guidance, which I circulated prior to today, saying that all asylum seekers, refugees, overseas visitors and those who are homeless are eligible to register with a GP practice, even if they are not eligible for secondary care. There is no document like this in Scotland, as far as I am aware. Secondarily, we would like all those with insecure immigration status to be able to access free maternity services, and we would like them to have holistic, unfragmented health and social care so that their health needs and public health needs are taken into consideration as a priority. Thank you very much to everyone for your—sorry, Alex—sorry, Alex. I'm Alex Cole-Hamilton, and I live down MSP for Edinburgh, Weston. I'm the vice convener of the committee. I'm vice convener of the committee. Thank you, convener. I was just too keen to get any other questions, Alex. Thanks so much for all your opening remarks this morning and your insights. They have been incredibly helpful already. We have a number of questions for our members this morning. I'm going to kick off with Gail Ross. He's going to touch on a number of areas in all of your portfolios. If you get to—if you're hearing something and you really want to come in with a question, you've just catch my eye and I'll make sure that I can keep a wee note of who wants and we can try and keep the conversation flowing a bit. Gail Ross. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Thank you all for coming. I have just set up a cross-party group in the Parliament for Adverse Childhood Experiences. There's a growing movement now that recognises the trauma that children face in their early years and when they're developing can go on then to have even greater impacts when they're adults, and that can include physical and mental health. Some of the evidence that we've heard, but particularly from yourself, Dr Hawkins, has been really quite disturbing about children being separated from their parents and not being able to access healthcare and decent housing and domestic abuse. It's really just horrific. I just wonder, with the report and where we are now, obviously there's different stages of improvements and maybe not so much improvements. When we're talking about Scotland and we're talking about Adverse Childhood Experiences, that's for all of Scotland's children, including those who come here as migrants and asylum seekers. How do we help those children? What needs to change? Yeah, I'll probably not focus so much on children, but I think that what I would focus on is the importance of recognition of trauma among this population. Speaking from the background of working with refugees, by definition this is a group that I've been forcibly displaced, often quite horrendous circumstances from everything that was of value to them, and I've been through quite arduous and probably exploitative migratory journeys as well, and then I've entered a very harsh asylum system that denies the right to work, puts people on to the lowest amount of financial support really possible in terms of its below 52 per cent of mainstream social security. That has been the case for a long time and puts people into some of the worst housing and all that, and then not surprisingly, social isolation and mental health suffers a result. That's precisely why we and others really focussed on the recognition, not only of resilience but of trauma among this population and that our public services need to have that as a priority in terms of the Scottish Government's strategy. Otherwise, we're not going to be providing a human rights-based service to people. Obviously, for children as well, there's an additional dimension and additional responsibility that needs to be built in, so it's really just to emphasise again that the Scottish Government's NHS trauma informed framework and the funding around that needs to very consciously underpin the strategy and the practical actions that come from it. Otherwise, we're going to be shooting ourselves in the foot because there is a good framework there and there are resources behind it and it needs to be, and it's absolutely designed for populations such as people who are in secure immigration status and have suffered quite a horrendous circumstances. I was just thinking about your question about what needs to change. As a practising lawyer, I am aware that some of our underlying legislation in terms of our obligations towards Scotland's children is robust in the sense that there's no differentiation in terms of our obligations to our children based on migration status. Child welfare issues, including the experience of destitution and homelessness, require a response regardless of the status of the family and the children. An example of the kind of cases that we see day to day which I alluded to earlier about uneven provision or inadequate provision of financial support, they look a little bit like this. A family who do not have lawful status will not be entitled, as you know, to mainstream benefits or to housing. If there is no other entitlement in that period of time, it is the responsibility of local authorities and the Children's Scotland Act under child welfare legislation to provide some form of housing and some financial support. However, the unevenness is that there is yet not a consistency in how local authorities respond to that. More importantly, the average standards of financial support are low, and I would say possibly unlawfully low. It is possible to have a mother and two children or three children staying in a hostel or BNB and given 50 or 60 or 70 pounds a week cash, but that's it. If you think about three children and 70 pounds a week cash, and I assure you that this is a very realistic life case, if two of those children are in primary school, then one is maybe a baby in a piece. First of all, if you just do the maths, if you think about 10 pounds a day, that impacts on what they can eat. It impacts on their travel. The nappies and the food clearly have to be free from some other source because you know how much that costs. That is before you can afford anything that you would want for the child just to go to school and not attract attention to himself or herself. There are free school meals and perhaps you can get a grant for the clothing, but just think about the day-to-day decisions that those parents make. If that is the full financial provision, what can we do about that? Obviously, we can fully meet in practice our obligations under child welfare law. Clearly, there needs to be more financial provision than that because I do not think that any of us could manage better than many of the people I see on that amount. The observation has been, and this is true, that the thing that prohibits people from taking support is a piece of immigration legislation. If someone has no recourse to public funds, it means that certain public funds cannot be used to fund them, but that is not all public funds, as we all know. It is easily possible for the Scottish Government to make available pots of funding or just to make available funding to meet that gap. An interesting idea that I put forward recently that we could and should explore are programmes that address child poverty across the spectrum without regard to migration status. There is precedent for that. An example is that the right to primary school education in Scotland is universal, so it does not check your migration status. You need to be resident here, but you do not check. With primary school education, which is universal, you get free school meals, which is also universal. You do not have to inquire. If we have programmes for all Scotland's children that provide this kind of welfare in the public interest, why can't we create other programmes that will substantively alleviate this poverty or bring those children up to a reasonable standard? That is not an interference with immigration control and it does not require engagement with the Home Office over their NRPF list. I think that that is an equitable proposal that an equality in human rights committee and a human rights-based approach in Scotland could put forward very credibly. I am going to bring Alex Cole-Hamilton, because he has got a specific line of questioning that he used last year and he wants to continue this year. