 Good morning and welcome to the 9th meeting of the Equality and Human Rights Committee. Can I make the usual request that mobile phones are switched off or on to airplane mode? We have received apologies this morning from two of our colleagues, Alex Cole-Hamilton and Annie Wells. Moving on swiftly to our substantive item this morning. Agenda item 1 is to take a decision to take agenda item 4 in private, which is our discussion on the evidence we hear. Agenda item 2 is the inquiry that we have on go. We have had informal briefing this morning from some people that are involved in the sector, in the healthcare sector and the support and social care sector. So we are very happy to have some more evidence to do on this inquiry on the record. With us this morning, we have Suzanne Miller. We have Suzanne Miller. We are the chief officer for strategy planning and commissioning at Glasgow City Health and social care partnership. Good morning. Alistair Muir is the chief inspector with Police Scotland. Derek Mitchell is the chief officer with causal strategic migration partnership. Good morning, Derek. With Olivia Nandotte this morning, we have Natalia Jane Farmer, who is a social worker researcher. Olivia is a service user with Ash, the asylum seeker housing project. I thank you all for coming along this morning. I thank you all for the written evidence that some of you have provided. This inquiry is being on go now for a few weeks and we are really keen to hear from you this morning. Maybe as an opener, as an opening question, we would maybe get Natalia to tell us a wee bit about the project and the work that you are doing with Olivia to set the scene and then maybe hear from some of the statutory organisations and the work that you do around that. Natalia, would you like to start? Sure. I am a social worker researcher at Glasgow Caledonian University and my research is located at the asylum seeker housing project, which was originally set up in 2014 in response to the growing concerns of asylum accommodation with Circo. However, during my research time there, a lot of what I have been focusing on is people with no recourse to public funds and their specific interaction with social services and local authority. It has been accompanying them through the assessment process and in numerous social work meetings. In particular, my involvement with Olivia since June of last year has been quite a grueling fight to secure Olivia housing accommodation and appropriate financial support. There are numerous issues. We feel welcome that we are really grateful to be here to highlight some of the issues that we have been facing and some of the issues that my research has been flagging up. Thank you, Natalia. Olivia, you and I know each other quite well now over the past few years. I know some of your journey. If you are able to tell us this morning about your journey and where you are now and some of the issues that you have come across and the support that you have had. Okay. My journey is mainly getting involved with the community, volunteering more with the community work because I think that treatment will push you through doing things that you never thought you would end up doing in life. Right now, my journey, where I am right now, I think the other story which has already been covered up is trying to, like, leaving basically totally with nothing, with a baby on the budget of £25 a week. So that's like £50 every fortnight, which is very hard and that's just for the baby, not myself. Thankfully, we've been offered accommodation finally, which the accommodation came this January on the 23rd. But it's just things that I've had to go through with social work and just to access this accommodation with a baby is something that I thought has just been, like, a very disturbing factor for myself and for the mothers that I've seen before. So basically right now, I'm still very active. I'm standing strong here where I am is because of being involved with different community networks, the agencies that I've seen helping to support other women. That's why I'm so strong for myself as well because I've been... I've had knowledge to know where I need to go for support. And at least I think you can understand my English is a bit okay, so I could speak up for myself and that's why I'm still standing and the baby is healthy, thankfully. I've just finished a nine routine checkup with the doctors and he's okay. I've passed that with the doctors. So thank you. But still, it's still a disturbing factor to know that I'm still on that budget of like £25 a week with a baby who's actually now like a British citizen because of his father and his Scottish British passport. It's still a disturbing factor because we still have the virus, we can't access anything. One of the things this committee's been really interested in, Olivia, is people who have been through the system, found themselves in a destitution situation where they've had no recourse to public funds and no statutory support where they've sought that support from friends and from charities and from organisations. I know that you have experienced some of that destitution and you've had to seek that support. Would you be able to tell us a wee bit about how you came through that? How I came through that is like the network being in the community. There's always someone supporting you and you have to go and make inquiries what support you can get, even if you've made inquiries from trying to get support, extra support from the Home Office is like, you know, entitled to this support. But I've been lucky, I've had positive action housing which had to go that extra mile asking people from their own houses whereby they had a spare room. So even before the baby came, I've lived through very good people. We've been doctors and lawyers at the same time in their houses. They've audited me in a spare room and I've accessed the food banks and the charity being there to support me as well. It's gone on until when I was pregnant so I missed out even the maternity grant. I raised my baby inside my tummy with nothing through support from the committee and charity organisations, squeezing him into my same clothes which was size 12. I had to wear stretchy clothes because I couldn't buy the extra maternity clothes and I tried to access that money because it was non-accessible. Even getting the referrals that I had through to Social Work for extra support of whatever I needed, I never got that, even until the baby came. It was like a really hard road to go through and fight through. Even though I'm not still impressed with the support that I'm actually getting right now. How did that whole experience affect you, Olivia? I think my mum, she was resting in peace being in heaven. She was a diplomat who was a very strong woman and looking at her work that she's done when we were growing up. Every time I've tried to cry alone in the room, I feel like there was a voice telling me, I raised you better than that. Dry your tears. You've got to speak to someone. That's how I kept on. Another campaign was going around myself, knocking on every organisation, making phone calls, emails through my MSPs, my MPs and organisations just to get the answer why I was going through that even when I've explained my situation. I'm not an illegal immigrant. I've been granted temporary leave to remain with the home office. So why can't I even get just a little bit of support? It's never happened. So I think it's been... It's just been yourself. You