Resource

The current state of immigration and asylum advice is dire – 63% of the population in England and Wales do not have access to an immigration and asylum legal aid provider. Even those that do live near one of the remaining providers face significant barriers in accessing legally aided advice, due to saturated provider capacity precipitated by years of unsustainable legal aid fees, heavy administrative burdens and burnt-out practitioners. The provision of immigration and asylum advice in England and Wales is ‘not even adequate for first-time adult asylum applications, with a deficit of at least 6,000 for asylum applications and appeals’. 

In the face of this crisis in access to justice, providers and the Legal Aid Agency have explored the use of remote advice to bring together providers who have capacity to take on referrals outside of their contract area with clients struggling to find a legal aid provider near them. Although it does not address the fundamental issue of the scarcity of legal aid provider capacity, could the remote provision of immigration and asylum advice more fairly redistribute a commodity (legal advice) that is currently scarce? To begin to answer this question, we interviewed ten refugees and asylum seekers about their experiences of receiving remote legal advice. This report sets out what we know and what we need to know about remote immigration and asylum advice.  

Key findings 

• Three key themes emerged from the research: the convenience of remote advice, the desire for choice and the importance of establishing trust. 

• Remote advice was more convenient for some legal aid providers and clients, particularly for short consultations and for clients who had medical conditions which made travelling difficult or who felt remote calls enabled them to speak more anonymously.  

• Remote advice was suitable for some types of conversations and some people, but clients need to be able to make an informed decision about whether remote or in-person advice is most appropriate for their circumstances. For this to be a meaningful choice, providers need to be able to offer remote and in-person advice. 

• Remote advice was likely to be inappropriate when clients had not met their solicitor at all, when they were experiencing significant mental health issues, when they did not have a private, quiet space, or when it was not their choice.  

• Building trust between a client and their legal representative was perceived as easier in-person, but once trust had been established it made any future remote interactions easier. Establishing this trust through emotional support and reassurance was vital in allowing interviewees to feel comfortable enough to share their stories fully. Remote advice therefore worked best when clients already had an established relationship with their legal representative. 

• Many of the challenges and barriers generated by remote advice were a result of the wider issues in the collapse of legal aid provider capacity and were often obstacles that cut across all modes of advice delivery. Remote advice is not a safe harbour in an ocean of unmet need, but one intrinsically connected to the wider systemic issues facing the legal aid sector. 

Recommendations 

1. Before there are any future increases in the use of remote provider lists to connect clients in legal aid deserts with providers in other areas, the Ministry of Justice should establish best practice guidance for remote advice. This should be developed in consultation with a broad range of legal aid providers, clients and other people involved in remote advice interactions, including interpreters.  

2. The Ministry of Justice should conduct or commission research into the impact of remote advice provision on client outcomes, both in terms of the success rate of their cases and the timeliness of the case progression. 

3. The Ministry of Justice should conduct or commission research on the accessibility of remote advice for different demographic groups and establish who can/ cannot access it, and for whom it is/ is not beneficial.  

4. Further and updated research should be conducted regarding the impact of delivering advice remotely on a broader range of services. This research should build on, in particular, Ceri Hutton’s 2020 and 2022 reports, and should involve a broad range of provider types and geographical areas, in order to reflect the range of current provider experiences in the context of the legal aid crisis. 

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