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. Thank you for coming to see us. I should remind members that, before I came to this place, I worked for Abel Araw for eight years who delivers Scotland's guardianship service to young and accompanied asylum seekers and victims of child trafficking. On that, I would like to pick up Jennifer on your particular answer around inconsistency and how things happen differently in different areas and how different social workers attach different thresholds to support. Particularly with unaccompanied asylum seekers, we were very concerned in our initial inquiry that how young unaccompanied asylum seekers are dealt with by social work in different parts of the country and the lack of consistency there. Certainly, since the Hillingdon judgment in England, there is more consistency as to the risk status of asylum seeking children. Can you give us an update on how that picture is developing? Do we have better consistency now? Are social workers employing children through section 23 assessments, section 25 assessments, as necessary, or is there still a gap? I would be happy to address that. Just Right Scotland runs a collaborative project funded by Unben Philanthropy alongside the Scottish Guardianship Service. We have a specialist legal unit that provides services to that group of young people, and we have cases across Scotland—a good site of that. It is fair to say that there remains inconsistency. The Guardianship Service, which is an innovative model and is one that is favourably looked at across the European Union, has a role to play and has played a role in encouraging more consistent practice because the guardian goes with the young person and is able to take that pooled understanding of best practice and spend time with social workers and local authorities that perhaps have not worked in those areas before in order to suggest what best practice might be or to support them in coming to the right solutions. I think that inconsistency still exists, because Scotland's experience of migration and the local authority's social work team's experience of migration is still emerging. There will continue to be greater training needs and a need for greater capacity to understand how to work not just with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children but migrants generally, particularly in local authorities that do not typically or have not traditionally experienced migration. There is a training and knowledge gap that causes that inconsistency, although I think that the Guardianship Service and some of the partnership work that we did maybe five to eight years ago has improved practice. The other observation that I will make, and I know that Scottish Refugee Council will also probably wish to speak to this because it comes out of the learning from the new Scots integration strategy, is this. I say this not just because I am a lawyer but because I am a lawyer in a sector that struggles with capacity. It is that our experience of the Syrian Refugee Resettlement programme and our experience of rising migration to other areas of Scotland tells us that there is a serious legal advice gap all across Scotland, aside from in the central belt. The legal advice gap has consequences both for individuals who cannot access legal advice to mitigate their rights, but it has a knock-on impact on the statutory authorities—the local authorities, the education authority, the police and so on—who are also trying to service those communities because they, too, do not have access to enough specialist information and advice about the rights of these groups. I think that that causes the inconsistency that you have highlighted. I know that you wanted to come in on Gail's original question, but I think that maybe you would want to address Alex's question as well. I suppose that myself, within my team, I do not actually lead on the intercom, lead asylum seeking children work, but I would be really happy to follow up with you with some more kind of follow-up on this response. It is a point that applies to Gail's question as well. In terms of developing practice, we are really aware of issues that have been raised in inconsistencies, but in the interests of balance, I think that it is important to note that local authorities and social workers are operating in really difficult circumstances when it comes to offering humanitarian assistance to unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Also, when it comes to assessing destitute families for support—particularly those with no recourse to public funds—with unaccompanied asylum seeking children, we do not have any knowledge of any cases that are not being appropriately supported as looked after children. Obviously, that is a really expensive role for a local authority to play as a corporate parent, and the UK Government is substantially underfunding the schemes through which local authorities are voluntarily participating to support unaccompanied children. To the tune of £100,000 per child under 16, that is the cost that we have. They are having to come from our social work budgets that are already under strain, adult social care is under strain and there are lots of other pressures, so I think that that is one point to make. In terms of adverse childhood experiences, I completely agree in terms of the impact on children and families when they are growing up effectively on social work assistance support. That is a shadow social security system effectively. I take the point that there are examples and concerns where families are not getting assistance, but we do have established escalation routes and I cannot comment on cases, but I do know that local authorities are currently looking after families and providing support over a number of years. Edinburgh provided me with some figures that might give you a bit of an illustration of the work that is going on. At this point in time in Edinburgh, we have about 50 families whose social work is supporting and three quarters of those are families with children. The way in which support rates are set because the families cannot access the mainstream benefits system, the families cannot access work in the same way and those are the levers that in Scotland we believe are important for tackling child poverty is enabling families to work and to access benefits. Social workers are faced with the tough almost immigration officer task first of checking immigration status for a family. That is a really sensitive task and difficult and not the way that social workers are trained. Then they have to assess the need of a family based on whether they can afford to feed and clothe their child and keep a roof over their head. If they, through that GERFEC assessment, identify need, they have to pay out of the social work budget weekly or monthly amounts to that family. What we are seeing is £1.3 million bill that has come on Edinburgh City Council over the last three years through doing that. As I said, three quarters of those are families with children and the other quarter are vulnerable adults. At a UK level, the NRPF network, UK of Collated Figures, and they have also looked at the patterns in terms of the outcomes for the cases who are on local authority support. What they have said is that three quarters of local authority-assisted cases have a legal right to be in the UK from the Home Office's point of view because they end up getting a positive decision, a leave to remain with recourse to public funds. Basically, local authorities are having to try, wherever possible, with very limited resources to offer social security effectively while the Home Office gets the paperwork that it needs or reaches the decision that it needs to let them back into the system and live and integrate in the way that we all want these families to live. I think that it is right that social workers have raised with me time and time again that we do not know the impact fully on children. They are living in very severe poverty and they cannot be included effectively within our child poverty strategies at present, not the way that we are currently setting up our child poverty strategies. I hope that that gives some colour and I am happy to follow up with additional evidence if that would be useful. I think that it would be. I have a number of people who want to come in, so I have Joe, Natalia, Dr Hawkins and Fiona McLeod. As far as we are concerned, it is vital that children who are experiencing domestic abuse get access with their mothers to accommodation and support services. That is a key issue for beginning to address children's traumatic experiences. I take the point that I always was making. We know from Edinburgh that they have a domestic abuse and no recourse to public funds protocol, which means that women and children get immediately assessed and provided with accommodation and support services. That is one of the few good examples that we are aware of throughout Scotland. Even though there are children and they should be assessed under the Children's Act, that is not happening in children arts. Their mothers are not then getting accommodation and support services and are having to return to their abusive partner. In terms of their adverse childhood experience, that is critical. You can evidently see the tensions that are playing out within the situation. My concerns from what I have witnessed are the practical realities on the ground of how section 22 plays out in the social work capacity. You have the direct conflict between Westminster immigration control and the social work duty to safeguard children. That battleground plays out in section 22. It is important to note from when I have witnessed cases that I will ask social workers why this family has been in a B&B now for nearly seven months and why is this family only received in one case £25 over the course of eight months for a mum and baby. That was a huge battle to even get £25. Social workers will say that their hands are tied every time that they have to go to senior management every time. It is not just a case of poor practice or inconsistent practice. They have to always liaise with senior management in terms of making decisions. That is a big issue as well that he is raising. From my perspective, accommodation is a huge, huge issue. The families that I have been dealing with have been in inappropriate bed-and-breakfast accommodation with no cooking facilities and no laundry facilities for lengthy periods of time. That is meant to be emergency accommodation, so I would recommend that there needs to be a set time limit on that B&B. In one case, I have a quote here from a mum who has explained to a little girl while they are in the B&B and the little girl is saying, why are we living in a hotel here? Why were we living in a hotel before? Why do we not have our own house? As she got older, it got more and more difficult to explain to her satisfaction the answer to these questions. She was like, why do I not have my own