can't explain how you had that feeling whereby maybe an hour you just covered yourself under the blanket and then a few minutes you're getting up, washing your face and reading a book that inspired you to say you can do something. You know, just stay strong. So I've never had the thoughts of actually going through wanting to kill myself over suicidal thoughts. I never had those because I always, as a Christian, I've always believed it's wrong. So that's been my strongest, I think, fight as well whereby I didn't think of getting my life off to say but I just thought it wasn't worth leaving. Most of the time it was like this is not what everybody else should go through and when I became pregnant, it became worse off as well and going through having a partner who was quite abusive, it just became like maybe it's because of my immigration status. That's why this person is actually taking advantage of my situation. And then still I didn't get more support through what I went through with the domestic abuse. So I found myself still fighting for my life, staying alive and staying awake. I didn't know when my life was going to end but I can't believe I'm still here. That's my miracle for myself saying I can't believe I'm actually still here with the things that I've gone through actually on the streets outside there. I can't believe I'm still here. Are we glad you're here this morning to share your story with us? Very glad. You're still standing, as you say, you're still standing where you are. Olivia, I'm going to move on but some of our colleagues may come back and ask you some more questions, okay? Derek Coslaw, we had one of your colleagues explain some of the aspects of the work that he does, your work is slightly different so could you maybe give us a wee overview and then maybe elaborate? Yeah, I suppose Andy's specific tasks and responsibilities in the team has been around asylum and some refugee issues and taking a leading role in Syria, my job is a wider role to manage all issues. We deal with corporate issues from equality and human rights for local government, for Coslaw, but, as Andy said last week, increasingly our work is focused on asylum and refugee issues over the last year or two. We play a central co-ordination role for our 32 councils in relation to Syrian resettlement. Another 200 come in a couple of weeks ago, the other 201 I think come in in a charter flight and have moved pretty seamlessly to the communities in 14 different local authority areas so that's great. I think we're over 1600 now that Syrian refugees have come in since the start of the process. We also deal with issues flowing from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and Lord Dubbs amendment and everything around that and we have been the kind of liaison between 31 other councils out with Glasgow and the Home Office around the potential for widening asylum dispersal I think that, as Andy said and we make no bones about this there are absolutely issues that this inquiry will look at that you would want to address. The biggest single factor on that is that there's hundreds of millions of pounds being taken out of communities in the length of Bradley Britain with asylum contracts and that money isn't there in the past when Glasgow City Council ran the contract Glasgow City Council provided a whole range of wraparound services and we're only funded to do so we're funded in terms of the per-person-per-night nature of the contract but actually provided that wraparound service and you saw Glasgow as a city become more cosmopolitan it moved away from the image that people had in Glasgow maybe 20 years ago as a modern European city now and asylum dispersal played a large part in that but those resources aren't there any longer and what we see is an asylum system that is fractured beyond repair and that the UK Government's position and this isn't a party political point I'd say here successive UK Governments have done the same they've used destitution as a policy tool and what happens then is that we then see that the consequences of this is that there's a cost shunt of government and the third sector and that's what we're seeing and the direction of travel unfortunately is that that's only going to get worse we've got an immigration act now and there's processes in place for implementation of that and when that happens we're going to see things getting worse and already stretched local government services are going to be stretched even further one of the things we're looking at in this inquiry is obviously we know that immigration is a reserved matter for this Parliament however it's all of the devolved services that pick up the pieces of that whether it's health or housing or social care or advice services or the civic and charity sector it seems to be that they seem to be picking up more of those pieces so you're absolutely right we're going to shine quite a bright light on all of that and some folk won't like it but we're quite keen to go ahead and do that anyway but thanks Derek I want to come to you next because Derek's given us the overview of what COSLA does across 31 local authorities that are involved and Glasgow's always been a main dispersal place we're concerned about when dispersal is widened how we will deal with that we had some people at committee last week who talked about the Syrian resettlement scheme and what an absolute gold standard that has been treating people with humanity and passion and with dignity and putting the right services in at the right time in order to allow integration and that seamlessness acceptance as well from the local communities because I know when I was involved with the Glasgow campaign to welcome refugees all those years ago there's a big issue about how communities weren't prepared and that caused some of the issues as well but the Syrian resettlement programme seems to be a gold standard in that and then you've got the rest and I suppose from your point of view of being a local authority that's been at the forefront of this type of work for 20 odd years now we're quite keen to find out where you think you make that difference the differences between how one scheme works as opposed to all the other versions of asylum support are not in some cases and how that can inform the work that we need to do so we're putting a lot of focus on what you do so we're expecting a bit a lot from you this morning so we hope that you can facilitate that OK, thanks it's difficult to squeeze all of that in as well as the title that you read out I'm also chief social work officer for the city of Glasgow I've been involved in asylum and refugee work in the city for the last eight years but your refugee asylum work really started when we met the first plane from Kosovo the air ambulance plane that came from Kosovo and I think it's that point to where we are today our city's being transformed but also our approach in terms of best practice in relation to how we work with people seeking asylum and people who have refugee status has transformed we've learned a lot over that period of time we've got some things wrong and I think we've put some things right having learned some lessons from that I think it does put us in a position particularly in Scotland but I would argue probably in the UK of some expertise and experience in relation to best practice in terms of refugee and asylum work we work really closely with colleagues in Kosovo I talk quite a lot about I've got two children at schools in Glasgow the black