Annual report 2023
As the second year of working towards our 2022-2024 strategic priorities, 2023 was an exciting year of growth for Asylum Aid. But we also faced challenges from many directions: a government hostile both to our clients and to our work; a crisis in the availability of legal aid representation for people seeking asylum, as a result of years of underfunding and the declining sector; a constant cycle of new and complex legislation that seeks to restrict the right to asylum; and a failing system of accommodation and support for those prohibited from working that leaves many in appalling living conditions and surviving on barely adequate subsistence.
Against this context, we are delighted to share this report, which showcases the real progress that Asylum Aid has made over the last year. We are now in a position to help more people get the protection they need; we have increased our partnerships with others in the sector, improving the advice that those fleeing persecution can get elsewhere; and we have demonstrated leadership and courage in taking forward legal challenges to unfair, unsafe and unworkable policies.
We are particularly proud of our new partnership with the Migrants’ Law Project, which joined us in July. This has strengthened our capacity to deliver specialist representation, to enable young refugees to be reunited with families from whom they have been separated during their flight from persecution. Collaboration and engagement have been critical to our successes in a year in which we launched our pilot to build capacity across the UK to deliver specialist advice on asylum, trafficking and human rights cases through training and remote supervision, and partnered with Praxis and Refugee Action on a programme to provide remote supervision across London. We worked consistently with colleagues at the Helen Bamber Foundation to drive much-needed change in policies regarding the huge delays in asylum decision-making and the assessment of age for unaccompanied children.
One of our most notable successes was in our legal challenge to the Rwanda policy, where we were the only charity granted permission to appeal from the High Court. Our legal challenge to the fast-track process adopted by the Home Office for sending people to Rwanda resulted in significant findings by the Court of Appeal about the minimum requirements for a fair procedure, underscoring the importance of effective access to legal advice for those facing removal. Furthermore, the Upper Tribunal agreed to hear our client’s case on the systemic delays behind the asylum backlog. Our team’s hard work also uncovered a secret policy of denying leave to remain – and with it, stability and security – to recognise survivors of trafficking.
Underpinning this impact is the hard work of our dedicated team. The support of our partners has enabled us to create a more secure financial base for our work, and we continue to focus on professional development, well-being and team cohesion to foster sustainability. We are grateful for the fantastic support we have received from you all – funders, corporate partners, members of the public who donated to our Rwanda campaign and sent messages of support, as well as other NGOs and legal professionals with whom we have collaborated. But most of all, we are incredibly proud of what our small, expert and hard-working team has achieved.