room, my own bed? Why are we not like other people? She often expressed her desire to be able to live in her own house, and that was very difficult for her to deal with. It was also very difficult for me to explain. That little girl was six years old. She spent six years of her life in a bed-and-breakfast accommodation, four in England and two in Glasgow. She was only moved into temporary accommodation after the threat of judicial review. That is the impact upon families in regard to accommodation. Again, financial support is another issue. The problem is that there is no set amount. There is not even in line with asylum accommodation. You are going into a social work meeting having to negotiate money. Services should not be having to do that. That is when you get people pushed into exploitative conditions where they are having to get money from churches, from friends, from networks. There needs to be a set amount. It is not good enough to say that we will assess on a case-by-case basis, because that puts families in really vulnerable conditions. Again, the financial support there is another one. Just a couple of issues that I would like to raise in regards to the relationship between the Home Office and social work. I went on training with the NRPF network in Islington. There was a Home Office, embedded officer, in that training. That affects service user and social work relationships. If the service user knows that, from the offset, social work is going to be communicating with the Home Office, it affects trust and engagement. If they know that information is being shared, hopefully Jen can touch upon that in the conversation. Currently, Glasgow, Edinburgh and North Lanarkshire are signed up to what is called the NRPF Connect tool. That is a database that shares information that I find concerning because it is drawing social work into the role of an immigration border guard. I do not know whether there would be any legal challenge on that. I am not quite sure. Maybe Jen could add to that, but that is definitely a concern for me. It is the Home Office connection there. Also, a final point to make is the legal process. In the cases that I have dealt with, all the cases have needed judicial review. In one case, it took seven months for the case to go to the court of session during that time. The family were in bread and breakfast accommodation and the legal process is lengthy. It is confusing. It is complicated. It is so difficult to hold the local authority to account with the legal system the way it is at the minute. Those are my concerns that I think need to be addressed. In response to Gail, how would we help children particularly? What Jennifer was saying, particularly with regard to the small amount of money that people have per week, is really valid. If you add to that the possibility of having to even pay for healthcare, that is a deterrent from health in the first place. It is really important to remember that healthcare is a basic human right and to keep that at the centre of decisions. From the first experience, we see the impact and lack of uncoordinated access for patients directly impacting on children. For example, people who are undocumented haven't even started the asylum process. That directly impacts on their schooling as well as their health. For example, we have seen a family traipsing around GP practices for two days on end trying to get registered in addition to the fact that they are not getting their health needs immediately addressed. They are also trying to get the children into school and all the multiple other factors that you have all been describing. That seems unnecessary. On Natalia's point, we see people who are very afraid that information might be shared, which makes them fearful to access healthcare. For example, escalating charges and them being potentially reported to the home office, which might, for example, in one case, stop them accessing healthcare for basic contraception. Fyona, on that point, I want to say that the level of destitution that we are seeing at British Red Cross has not substantially changed between this year and last year. From a perspective of impact, we are still seeing a number of people presenting us at our destitute in the first quarter of 2018. We had 303 people presenting at our destitute, and that is 516, including dependents. Across the whole of 2017, we saw 833 people who were destitute and including dependents. That was 1,553. Our levels of presentation are still high. Just on the trauma-informed, I think that one of the biggest things is that this process, the asylum more or any kind of vulnerable migrants process, it is a damaging process to individuals. Taking that trauma-informed approach from the very outset right across, moving it much broader than health in education, housing and all the interactive public services that people might come across, could provide a more holistic support and hopefully limit the damage that the trauma that they are experiencing is having. On the information sharing at Red Cross, we are also experiencing some concerns around that as well. We think that information sharing is having an impact on people's willingness to seek help and support when they need it. I think that this is further. I am hoping that the lawyer in the room, Jen, might pick it up, but I think that there are some questions around people's ability to ask questions around data sharing and give informed and proper consent. I guess that that is more of an issue now as well than it has been previously with new regulations that are in place. I think that there was one more point, but the last point that I wanted to make was just in the back of what you were saying from a local authority perspective. I appreciate that there are really tight resources, but when the assessment process is about looking at immigration status first and needs second, I think that there is an imbalance. I do appreciate the tight resources and the fact that there are some public funds that cannot be accessed. However, I think that we have to identify needs first and then look at the resources. I just wanted to follow up on the points that have been made. With families that are being referred to our service for hosting in people's homes and crisis grants, we have had social workers trying to bypass their own systems so that they can approach us, our emergency relief fund, for crisis grants. We have had the British Red Cross making referrals for thousands of pounds worth of crisis grants to our small charity. We run on a budget of around £500,000 a year. We are not the British Red Cross and multiple agencies like that. I have mentioned the figure of 400 case workers. They are coming from around 300 organisations making referrals, not all at the same time, but throughout the year. They are making referrals, and we have significant numbers of cases of people who are families with children who are not afraid to go to social work and are being deterred from going to social workers because they are being told that their children can be taken away, but can be housed, but not them, which is effectively taking their children away. Those families are being sheltered through the room for refugees network for not just weeks but for months and years at a time. In your excellent report, which is a good record, the Hidden Lives report, I think that that is an important document, and in that there is a lady, Olivia, who is highlighted in that report. We sheltered that lady through pregnancy and through her child for the best part of two years and three months, not just with shelter but also crisis grants. She has left to remain refugee status. There is another issue in terms of this whole perception, perhaps from elsewhere, that within the Scottish Government or local authorities that this is all about refused asylum seekers who are going nowhere. This is not what is happening here. You are talking about people whose cases may have been unjustly fast-tracked into failure. You are talking about cases where the home office is profiteering. There is no doubt about it. The hostile environment is profiteering from people who have insecure immigration status by giving them limited leave to remain. At the end of that limited leave to remain, they have a six-week window in which to apply for an extension of that leave to remain. If you have a job, a house, your claiming housing benefit partially, you are also working. I have lost my thread. If you have a family who is working and they have a limited leave to remain, that expires. They have only got a six-week window in which to go and reapply. It is costing thousands per family member. In a recent case of a client of ours, she has two children. Her daughter has got British citizenship. Her leave to remain expired. She was working in a care home. We highlighted her story. Her employer at the care home said that you are now, after two years of working there, having a home, standing up in their own two feet after we had helped them to really carefully rebuild our lives and overcome a lot of different crisis situations, you have to leave now. She was helping an elderly lady into the dining hall. She had built up a relationship with all the residents and she was called in and told that within the space of an hour you have to leave the building now because we cannot allow you to stay here working. Only after a campaign where we put pressure on the home office, the home secretary, did they come back when they realised that this case had come to light, which is a form of, you know, the campaigns are a form of protection as well, and said, actually we'll give you six