minority ethnic population in our schools in Glasgow is now at 18% when I started working in Glasgow as a social worker a number of years ago it was 3.2% so that transformation in terms of our young people's experience in our schools I think as it really enriched the experience of all glass-sweatons and I'm particularly proud of what it is that we've managed to achieve but not complacent because I think we can always continue to learn and we need to make sure that our practice is amongst the best where we are now Derek is quite right when we heard the contract it was accommodation and support and we were really clear that particularly the integration piece about how you worked with local communities in Glasgow and how you best supported asylum seekers and refugees was through that support mechanism so it was really important that they had links to local schools links into local communities links to their local GP we had good links and continued to with colleagues in Police Scotland and that support element was at least as important I think deficits in the current contract is that it has essentially become an accommodation contract and that support piece has been lost and I think in losing that support element to the contract means that the experience of asylum seekers in the city of Glasgow is different to that which it was when that contract was held by the local authority and the store we put in the support context so we work with the accommodation providers and with the Home Office trying to mitigate that and to make sure that when people get status they are known to us as soon as possible and we work with the refugee we've continued to keep specialist teams so we've still got an asylum and refugee team in our homelessness service who've had that experience in fact the team leader was the person who met the plane from Cossackville so that we've got a real length on that team and we've continued to ring fence that because we recognise that there are particular needs that the refugee population have once they get status and we are working just now with the RSL sector in Glasgow because we think that the homelessness one of the lessons we're learning currently is that the homelessness route is perhaps not the best way in terms of looking at permanent accommodation so there is an on-going learning in relation to how we work with refugees once they get status we've had to pick up issues around connections into communities and into local health and education services that you wouldn't have seen in the past when we had the contract so in some of those refugees we're working with even if they've been in Glasgow for a long time we're still having to work with them in relation to that support because it's not been around so that's a thing that's changed for us we also have a specialist on a company asylum seeking team and have had 147 of them on a company asylum seeking children in the city we continue to see young people present in Glasgow on a weekly basis but we've also very specifically engaged through COSLA in terms of the young people who were in the Calais camp and in November of last year we took 19 young women from France we did offer more places up to 35 but it was 19 young women who arrived a particular piece of work that teams got a really significant experience around working with that group of young people and at this point in time we're halfway through the development of a new scheme of carers for children and young people who were unaccompanied 16 and 17 year olds we have identified through faith communities in the third sector specifically positive action and housing a group of 85 families who have expressed an interest in offering accommodation and support to an unaccompanied asylum seeking young person and we are about two thirds of the way through those assessments that's not been tried anywhere else in the UK Scottish Government colleagues are particularly interested in again we've made sure that we've been working with Derek and his team in keeping up to date with other local authorities who are very interested in what we're doing partly that comes from our experience about working with refugees because it's essentially given an opportunity for local community to offer something practical and what we got from the local communities when we held information sessions was a really strong sense from Glaswegians that they needed to do something practical to offer an alternative to some of the rhetoric that was around in relation to asylum and refugee even with some of the images from the Calais camp so we have given people that opportunity to do something practical currently undertaking those assessments as I say we're about two thirds of the way through there to offer family base placements from the end of April beginning of May and we've been matching young people to families continuing to offering support they'll still be looked after children so they'll still have an allocated social worker and we'll work with a guardianship project as well in terms of the particular focus of this committee in relation to destitution and insecure immigration status it's long been a difficult issue for us in Glasgow partly because we've been so successful as a city and as a country in terms of holding on to people once they have a decision if that decision is a negative decision we've got very experienced lawyers within the work for the city council and again it's because they've had that experience from when we first took asylum seekers they've developed some real expertise around about the legal situation we do have policy guidance for staff which is on our website in terms of what the legal situation is and we've attempted to give some support to our staff to work their way through that legal system our chief solicitor has written some advice for solar in relation to that currently our position is that on a case by case basis we will look at particularly families where there are dependent children and if the only issue is destitution then we're very clear that the Children's Scotland Act means that it's not appropriate to accommodate those children in care we're very clear about that contrary to some of the evidence you may have heard that's very clear in our guidance which is public guidance and I'm happy to share that with the enquiry we do however doing assessment on that case by case basis we aren't trained at this point in time in the Norie Coast Public Fund's human rights assessment the legal view is that our GERFEC assessment given that it's based on the Children's Scotland Act which is based on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child is in essence our human rights assessment for children and families and if we have a GERFEC assessment which we have to have and that determines that those children are best looked after within their own family then we offer support to those families in terms of accommodation and subsistence families in Glasgow and you can imagine that's a significant cost for not a housing authority in Glasgow just to add a further complication so we can't house people who have Norie Coast Public Funds in our own housing because we don't have any so we've had to either use temporary furnished accommodation or private lets because you can't take a Scottish Assure tenancy through the RSL sector for people who have Norie Coast Public Funds so we have significant accommodation costs in relation to that we make sure that those families are continued to be reviewed throughout their time with us in adults it is slightly trickier we do use the community care legislation and if through an assessment of need an adult has needs beyond destitution then we will offer support and subsistence and in the year to date that's been five adults that we've offered that kind of support to we have a significant cohort in the inner company of the asylum-seeking children population who are appaled out exhausted and have Norie Coast Public Funds we take the view which hasn't been challenged yet as to whether or not it's legally competent but we take the view that those young people are care leavers and should be treated as such now until the age of 26 with the legislation that we have in Scotland which is different than the legislation in England and Wales and we do offer support to young unaccompanied asylum-seeking children which is equivalent to the support we offer care leavers so it includes access to section 29 grants in terms of independent living we've got a much higher cohort of those young people in Scotland and anywhere else our success I would call it success rate in terms of young people getting a positive decision it's about 50% in Scotland and 30% to 24% is the last figure in the rest of the UK in the rest of the UK we are particularly successful working with colleagues in the third sector about getting positive decisions but if you think about that cohort of 147 as our current case load roughly about 50% of them are likely to get to a position where they will not be supported so that cost then would come to the local authority the position convener that we are in terms of offering support as I said it is clearly laid out for our staff the final decision is mine as chief social work officer because our position is that it's a professional decision in the interests either of children or vulnerable adults that's made in terms of no recourse to public funds the cost then fall into us as a local authority we have not yet been challenged in court our lawyers are clear we have a defendable position but are not clear that we have a legally competent position again we have been quite upfront about that and we have had support from across our council it's not a political point it's been across our council we haven't had we have a full cross-party support in terms of the position that we have taken in relation to policy so apologies that was probably more than my one minute but it's quite a lot to squeeze in there's a lot to investigate a lot to hear thank you we'll be back with some questions in a wee second once we've heard from Alice you've got a unique position on all of this because you've got the balance to make between asylum and refugees feeling safe when maybe they've come from countries where the police were not safe so you've got that balance with communities who want to feel safe as well and you've obviously got some of the people that get caught in the middle of that and they find themselves homeless who are sleeping rough who may be exploited who may be subject to trafficking or other exploitation in that way or may find themselves in order to survive end up going down a criminality route themselves so you've got a very fine balance on how you care for an individual but how you exercise the law as well so we're keen to hear how you do that really okay thank you convener really law enforcement fully understands how we fall into vulnerability in whatever circumstance they come from as we've heard from Olivia then they become vulnerable to others it's the old adage of if society is not engaging with individuals criminality will so there's an element of that criminals will look into well these individuals are not being cared for so we need to be alive to that certainly I canvassed a lot of my colleagues from different departments to see what do we know about destitution, asylum and insecure immigration not a lot is actually categorised as such we have different categories for people in our systems but this is I would call an emerging issue for policing not that we're unaware of it by any means but in terms of looking into it in a greater detail using analytical products to look at it in terms of the community we have officers we're a national police force which gives us a great strength for across Scotland for training officers to work in local communities which is at heart of policing and so communities that we've had experience of from the vulnerable people's relocation scheme, the Syrians coming over we've been able to train officers across the country in our 13 divisions annual square in how to what's the background to these individuals how to deal with them how, what your point is there, convener about they've come from where law enforcement is distrusted to say the least how do we break that barrier how do we possibly move into the area where there is some trust so we've certainly been working with our colleagues in COSLA and in Glasgow and police officers particularly there because as we've heard already there's been a lot of experience gained there myself and others officers in Glasgow we work with refugees on a weekly basis, refugees in asylum seekers so we've got an understanding we certainly don't know it all but we have an understanding of some of the issues be it from the lack of finance, the lack of accommodation the mental health issues that come from it as well so we're a learning organisation and we're working towards that we've got officers embedded deliver additional training to ESOL classes the learning English language so we're working towards where we're making it safer for these individuals in this category Thanks very much Mary do you want to kick off your questions? Thank you convener I wonder perhaps if I could start by asking Derek a question because in the last few weeks of evidence we've almost had two completely different views on a similar subject and I see you're smiling so you probably know what I'm going to ask you The refugee council came along and gave us detail about FOIs that they had done on local authorities and the knowledge and the information that they had about particularly people that had no recourse to public funds and quite frankly it was shocking the responses that the refugee council got from local authorities about the lack of knowledge the lack of information the lack of work on the ground and then we had COSLA come along last week and basically told us that they had this wonderful process in place there was good partnership at working it all filtered down there was guidance local authorities knew about it and quite frankly they were a bit surprised that the response that the refugee council had and perhaps the refugee council had asked the wrong questions or the wrong person had answered them so somewhere in between that is the truth and I don't mean to put you on the spot but I would be keen to hear your view on that and how you think whatever the issue is can be solved I mean what's been interesting what the Scottish Refugee Council has said I think as Andy said last week we are a partner with the Scottish Government Scottish Refugee Council and the new Scottish strategy and I wouldn't have anticipated that we are a partner organisation that you would dip your toe in and out of that whenever it suits you if the Scottish Refugee Council came to us we have a Norwich Coast public funds group which actually met yesterday in our offices we have a number of local authorities is the level of knowledge and information that local authorities have up on