months, you can continue working there. So it's just rubbish. You've got people who are applying under our scheme. You know, we say, how are you resolving your crisis? We're not just handing out money, we're wanting to know what is the long-term resolution for your client, and in some cases we get case workers externally saying, why aren't you taking our client? We can't see a resolution, so we can't see what support we can give. Tell us that they are proactively working with lawyers and case workers to resolve their situation and to consider where they are. So we make very harsh decisions, but effectively what we're providing is a safety net on our own, and charities and faith groups are picking up the pieces. Only, I think it was just two weeks ago, we received a donation from the Jewish community and also the Muslim community, members of their own community, towards the crisis grants to be able to provide that service, because they recognise that these are people in very desperate situations, and my colleagues and I were discussing only yesterday a client that came in, we'll call her Linda, who has two children, and she only by chance had passed and said, thank you for what you've done, I've now got accommodation, I'm now renting, and I'm now looking at getting studying and building my future up, getting a job. She said, because I was at the point when I came to see you, that I was going to put myself and my children in the river, that was the words that she used, and the receptionist came through to tell us that, and it was really telling, because we were preparing for this meeting today, so that's the kind of cases that are being referred, we are sheltering families with children, this is not just about people. And the Home Office actually is making money by saying, okay, go and apply for limited leave to remain again and again, and people are being left in that crisis, they're at risk of losing so much, and housing associations are now turning to us to help with rent arrears, to prevent people who are incurring rent arrears as a result of their immigration status lapsing temporarily, people losing their jobs, and with universal credit that problem is going to be multiplied, rolling out in Glasgow is going to be multiplied, and housing associations are going to see increasing rent arrears as a result of that particular issue. So incredibly, Harron, Gail, if you don't mind, I'm going to bring Mary in now, because Mary's got some questions that add in to, you know, and continues on the conversation where we've been and where we're going. Thank you, convener. I would be grateful, particularly, let's just start with Eloise, if we could get a fuller update on the work that COSLA are doing, because one of the things that concerned not only me but other committee members last year when we were doing this piece of work was the disjointed nature of support across local authorities and the role that COSLA was playing in that. There was a very patchy provision. Some local authorities were very active, very good. Some were not. Some local authorities were aware of the network of No Decoast of Public Fund's network, they were aware of what they were, how often they met and the work that they were doing. There were issues around the guidance that COSLA was giving out, the guidance that local authorities had, and I appreciate in January an update was provided, but I would like a bit more information to what concrete steps and what tangible progress there has been in the work that COSLA has done, because it would seem that COSLA almost fit in the middle that they have a very strategic role that they can play, both with helping and supporting local authorities but also linking into other partner agencies. Perhaps initially if Eloise could answer it. On the back of that, I would also be interested in the views from the rest of the panel and what their impressions are of any improvements in the support that COSLA are providing, or if there are any changes across local authorities? In the last year, I started at COSLA in June shortly after the inquiry, and part of my remit has been to look at that recommendation. We have worked with the Scottish Government initially to understand what the different options were for being able to update national guidance, what the costs would be, but also more specifically what actually does it need to deliver. I was aware that, Mary, you did raise a lot of points about how guidance actually impacts on practice and what is it that we need to achieve. The conversations that took place over the summer and towards the end of last year were really about talking to social workers, front-line housing officers, welfare advisers, and I was trying to understand what we needed to deliver. What that has concluded is that we needed more than just a piece of written guidance, but we needed it to be a digital accessible tool for local authorities, something that could be easily got hold of, because the cases that social workers are dealing with and others are really complex. The guidance, the last document, was huge because it necessarily has to be so, but we also recognised that it needed to have a dissemination strategy attached to it. The Scottish Government agreed to fund a piece of work, and we have successfully commissioned, just right, Jennifer Ang, as well as the NRPF network at UK level to collaborate on producing a piece of work that will clarify the legal framework as it stands currently, and what the lawful ways that local authorities can operate and provide assistance look like. We are going to be particularly looking at vulnerable groups and the different immigration statuses within that. We have also, within that commission, asked that they support us with identifying best practice and what that needs to look like. From a local authority protocol and assessment point of view, some of the local authorities were keen that we set out some of the components of a robust and systematic approach, and others who felt that they had that were interested in learning about the ways that other authorities are approaching this, particularly how we can work effectively with third sector partners in a multiagency way. Hopefully, it will deliver that and the work is on going and we are hoping to have it ready by the end of the year. In the meantime, I have been meeting with chief social work officers at their meetings through Social Work Scotland to raise the findings in the inquiry and to highlight some of the concerns that were raised so that those discussions have been on going. I am confident that we are moving in the right direction, but I also know the still challenges in terms of making sure that local authorities want to wait for our national guidance so that they have strong guidance. Glasgow has produced and has been working really hard with engaging with their third sector contacts to make sure that they have guidance that can support their staff now. However, we have also been developing the NLPF network as far as we can, and that is something that next year will be an even bigger priority. At the minute, it is a local authority officer's network, and we have been talking to them about what they need from COSLA. At the minute, our resource is still fairly limited, but second year advice, case work advice that beyond being able to look at guidance is something that they think the officers would use and would find really valuable to talk through decisions that they are trying to make and make sure that they are reaching the right conclusions. That is something that we are really keen that the Scottish Government looks at. We have been meeting—we have met three or four times this year—and we have also been engaging with a multi-agency third sector network that others might want to speak to, and we are looking at how we can connect the two effectively. I think that just to jump back a second while I have the mic, I just wanted to clarify another couple of points as well. In case I gave the wrong impression, the best practice that is advocated and that local authorities commit to is that needs assessments are done first. An immigration status check is a requirement within the law. It has to be done. There has to be some form of communication with the home office in order to know that the local authority is acting lawfully, but certainly we wouldn't suggest that an immigration status check should be the first part of that process. I am happy to follow up with more details about NRPF Connect and how that is used. It is a data management system. We are aware that there are concerns about the impact on people approaching social services and knowing that immigration status checks have to take place. We know that there are concerns about how you best do that in an informed way. That is also a live area—data sharing and relationships with the home office that are required under the law. We know that that can be a changing beast at the moment. We are live to it, but those authorities are using that system, and it is GDPR compliant. There are different ways that they use that to manage systematically their coastloads. To make sure that the home office is aware that there are supporting cases who need a resolution, I won't go into more detail, but I just wanted to make sure that there is some balance to that point. Just before—I know that Graeme wants to come in—I am grateful for that update, and it would be good if he kept the committee updated when the commission reports on any other findings. Have any interim measures been put in place while that work is on going to support local authorities and other agencies? The key measures that