doing the country uniform, no if a social worker gets approached by someone who has no recourse to public funds in an area once every six months they're going to have the same level in all his social work staff in Glasgow Edinburgh have, no is there work to do in that, yes we did a piece of work some time ago in Scottish Government actually funded that work to be done which gave us oversight of the issues that local authorities needed to take into account when they were working on this carrying on an FAI an answer to the specific points that were raised and I think it wasn't just Kozla last week that said the local authorities themselves said that there's a use of language around human rights assessments a use of language around destitution a use of language around Norwich Coast public funds that in essence social work staff on a daily basis don't come into the profession to refuse people to services so what local authorities have developed is practice that allows them to look at the legal implications and the situations that people present with and make decisions on that so are all the decisions correct? Absolutely not is there work to be done around that, yes we don't have any funding to refresh that guidance but as I say I don't think the picture that's been painted I fully accept what you say we'll say one thing and others are saying another I'm not convinced absolutely that the level of knowledge in local authorities is as poor as what's been presented to this inquiry, nowhere near it The refugees council's view was that the guidance needs urgently updated the guidance needs urgently updated with the working and the co-operation of all the partners that feed in and work together I accept that you're saying that you don't have the resources to upgrade that guidance is it just about money is there some other way that guidance could be updated? The issue about guidance around public funds as it changes on almost daily basis the legislation changes the expectations on local government the statutory obligations on them changes on a regular basis we did hope when the guidance was first published that we would be able to go back timeously and refresh that and it's something that we've not been able to do so resources is a big issue I'm not convinced that getting a room full of people will add huge significance to the information that's required for local authorities to make decisions it's not across to public funds there are quite clearly public funds so when Cezanne talked earlier about public funds spoke last week and Alan and others spoke last week about providing services to people with no recourse to public funds public funds means housing benefit tax credits Scottish welfare fund these are all things that local authorities cannot access so when local authorities provide accommodation whether it's in the rain accommodation or private sector accommodation for people with no recourse to public funds local authority pays for that service and I think the convener raised we're talking about a range of devolved services here that it's not my job to say which government should pick up the tab but quite clearly local authorities seem to be getting a lot of criticism for no doing enough for people when I think there's actually been quite a lot but the cards are earning their favour absolutely and that caution is continuing with the new immigration act that's coming out it's only going to get worse as local government but diminishing resources face really really difficult decisions about what they do in the main I think they do a pretty good job frankly Natalia, can I bring Natalia in right now because Mary, I think Natalia your research is probably an independent eye on all of these organisations and the work that they do and maybe you can enlighten Mary its question I've been supporting Olivia since June my biggest concern is the actual issue of gatekeeping around the support from local authorities because I've sat through the meetings and I've sat through the way that the assessment process has been implemented and that's been a huge huge concern to me the actual guidance is actually here so there is a brilliant report that was done in 2012 and that was establishing migrants access to benefits and local authority and it's very clear on page 6 the issue around no recourse to public funds and it's very clear that social services is not a public fund when it comes to section 22 and supporting children all children regardless of the parent's immigration status should be provided with adequate housing and adequate financial assistance however from my time spent with Olivia it's been extremely difficult to even have a proper assessment implemented even when I've advocated for that it's stated that obviously there's no no recourse to public funds policy in place but the GERFIC assessment does not cover this specific area it's definitely not been sufficient and Olivia had to wait seven months for housing within which time she had to rely on positive action in housing and networks in the community that's not their legal responsibility to do that it's a clear legislative duty but even in the assessment meetings it's been disturbing how Olivia's been spoken to with me being there as an advocate as well so being called a legal immigrant in meetings is I found highly disturbing and inappropriate Olivia has an IS 96 form she's not unlawfully in the UK and it sets a really destructive tone especially in terms of social works taking a human rights perspective and I find it's been taking more of a home office immigration perspective which is not really social works remit so I've found that disturbing I've found there's been inaccurate information as well so when I've taken legal documentation in regards to no recourse to public funds I've been told that we can't accommodate Olivia because she's got no recourse to public funds and the way I've been spoken to in meetings has been quite intimidating as well so I've been challenged do I know what my role is as an advocate so it's been a very grueling time not just in regards to Olivia but in other case studies where I've had to challenge local authority especially in regards to being be accommodation and the only time people have been granted accommodation and financial support is when judicial review has been threatened so that it should not get to that point in my opinion so those are the issues that we've been facing at Ash and what I've been seeing in my research as well as threats to remove children we can accompany the children but not the family I gather that it's very difficult when there's other issues in regards to child's protection but when it's destitution is the only issue that should be the absolute last resort in regards to the best interests of the child and what I would advocate is that people need an accompanying scheme when they go to social work meetings so they need someone there with them they need an advocate there with them and even then it's very difficult Mary do you want to come back? I think that that explanation has been very very helpful and I appreciate that time is tight and colleagues may want to come in but I just wanted to ask Alastair a very quick question before I allow other colleagues to come in and I wonder if you could perhaps explain in political terms what an officer would do how he would make the distinction if he came across someone in the streets that was perhaps dipping in and out of homelessness that was vulnerable because there were an asylum seeker or was someone that had been sleeping on the streets for years how would they make that differentiation and how would what organisations would they sign post them to and how quickly would that be done That's obviously got a complex question in terms of with any individual that we have to check out we will check our systems documented police systems if our ones at the moment I think it's quite crude in terms of the Home Office designation of individuals so we would if anybody really comes into the immigration status it would be the Borders Agency Home Office Borders Agency that we would contact and really it's signposting to them in terms of the individuals status and their systems would tell us so we are kind of an agency of what they tell us in terms of the individuals if they are taken into custody or if they are it's more of a welfare check for them then through local knowledge within and we're talking really Glasgow here we are aware of lots of support groups that are available night shelters obviously recourse to our colleagues within the city council as well so there's a host of organisations who are there to support the individuals and we would certainly pass the details on of different organisations to these individuals Thank you Thank you, convener I've got two questions and two different areas so I really go with from Mary's point back to Suzanne I mean we are hearing very clearly both written and over evidence that you may have the best policies in the world you may have the best lawyers in the world advising you but when someone comes face to face on that first occasion on that second occasion, on that third occasion with the social worker or with a member of your team they are having a very negative legal response now these may be exceptions I suspect not but they may be exceptions provide the evidence that we've got before us and so both the question that I have is why is this great policy great procedure great documents that have been written at Glasgow City Council not getting down to the local social work office or to the local social worker who's doing with it because I saw you sick in your head quite vigorously when we were hearing that provide the evidence we were hearing that's a reality and my question is why is that happening thanks very much I was shaking my head and I wouldn't expect to come to a public enquiry and talk about individual cases so I won't I don't think that's appropriate for me as a professional I'm chasing lots of cases that was in response to the discussion from Katie so I wouldn't do that I also think about some of the evidences the first time I hear about it as chief social work officer is when it's presented as evidence to you there's a really clear escalation process in terms of our third sector partners working within Glasgow there's a very clear escalation process in terms of our hierarchy in relation to children and families so you have a social worker team leader service manager, head of children services then me then our director I wouldn't expect to be hearing about poor practice which it is I would expect people to be raising that with us and I'm disappointed that that's not happened secondly I think in terms of those 31 families if you wanted a positive experience of the response from the 31 families over the last year or indeed the 100 families that we have supported over the last 10 years then I'm sure I can find that for you by definition what you would hear at an enquiry is I think where it has gone wrong I wasn't asked to provide examples of where we have implemented our own policy appropriately and to best practice I would never be in a position as chief social worker officer of defending poor practice what you have heard as poor practice but equally I wouldn't be expecting to be defended for the first time at a public enquiry so I'm really clear that some of the evidence that you have been presented with is evidence of poor practice I would have expected that third sector partners would have allowed me the courtesy with that prior to coming into a public enquiry and I haven't been given that opportunity I don't believe it is it tells a full story if you were looking for evidence from people where it's gone well I would be happy to go back to Glasgow and find that for you I mean I think that is not a particularly satisfactory answer you've given a very procedural response but you haven't and I'm not asking to deal with specific cases but do you accept that there is an issue going on here within Glasgow that there are people's experience particularly with children who have been denied their legal rights do you accept that as that is going on are you saying everything is actually wonderful in Glasgow I think I was quite clear in saying that some of the evidence that you've heard is evidence of poor practice that's not procedural that's my professional opinion as chief social work officer and I wouldn't ever be in a position of defending poor practice what I'm saying to you is the evidence that's come in front of you does not give you evidence of systemic failures in relation to how we respond to people who are destitute it is an extremely complex area we do have contrary legal advice to some of the advice that's been given to the third sector as a public servant I have to follow my own legal advice from a third sector so there is not necessarily a consensus in terms of what's legally competent that said we are currently acting beyond what our own lawyers believe to be legally competent so my response to you is I don't believe that the evidence that you have is evidence of systemic failure I believe it's evidence of poor practice and individual cases which I would not defend I would have expected the opportunity to deal with that elsewhere To be absolutely honest with you, Suzanne we have met a number of families over the past few weeks individuals who have been in my opinion very badly treated by the system as a whole within that we'll obviously have the people who are in the worst crisis as politicians it's always people in crisis that come at us anyway so we understand that maybe we are getting a view that's the most negative end of that what we're attempting to do is to see if that's a policy decision or if it's a local decision or if it's one specific social worker that's making some of these decisions and that then becomes a culture the big worry for us if there is a culture of any negative or bad practice out there however small it is if the dispersal then goes Scotland-wide does that bad practice then get shared and travel with it so that we're not expecting you to answer personally for any of the evidence that we have heard we're trying to get to the bottom of whether this is a systemic thing or if it's a local thing or if it's just some local office culture or whatever we're trying to get that maybe a local office is overwhelmed by the amount of cases that come through the door we understand that and we accept that we're getting quite tight for time and I want to make sure what other colleagues get in as you were wanting to come in Thank you, convener It's just a follow-up with Mary and local authorities Glasgow has a welfare experience dealing with asylum and refugees compared to other local authorities in Scotland How best do you say your best practice because my from previous experience local authorities very seldom communicate with one another when it's best practices I wouldn't disagree with your experience but in this area of world and