are in place—every local authority has its own approaches and needs to take its own legal advice. What we have done is raised the issues with chief social work officers who are accountable within their local authority. I know that various local authorities have gone and reviewed their policies and procedures and spoken to their staff about what the communication needs to be, making sure that their staff are confident. That is the extent of COSR's role that we represent and support, but we are not able to take a further step in that sense. We have been strengthening the officer's network and making sure that there is regular information to front-line staff and trying to widen the number of officers who are able to engage, but it is at an early stage that I want to do that in a way in which we are aware of what local authorities are huge. Glasgow has 9,000 social workers and their guidance will be made available to all those social workers. We cannot have everybody along to our network, so we are trying to identify who would the local authorities find most useful to have coming along in addition to the dedicated staff that we have attending regularly and what tiers of management needs to be involved. The other key step that we are taking in terms of the management and governance of the guidance work is that there will be a steering group that will have representatives from local authorities but also the third sector and Scottish Government who will be able to advise on the content of that, but we have a wider reference group and system of reference groups, so we are going to be continually sharing the key messages. There is something about the detail around the guidance, but there is also the communication behind it and the clarity around rights and entitlements, so we are looking at a strategy without embedding that. Mary, I want to bring in Katie Hopkins and that Katie Hopkins. Oh, my goodness. Katie Hawkins. He put that in my head. He's a blame. Sorry, I want to go to Dr Hawkins first, and then Graham, and then I'll tell you who I've got next. I've got Jennifer, and I've got Joe. Have I missed anybody else? Natalia, you were sort of a making all sorts of. Yeah? Yeah, so. Dr Hawkins. It's just to speak to Eloise particularly. It seems that the guidance when the people you're speaking to doesn't particularly include health professionals or anyone from the health sector. I was really wondering whether there's a specific reason behind this. I'm aware that there's huge challenges and urgent guidance needed for social work, housing, welfare and the legal aspects as well, but we really need to know really quite urgently, especially with the increasing number of people who are seeking asylum or remain undocumented, what we can do to enable these people to access basic healthcare safely and alongside the social work, housing, welfare and legal advice. We're seeing the direct impact of this on public health, their personal health, and then that impacts the public purse directly as well. Healthcare being a basic human right, it seems that it's somewhat neglected in what you were saying. That you would mind sharing in terms of the... We had a conversation, Jan and I, about the content of the guidance and I suppose it's scope, so I'll maybe defer to her knowledge on that. No, so I'm glad you raised it. So the purpose of the guide, it's COSLA's guidance for local authorities on the rights and entitlements of migrants broadly. I think there is scope to include in guidance to social workers what migrants are entitled to access and I think actually that would be helpful. So I think within the context of the COSLA guidance that's possibly a helpful piece of work bearing in mind that actually we're explaining quite a lot about entitlements across the spectrum. I think he raised a really important point and one that we started to discuss previously, which is that within the NHS and for Scottish Government there's also a role to play, isn't there? So I had said that I'm aware just from practice that there is Scottish Government guidance, it's now a little bit old in relation to access to primary and secondary healthcare and how that entitlement runs alongside someone's leave to remain. I know that from practice because I've referred to it previously and I think there was a time, you know, actually when that guidance I recall when it was drafted Scotland was leading the way in terms of its provision and the way that it allows individuals who have claimed asylum but don't have a live claim access to primary and secondary healthcare is still actually progressive, right? So I think that we started at a good point but I do think because of the legislative changes wrth by the Immigration Act 2014 and 2016 and also, and we talked about this earlier, also the impact of the hostile environment, so the perception that's created in front line NHS staff because of everything else that's happening in England and Wales, not all of which is applicable here but some of which is. There is a situation of confusion where people are denied access to their rights and actually again I think this is a place where with the powers that we have and in the interests of public health and access to human rights, the Scottish Government and the NHS probably can and should not only refresh the guidance but maybe launch a clear campaign for two P's in front line, especially primary care professionals and as you've noted there's some good precedent in England and Wales as to how that can be done and I don't see why we couldn't do that and also say and these are the areas in which we've taken more progressive decisions in Scotland. That theme, the genes articulating, it goes back to what was saying at the start and we said last year about what can we do in Scotland in terms of devolved competence because I think one of the things that I've taken from this work over the last few years has been I mean deep frustration, deep concern about the symptoms of these problems and I know we're limited in time, I just really wanted to kind of try and step back a bit here and say okay you know what can we do practically? So in terms of the guidance issue you know to me that is an important issue but there's many other important issues so I think there has been some progress made on the development of guidance in Zellulisa and Jenner articulating and I can see that as a capacity building measure, an essential measure that should have been in place around one part of a public sector, local authorities primarily and what contribution they can play in relation to their responsibilities under certain legislation but there's a lot more of public sector and third sector bodies health is obviously one of the kind of pivotal ones also. Before I came to the I promise myself to make sure I talk about accommodation options not in a jargonistic sense but just in this plain English sense about for people who have insecure immigration status is any person you know the risk of or is in homelessness situations and ruthlessness situations they need shelter you know that's a human right and that's pivotal in the truest sense of the word in terms of you know mitigating and preventing this this issue. So accommodation options needs to be absolute hard of the Scottish Government strategy on this and that's one of the areas that we've said to them internally and will continue to say is that it needs to be a priority and they go what is accommodation options in relation to this group? One is in relation to the statutory entitlements that do exist for people in terms of assessments and then support and that is an area that many people have articulated in Natalia especially in relation to the really uneven form of support, inconsistent forms of support around accommodation and financial you know support that people within secure immigration status get through that accommodation option which is the statutory route, Children's Scotland Act, Social Work Scotland Act but then you go into the other stuff and say what about community hosting you know there's been a lot of talk about community hosting within the ending homelessness together agenda I'll look at the room for refugees scheme and I see you know what is in practice like a real community hosting potential and it's the kind of thing that would maybe need to be resourced if we're serious about trying to you know make a real den in relation to the insecure immigration status population. The third one is around you know the role of shelters you know shelters are obviously a very contentious issue rightly so you know nobody in an ideal world wants to have shelters even short term emergency ones but our experience working with people you know who have been rendered homeless through the asylum system is that the factual they are needed and it's about how they're designed whether they're safe who they're accessible to what wraparound services are in place are they actually a model too often they've not been a model but we need to move towards that as part of accommodation options. Fourth the role of housing associations we need to think practically about the role of housing associations and what they can do in relation to providing some of their accommodation for this and fifth is the role of private donations as well in terms of accommodation so accommodation options is one of the clear practical things that we can do within the outside of the know the course to public funds you know provisions because as Jen said it's not a general prohibition at all in public funds it's a list of prohibited benefits from the immigration rules and we need to always bear that in mind and