humanitarian protection we work with 32 councils we have a Syrian resettlement group a 32 councils that meets every six weeks we have a UASC working group that meets time-asely as well we have another coast public funds network in Scotland that has a number of authorities and we're trying to encourage more authorities to come along because of some of the issues that have been raised and some of the issues that we're aware of as well and we have used the experience of the bigger cities primarily Glasgow but also Edinburgh is well over time and we have a knowledge hub for information so you could have somebody posting something in Aberdeenshire in the morning and somebody from the Freeson Galloway or Glasgow or Edinburgh answering that question so you're no duplicating so that you're using those scarce resources to the best way they can so across the range issues and humanitarian issues there's a collegiality and collaborative nature and we all love those local authorities that I think maybe is exceptional but that happens and I think other public bodies police and others who are part of these structures as well would agree that that's in place No recourse to public funds network we heard a bit about that last week but we've had evidence since then to suggest it's not met for two years is that? I'm not sure who gave you the evidence Was that the first time for two years? No, I'm not sure who gave you the evidence that it didn't meet for two years but the point about this is and I'm sorry for coming back to this resourcing issue I had a member of staff who was tasked with doing this piece of work when you then get the humanitarian crisis in France and Calais and France and everything that happens some things need to be set to the side so we're trying to do it and it's not because the inquiries meeting that it met yesterday but it did meet yesterday it will continue to meet we've got the No recourse to public funds co-ordinated for the UK, from Islington who comes up to that as well we shared best practice again I'm getting back to what others have said we're not saying that things are perfect we're not saying that practice is uniform throughout Scotland we would like to get to that point what we've now got is we've got a situation where 31 and 32 local authorities have Syrian refugees in their communities which done earlier, convener the fact that that gives five-year consistency funding and a level of funding that allows local authorities for the first time to build up a bit of an infrastructure and a bit of knowledge based around how they're doing things so we would think that the direction they've travelled for us is a positive one in terms of how local government will respond to these issues but there does remain as I get back to the point before if a Syrian asylum seeker comes into a local authority area through dispersal they will get put into a house that will be inspected once a month the house will be inspected once a month and they'll be given a phone number for Dover for my own help if a Syrian refugee comes in through the resettlement programme local authorities in their third sector partners involve the daily lives of these people and that's that inclusive nature of how we want to work with everybody there's a really clear comparison between the Syrian resettlements game so you could have a man from Aleppo and he's away across Europe for instance and managed to get here for whatever means and you've got somebody who came through the scheme being treated very very differently and for a human rights point of view in this committee's criteria of its remit that's very very concerning not taking away the work that's being done Willie's want to come in because we're really battering up against the time limit now yeah thanks very much hello everybody this has been quite an experience at this committee in this particular inquiry for me and my colleagues and I've heard so much evidence over the weeks it's been pretty harrowing evidence provided in writing evidence provided to us in private and evidence at the committee and what we've heard from several witnesses is this immigration system is causing many of these problems and Derek Ew opening remarks today has said that the asylum system is fractured beyond repair we're hearing stories from people on the ground that there seems to be a battle going on with the system at every level to stop this kind of treatment of people this inhumanity being meted out in ordinary citizens that we should be doing our best to help with now we understand that you guys are often picking up the pieces in Scotland and we respect that we empathise with that but we certainly want to get to the root cause of why ordinary people with many of them with children are being treated in this disgraceful manner and we don't want to be able to see and to listen to stories where the system is fighting with itself over bits of legislation why on earth is the humanity not being put into this to first and foremost look after people and their children and worry about the legislation and the problems and the guidelines thereafter do we need to do something radically different here to get a system in place either in the UK or in Scotland or both I don't really care that it stops this kind of treatment of ordinary people and their children to make sure that there's a more humane approach taken to looking after people that need our help if I could answer that because we have tried to pick our way through that and it is entirely counterintuitive I remember being at a cross party with our own elected members locally who were coming from a clique we must be able to do more than we are currently doing and who were really taken aback by the briefing that we had from our lawyers who are taking some risks they're clear about that that the primary immigration legislation essentially is saying to local authorities people who are in this position with no equals to public funds you should ignore that is essentially what the primary legislation in the UK tells you so we've had to find ways round particularly using the human rights argument we've had to find ways round that primary legislation we haven't had a challenge in Scotland so we know again that the position that we've actually got publicly on our website in terms of how we would deal with that using the Children's Scotland Act in Community Care legislation is entirely challengeable in courts through judicial review and our lawyers are prepped and briefed for that should that day ever come my big concern about that is you can't make an assumption in Scotland because we've seen to have a different approach that you don't have a cohort of people who will challenge us on that so I think there's a real there is a fundamental difficulty with that and I'm trying to make sure that's not political but I've said it now anyway there's a fundamental difficulty in Westminster which essentially tells us that people who have no recourse to public funds should be ignored and part of the reason that's fractured and part of the reason that relationships are difficult is we're all trying to find a way round that it's more not more straight forward there's a level of confidence that you might have if you deal with it more on a daily basis if you were in a very small local authority where you've dealt with it once in the last five years that can be really challenging lawyers there might tell you that you can't do it because we'll be challenged so that kind of experience can mean there are differences in terms of the approach but fundamentally that is drives a real difficulty I think in terms of how we manage people who have no recourse to public funds and how we respond in a human way please hear a response from you surely we don't need anybody's permission to act with compassion in humanity the evidence that we get from our local authorities I mean, know that I'm aware if somebody might tell me with this about a successful legal challenge from the third sector about a local authority to know performing what they should do and no treating people with compassion social work staff don't come into their job on a daily basis convener knows this, well you know know to provide services to people I think some of the evidence you've been given to form an opinion which I can understand isn't it what we see we see valued professional social work staff trying to circumnavigate devolved and reserve competencies in a really, really skillful way in the men to try and support people it does come back to that we have a blunt policy tool of destitution in local authorities and increasingly in immigration act as well as time goes on will be seen to be using a tool to further the UK government's wish that if someone does not get a valid asylum claim accepted or they're here with no recourse to public funds that you make life so difficult for them that they'll return and you know the point we've made in the past and you know, if somebody's coming from Mogadishu and their choice is sleeping in somebody's couch or going back to Mogadishu I think we would all make the same choices but the problem we've got is that there's an overt focus on what local government aren't doing around this and there's really no real focus that I can see on what the UK and Scottish governments can do there's a hell of a lot of devolved competencies around this as well so it's not an easy answer but the evidence we get from local authorities and normally when you've got such bad practice that's been presented to you guys you would normally see legal challenges by the score with that I'm not very any so I'm not convinced that those legal challenges are the practice that local authorities perform on a day and daily basis with very vulnerable pupils as bad as it's been painted So how do we stop it then from getting worse as you say you've said a few times that it's going to get worse how do we even attempt to intervene I mean you're here it's your opportunity it's the Scottish Parliament committee that's desperate to hear your evidence and your advice so what would it be As I said before it's not a political point consecutive UK governments have used destitution as a policy tool and I don't see that changing in the near future In local government we are basically delivery partners around most of this we can jump up and down we can in terms of the transformation agenda the next asylum contracts are going to look like we can put our stuff in whatever our cynical sense is that they want to involve local government in that in the future to bring us in closer to them in terms of how they deliver things and get a consistency around that it's not about resourcing us to do the job that we all want today I don't think anybody wants to refuse anybody their services but there are legal issues around that so what the Scottish Government can do and they can continue to talk to UK Government about aspects of immigration system that just are inhumane and don't seem to make sense but I'll go back to this point what we've talked about today in the main is people accessing devolved services and the Scottish Government have got responsibility for devolved services We are sort of a bang out of time I really don't want to close this session without me giving Olivia a final word to be honest because if you could give us one piece of advice in the work that we are taking forward and the recommendations we can make, Olivia what would it be? Honestly, if I had a pen right now and that I had to be given the chance to revest most of the inhumane treatment legislation that have to be rewritten back again because if somebody, a human being who signed those legislations they didn't just drop they were just given on every Government and this is something that you cannot have you can ignore a child because it's a foundation like building a like this foundation it's standing because of the good foundation so for a child to grow up very well the well-being of a child you're looking at the foundation and the development of a child so if we ignore if you look at the ethnic minorities children mostly most of them are even shattered they can't even talk properly because of that restricted the barriers surrounding them they can't access most of the things that other local people can access you can't even pay for this you need to pay for a lot of things things like health start for £3.50 vouchers I can't access them because I've got no income coming through that's just for fruit and veg which I've fought to get this and it's been refused because I don't have any income that's £3.50 it's never been given to me my health list has tried to apply for it it's still came back negative so if I had that pain I would just say at least for the benefit of a child the earliest foundation of a child development matters and we can start from there because we are all passing on this is a future generation we are raising so if we're not paying attention to these little ones growing up and we're going off how is the world going to be there won't be any world with all this you know that's going to be proper things will never change so I think we have to really focus on the little ones you can punish me but not a child you know I can take the punishment but not a baby that needs that support I can take the punishment but not a baby so that's my final word I'll tell you I just had one more thing it was just currently the fact that we're having the minute is to provide Olivia for appropriate financial assistance Olivia is living on £25 a week for herself and a baby that to me is in Humane in 2014 Glasgow City Council had a response to the inquiry into asylum support and they actually recommended that a family with the first child should be receiving £89 per week Olivia's assistance at the minute is dramatically under £99 per week and I've tried to advocate for that increases and we're both really struggling with that grueling fight at the minute so I'd just like to end on that point well made we are so completely out of time now that I think we could have spent a lot more time in all of our panels we have always ran out of time because there's so much more we can speak about can we thank you for coming along today for being so open and candid with us it's not an easy subject and when I said we're shining that light shining it on is all and in some cases that's going to be comfortable uncomfortable for most of us not least the people who are having some of the situations and give evidence to the committee so we are very grateful for your contributions if you go away and you think we should have said something I should have mentioned something else I should have reinforced something else please do that because we've still got another few weeks before we compile our final report and we want that report to be as informed as possible with as much factual based information as possible so your help in that would be gratefully received so I thank you so much and I'm going to suspend committee to go into private