and cut through when people try to say we can't do it because nrpf and you can do it and you spit different mindset and like Liverpool city council are using home office funds to provide accommodation amongst others to to some that that have no recourse to public funds conditions on them because it's about preventing and alleviating destitution and we need to do more of that in Scotland and in Glasgow. I don't want to go into too much I just wanted to mention other practical measures that the strategy will need to comprise in the committee I would hope can articulate to to the Scottish Government in its role of specialist advocacy provision not to set up separate agencies to provide advocacy provision for insecure immigration status but to go with the grain of where expertise is so we have shelter Scotland and we have others just right Scotland street work doing really good work in Edinburgh we are involved a bit in that as well and you know that's going with the grain of saying we want that expertise homelessness expertise to be brought to bear for this population as well we don't want this population of insecure immigration status being put to get a different type of provision and accommodation we want them to be treated equally with human rights and that means you mainstream their services as well and Scottish women's aid the work that they do is another example of that kind of mainstreaming impulse in relation to advocacy provision ourselves in Red Cross in relation to working with refugee populations in Ash as well the four things about protection pathways we really need to think about protection pathways because I talked about the intersection that many people there's growing number of people finsecure immigration status have and there is no dedicated protection pathways for this group of people we need to have that dedicated protection pathways that bring together at a local and national level health third sector local government and others as well I know I'm going on so I'll try to stop in a second and then the fifth point is just about the context here you know that we when you actually look at the pre-Brexit phase we're in the post-Brexit phase and you actually look at the nature of labour market in Scotland and when you say okay who are the groups within the EU as well nationals who are in the lower paid less less well regulated sectors then what comes back to you is polls Lithuanians, Latvians, Romanians and Bulgarians it's not France it's not Spain in that and we need to always keep that focus in mind this is the group of people who have either been in trafficked or exploitable situations in that grey area or have had breaks in their employment patterns so what I'm getting to is the home office talk about their settled status programme and they've made some really positive ministerial statements at Westminster over the last few months from immigration ministers but we can't focus in ministerial statements we've got to focus on what the UK EU agreement says on this point and that you're going to have to document five years of evidence and what I'm saying is that many of the people in these labour markets will not be able to do that so therefore they are vulnerable to amongst other things the institution so that means this is not just a Glasgow issue it's an Edinburgh it's an Aberdeen but actually it's also a forfer an Angus an Aberdeenshire issue because Peterhead issue because that's precisely where these were vulnerable labour markets are and if I can't I couldn't put any clearer this is a national strategic issue it really needs to be you know prioritised over the next few months as I said at the start the committee was doing a real job for the Scottish Government in really emphasising that and we're actually committed to go back and see that constructively as an oval to the Scottish Government just to make sure that we really get this on to the radar in a practical sense. I did write myself a question earlier and it's well future EU nationals who don't register where the home office be treated as undocumented and that's from my future reference to try and find out what's going to happen there so thanks for that I've got Joe and then I've got Natalia and Rabina wants to come back in to Joe. First of all maybe to go back to the the cosola guidance I mean I would very much hope that that it will be gendered and that women's specific experiences will be considered within it specifically and their children's because I know we haven't been involved as yet in the in the development of that and I'm glad it's looking if it's going to be looking at migrants more broadly because our real concern is over women from EEA countries who have no access to to funding and what happens to them and their children who if they can't access refugee accommodation or get into local authority or housing association accommodation and I think to Rytrae Graham's point that we are really considered accommodation housing is such a key issue in order for women to be able to leave an abusive partner it's the key barrier as well as financial support and we are seeing such inconsistent responses across Scotland from local authorities even when women have children let alone when they don't have children I think there are specific things that the Scottish government could do in relation to looking at their homelessness strategy in a much more equality human rights and children's right framework than is at present. I don't think it makes women's homelessness visible within it and we have raised that with that action group and we will continue to try to do that because I think it's a really important opportunity to address the recommendations within hidden lives more broadly within other sectors of the Scottish government. One positive thing that has happened in the last year is South Albaq's sister's access to the tampon tax fund to be able to fund no-request of public funds for women to stay in refuge for 12 weeks as a subsistence amount of 30 pounds attached for a woman and 10 pounds for her children so we have a case in rural Stirlingshire for women who's been able to access accommodation there and with her child so she has 40 pounds a week to live on she spends 20 pounds on travel and without women's aid specifically fundraising for her as an individual to be able to provide food and clothing so our child can get to school and she would be much more destitute than she is at the moment so it's important that these third sector and local government resources are joined up so that they can make the most of them and not have small third sector organisations working to try and fundraise for individual women and children on a daily basis and using their resources which are really there to support women and children just being spent on trying to get their basic needs met. I'm minded to run a wee bit later this morning if the members of the panel are okay. I'm only talking about 10, 15 minutes but it'll allow the last two panel members to come in and then all of us to come in. We have specific questions so if we're getting up up at the time barrier so we can tighten it up a wee bit that would be really helpful Natalia. I think what we've heard today is shown that there's numerous tensions here that they're alive they're not going anywhere. I did want to highlight the first series case review with NRPF was January of this year and that was from World of Hampton safeguarding children's board and one of the issues that they found was that firstly practitioners did not have an extensive understanding of the lived experience of NRPF and secondly reiterated that there was inconsistent practice so this is a national issue that is not going anywhere. My concern is with the home office implicated in that what you've got is a culture of disbelief. I'm really skeptical that updated guidance is going to sort anything out but for the cases that I've seen what's been really, really important is clear channels of accountability and the only forms of accountability that I've seen in my research have been legal representation or getting the media involved. In regards to legal representation that's been really problematic I mean there's no test cases here in Scotland for NRPF like why is that? What's going on with the legal process that's making it difficult to hold the local authorities to account? There's a lot of test cases in England and Jen maybe be able to explain that there's something called community care lawyers there where a judicial review is raised quickly and it doesn't take as long and therefore the local authority is hold to account sooner. I think that that's a really important point and I would like to see that be a spotlight shined on how we do the legal process here and then a final point just to touch upon what Jo said. My research has looked at people with children but there's a dire need to look at people that haven't got children in adult social care as well that are trying to access social services support through community care assessments that is a really critical area that needs to be looked at. Thanks very much Rabina. Very quickly just to say that in terms of we were here to kind of look at the Scottish Government response to the recommendations and just to say from our perspective we've provided and arranged in terms of impact 83,000 nights of shelter so far and that's through the network of 300 or so case work organisations with their 400 case workers. That is now established, we've got an online system which is called refer which distributes crisis grants through the emergency relief fund and also community hosting as Graham was referring to. So that's a good basis on which to address the whole issue of destitution and it's also a place to gather data because of the way it's online we can extrapolate information very quickly to say this is what's happening around Scotland and we're now receiving referrals of destitute clients from Aberdeen now who we're now looking into so Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and then small pockets but primarily Glasgow, Edinburgh at the moment. At any one time we're sheltering 80 to 120 families or individuals and these are people who we see have got the chance of being able to resolve their crisis and move on not just to stabilise in their lives for themselves and their children but also so that they can become future taxpayers. That's part of your tax pace so that 83,000 nights of shelter has saved the UK Government and charities who refer to us around £4 million to £5 million so far so that's a big impact on the part of a small small charity. In terms of a proactive response NRPF applies to individuals it doesn't apply to organisations as Graham was alluding to earlier so therefore we want to see the Scottish Government support those charities and particularly ourselves obviously but for good reason because we did deal with 1,400 destitute people families and individuals and unaccompanied asylum seekers and we can document and prove the outcomes people in very very difficult situations not just children not just women about to have children also people who had terminal liver cancer also people who had HIV AIDS communicable diseases were sheltered in people's homes now that 83,000 nights of shelter is also about pastoral support people have stepped in their communities have stepped in when we accommodated a family a mother and three children in Dunbar the whole community came together so this wasn't just about putting somebody in your house it was about communities coming together and saying well what else does she need how else can we help with the children and now that family is now stable that's an outcome and she's working so she's contributing to the tax base so surely for the sake of Scottish taxes the Scottish Government should be establishing a strong response proactive response supporting the work that's being done because we're being left to pick up the pieces alongside others charities and faith groups and therefore that response should be backing that support that's already been given in the absence of funding because it's very difficult to say we're supporting people with no recourse therefore give us funding it's very difficult to do that but Scottish Government can recognise that and have a strong I was going to say stable response but a strong response to the hostile environment because that is impacting up here and this is just one of the discreases of that hostile environment we shouldn't be and we really want to know what's happening after this right yeah of course too Oliver thank you uh convener I was pleased to hear uh Grim mentioned rural areas and I think a couple of other people have picked up on that point and it's quite clear from what we're hearing today what we heard a year ago that those with no recourse to public funds are facing sort of severe severe consequences particularly of existing challenges like housing within the area I represent that there are thousands of people waiting on the housing list and it's not uncommon for all all applicants to be offered temporary accommodation in bed and breakfasts and that then becomes not temporary with people facing you know very long stays with with all the difficulties attached with that in terms of causes approach I mean do you feel that there has been progress in terms of ensuring that all local authorities across the country are geared up to cope with the challenges particularly with these additional challenges that come in rural communities where there aren't third sector organisations active where despite the the sort of good intentions of council officers they're not dealing with the quantity or number of cases to to have to have that experience to to actually address the problems I think the two key things really to flag one is no local authorities are not equipped fully to be able to accommodate and support everybody that's in need particularly those where you know there is a group for whom there cannot be local authority assistance under the current immigration system and so one of the things that we really need to see is a change in that UK level policy on how no recourse to public funds is applied and and how local authorities can step into assist when destitution occurs in terms of housing that really is an acute pressure for well for all local authorities having rural authorities are struggling as you say because they can't then drawn and work with the third sector who maybe you know can deliver something for some of the groups that local authorities have their hands tied in relation to in terms of nrpf cases you can't offer a local authority house so when social workers assess that there is a homelessness risk for a family or a vulnerable adult and that they need to be providing that assistance they need to be paying private landlords effectively and tend paying for temporary accommodation which is why bed and breakfast get raised and things like that because the housing market and is under a huge amount of strain and that's obviously a high cost it would be more affordable it would still be incredibly difficult but more affordable if it was a local authority option in terms of that I think you know we want to see change in policy at UK level because that's where we feel the pressures are coming from but we also want to see the Scottish Government welcome the support they've provided to us to build capacity within the system in terms of training guidance so far but it it's the funding long term of our social services and of the third sector as well as bringing us all together to think more strategically and one of the big strategic questions that we feel needs to be looked at more is for those who will fundamentally want what amount of resource are we going to put into the system recognising that need may grow over the coming years and particularly post-Brexit as Graham's pointed out in general around the risks of EU migrants being a group that are at risk of destitution what level of resource are we going to put into the system to be able to make sure that we don't have the challenges we're describing today but secondly what also we're going to do to address that group of people it may only be small but there is a group of people for whom they will not be allowed to stay in the home office's eyes at the end of the asylum process or they're not granted leave to stay in the UK and they're not maybe willing or able to go for various reasons now whose responsibility in Scotland that doesn't want to see people sleeping on the street and destitute are that group of people and I don't you know I don't feel that necessarily the third sector want to be a formal part of the humanitarian response long term but if that's not the case then what what is the alternative and how are we going to coordinate that so those are the two kind of key things um if that answers your question that local authorities are imaginative enough in the way in which they approach these issues the way in which they they work with the third sector um or do you think that there are still entrench views within within some authorities or some individuals within authorities who don't see this as being their responsibility well I mean I had obviously say I'm not in terms of local authorities not seeing their responsibility at COSLA's community wellbeing board approved a paper in November endorsing a mandate in me to work on this issue and stating clearly that it is local authorities responsibility so I appreciate what you're saying in terms of the challenges we've raised today about whether we've got there yet in terms of delivery um but I think there is innovation I certainly know that local authorities are benefiting from innovation and partnerships with a number of the partners around the room but often that is centralised around the central bell in Edinburgh and Glasgow there's more we can do there there's more we need to do and so there are a couple of things we've requested the Scottish Government one is if we take forward a strategy um in other areas of of innovation and service development there are pots of seed funding to test and evaluate different ways of working and changing now the system the social service system is under too much strain necessarily to always be able to go into these partnerships with local authorities um with the third sector that may lead to a better outcome so you know we've been keen to explore whether there's funding for multi agency models to be tested ones that are already happening in Edinburgh and Glasgow around funneling public funds through the third sector to deliver accommodation or advocacy services partnering up with the local authority um to resolve cases but we'd also like to see whether we can be looking at testing and working with the rural authorities to identify what needs to happen there and that may be about building capacity in their community sectors and and their church groups and and other faith groups who exist um it might be about looking at how we draw around the resources that do exist in other parts of the system or in other parts of Scotland but there is definitely room to improve there and we're really keen to work in partnership to look at how we do that many other panel members want to see anything about that specific issue all of our content with your responses mary you had a quick supplementary but can you make it really quick really quick convener yes thank you um as a convener said at the outset of this meeting both the convener and myself have visited the ash project um and i just wonder perhaps Natalia if you could give me a brief respond and Graeme and Fiona may have a quick response to this as well the last time i visited the ash project a number of concerns were raised about the accommodation that's provided through the UK contract through circle and concerns were raised about the quality of the housing and the concerns were raised about the support that people that are employed through circle give to the people housed and i was given assurances that changes would be made in the way people were dealt with entry into houses and the quality the standard and repairs would be done to properties and i just wonder if you would like to comment on whether any changes have been made well i suppose my research has looked at nrpf families not specifically that side of ash that looks at people in the asylum system under circle housing but from what i can gather at ash there is still huge concerns in regards to the way people are being treated within circle and i think rubina have probably got a lot of information regards to this as well but the quality of the accommodation that circle providing and the way the staff are treating people within asylum accommodation especially people that are vulnerable with mental health issues so there's huge concerns around that at the minute but i think rubina has been dealing with a number of ongoing cases at the minute relation to circle very very quickly was the fact that you know judging by like a campaign that we had done just recently a few months back to highlight a case and what was going on basically there was subtle harassment and sometimes not so subtle harassment forcing people out threats to call the police and basic questions are being asked by circle residents are we allowed to call the police and if they harass us as in tell us to get out the flat does that mean that that is also an immigration matter and that i can't call the police so they're thinking that actually if that i'm being harassed that's reserved to Westminster as well that was the implication of what people were and we were just surely they can call the police and then we were making contact with like senior police officers and then like i mean like chief inspectors and people who had differing views as to whether or not they would step in if a resident contacted the police and said that i am being illegally harassed out of here because what circle Nicholas Somes i think is he said to me on email is is that we would issue notices well notices cost thousands of pounds which is excellent news which is basically spend more money if you're going to try and force people out do that why should people have to walk out and we're saying issue your notices then and they will be challenged through housing solicitors in court and i think that's the way forward so i think they're very nervous circles very nervous about being exposed in that way and that's what we kind of uncovered through the communications that we had and through the kind of Sunday Herald article that was put in place we had some conversations with the police last year and we are going to continue some of those conversations as well about because it comes back to the points that that's been made here this morning about how do we ensure that the right advice is going to frontline workers and that's the same for police officers so we're going to do a bit of follow-up work on that but Fiona i don't know if you want to come back in on the issue about circle and maybe when we visited last year with you you were seeing some people who had been in circle housing you know who had been locked out not able to get access to their documents or or even their clothing and medications coming to you or coming to refugee council looking for help so my understanding is that there are still cases where people are being i want to i'm not a frontline practitioner and these are not cases that i've had direct oversight over however where people are being misled into leaving their property and whilst they're out of their property things have happened to maybe locks or so yet we are concerned around some of those processes still so evidence that we had last year Graham let me get Graham and rubina and i'll let you back in yeah i was talking earlier on about some of the structural factors that are affecting people and you know and one of the ones with no choice accommodation which is in some of the poorest wards and streets in the country across north vingolin south wales glasgo in the midlands so what are these things are symptoms of really really bad poorly invested properties as well but then there's also some of the unaccountable delivery of this public service of housing to people seeking refugee protection and dispersed in this case to glasgo you know so for example there's never been a report to any local authority committee of any complexion by circle g4s or clear springs so that's evidence that you have a parallel public service of housing to 40 000 minimum 40 000 vulnerable people across some of the poorest parts of the country so if that's not democratically outrageous i don't really know what it is so what that's an i use that example just to make it really clear about how the home office are running this parallel service and then like and we've been talking about in terms of destitution they're letting everybody else pick up the pieces and react to that and then walking away and not actually taking any responsibility and it's unacceptable and i would and the scots coming to the credit are persistently and they've got to keep persistently reminding this because we're about to move into a 10-year contract from september 19 to september 29 which materially in terms of the funding is the same and in terms of the lack of any accountability for country or local bodies is the same as well so i suppose what i'm saying is it's true what mary and ash have been saying we see at refugee council as well poor quality accommodation at times inappropriate conduct towards towards a vulnerable group of people but these are symptoms of the deeper issues about this is an unaccountable space and just to say you know there is active interest from the legal and the housing law community in relation to try how we can bring scottish housing law standards to bear in relation to how this public service and then in one of the main pinch points at the moment in areas of progress in the next year will be how we can get scottish housing eviction law to actually apply in some way to this so that rights are inserted into a group of people who absolutely don't have rights in relation to being removed from their accommodation at the moment we are absolutely almost out of town so i'll get a quick comment out of time out of town quick comment from from rabbina and joe and then we need to finish here because we need to decide what we're going to do with this this morning we need a bit of time to do that just that the police scotland response was shocking i felt that there was just nothing really to go on and i think that the police scotland particularly on the issue of circle residence should be asked because when i spoke to the chief inspector of one of the areas where there's a lot of asylum seekers i said so if people call you will you come out he said oh well they might be using that as an excuse so even if people were being genuinely harassed he was saying they might be used i said are you going to come out or not or are you only going to come out when circle calls you out because circle was saying we'll call the police you have to leave but actually you have to use the proper procedure which is going through sheriff courts in order to secure an eviction there were rifling there was also reports of people at circle rifling through people's papers and said trying to check whether or not you're supposed to leave or not so all of those things were being challenged the other area is is that housing associations are often renting their accommodation to circle so there should be a role for housing associations Scottish housing associations to be imposing their standards on to circle and just very quickly the final point nicholasomes emailed me he said your client did not say thank you for us giving her free accommodation as we don't want your free accommodation she would rather have her status that's not the reason she's staying there so that just gives you an idea of the tone that we were dealing with with him joe you've got the final word this morning quickly um the home office was due to publish guidance on domestic abuse in the asylum system and funding for women to be able to access refugees who were in the asylum process and that's still not happened yet so it's maybe something the committee might be able to bring up with us where that is at we have completely run out of time this morning you'll realise that we could have spoken to you for a lot longer can we thank you for your participation this issue is not finished for us so so take heart from that um and if you go away and you think i should have said this or i should have said that please as always come back to us and let us know but we will be back in touch with further work that we intend to do on this matter so thank you so much i'm going to suspend committee to move into private um for i'll tell i was to decide what we're going to do next thank you