Ending Destitution Together: progress report – year one 2021 to 2022

Workstream One: Essential Needs

We will work to increase safe and dignified access to essentials, including accommodation, food, healthcare, and finance. We will aim to establish a basic safety net which meets the most urgent needs of people experiencing destitution, including identifying opportunities to deliver support in partnership with the third sector.

Action 1: We are piloting a Hardship Fund to support people with NRPF across Scotland who are facing crisis situations.

During 2020-21, the British Red Cross operated a Hardship Fund, which provided cash assistance to those facing increasing vulnerabilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the Hardship Fund supported almost 2,300 people in Scotland, of which just over 700 were people subject to NRPF.

Recognising there were people facing crisis situations and sudden destitution for a variety of reasons, the Scottish Government provided funding from January to March 2021 to develop the reach of the Hardship Fund in Scotland in key areas, including supporting people with No Recourse to Public Funds, women who had been subject to domestic abuse and victims of trafficking. 392 people were assisted through the Scottish Government’s funding, including 200 people subject to NRPF, with support totalling over £160,000.

These figures provided an estimate of support required for the Scottish Crisis Fund project. The project is a pilot that is being delivered by the British Red Cross, with the aim of supporting people across Scotland, including those subject to NRPF, who are facing crisis situations.

Crisis funds are accessed via a cash distribution network of local organisations, providing people, inclusive of those subject to NRPF, with wider advice and support, and offering critical help for people facing destitution. The project also brings together a community of practice, with a view to improving coordination or support and developing a model of case work provision alongside hardship grants, to help support people out of destitution in the longer term.

Understanding the level of demand for cash assistance is one of the key objectives of the project. We are working to build knowledge through the facilitation of community of practice meetings that support organisations to share expertise on key issues that impact people in vulnerable positions.

The project also supports partners and organisations with learning on new immigration requirements and rules on benefit eligibility that will apply to EEA Nationals residing in Scotland, and how these affect entitlements to benefits, housing assistance and social work support. It will also assist in developing pathways out of destitution by supporting partners working with people in vulnerable positions and their families to plan a route out of destitution either directly or by onward referral.

The Scottish Crisis Fund project took forward learning from the Hardship Fund, and started in July 2021, for an initial 12 month period. Figures for the first financial year cover nine months of the project and show over 300 referrals resulted in almost 500 grants being made, totalling over £131,000 being paid in support. These consisted of multiple payments and single payments. Almost 45% of people supported by the project were at risk of, or were homeless, 35% were eligible for public funds and 65% had one or more members of the household with NRPF conditions. Nearly 12% of supported people had recent and significant deterioration in mental or physical health with 16% having a long term mental ill-health condition or medical condition.

Action 2: We will improve dignified access to culturally appropriate food, in line with the dignity principles outlined in Dignity: Ending Hunger Together.

During 2019-21, Govan Community Project (GCP) delivered a project to work with people seeking asylum and local services to improve access to, and coordination of, community food provision for people seeking asylum. Through this project, GCP identified a number of recommendations to improve support available to people seeking asylum and people with NRPF.

A key recommendation was around development of resources for frontline food providers to understand the challenges facing this group and support better engagement at points of contact. The Scottish Government looked to support a subsequent project to deliver on this recommendation as part of its 2021-22 budget but, due to budgetary pressures, this work was paused. However, in partnership with Nourish Scotland, GCP are taking this work forward as part of the 2022-23 Fair Food Fund programme.

Although GCP’s project did not proceed in 2021-22 as planned, other opportunities to engage with them and the Participatory Action Research (PAR) group presented themselves. The PAR group were part of the lived experience reference group on the Scottish Government’s consultation on a Draft National Plan to End the Need for Food Banks, with representatives providing valuable insights to officials as part of the process.

Govan Community Project also delivered a voucher scheme on behalf of Scottish Government as part of the 2021-22 Winter Support Fund. The scheme had a primary focus on tackling food insecurity, with the key action being to provide a ‘cash first’ alternative to food bank referrals. It was designed in such a way as to be inclusive of people with NRPF. A report on the findings of this scheme has been submitted to the Scottish Government and officials have considered its findings in subsequent policy deliberations.

Action 3: We will contribute to the ambition of ending homelessness and specifically support actions relating to people with NRPF and destitute asylum seekers. This includes work to support the development of a five-year delivery plan by the Everyone Home Collective on the ‘route-map’ to end destitution.^[2]

In February 2021, the Scottish Government provided £24,345 to Homeless Network Scotland to enable them to develop Fair Way Scotland, a five year plan^[3] aimed at designing out destitution in Scotland. In January 2022, the Scottish Government provided a further £74,732 to Homeless Network Scotland to complete the start-up phase of Fair Way Scotland, and also to ensure that consortium members were able to quickly mobilise to accommodate people with NRPF when necessary in order to protect public health. Furthermore, in December 2021, the Scottish Government provided £61,067 to Safe in Scotland for core costs to ensure the continued provision of accommodation and support for people with NRPF in order to protect public health until March 2022.

Action 5: We will update guidance and training to support local authority provision of services to people with NRPF. We will deliver further training to officers working in local authorities and launch a new online learning module. We will also provide training to third sector organisations to support understanding of local authority duties and responsibilities and encourage partnership working.

Following the publication of the joint strategy, COSLA has been developing a programme of work to update, strengthen, and support the development of guidance and training for local authorities on key priority areas. This is part of our aim to embed an effective and consistent approach to ending destitution across Scotland and will specifically enable councils to support provision of services for people with NRPF, champion a joined up approach across the public and third sector, and help to improve service delivery and stronger local planning to respond to migrant destitution.

Since the publication of the strategy, there have been significant changes to migrants’ rights and entitlements and the needs of people with NRPF are constantly developing. Changes including the UK Exit from the EU and its impact on EEA nationals’ rights, the creation of a new visa route for people from Hong Kong with British Nationals (Overseas) status and uncertainty regarding the public health context and its impacts on the rights and entitlements of people with NRPF. These changes mean that there are increased needs and risks of destitution for people with NRPF, and that public services have faced new challenges and pressures in supporting people with NRPF.

During Year 1 of the strategy, COSLA has continued to provide operational support to local authorities in relation to NRPF policy and to promote the implementation of the national guidance on migrants’ rights and entitlements across its networks. COSLA has started to review updates that are needed to the national guidance and has commissioned and supported production of online webinar resources, which will be rolled out to councils in 2023. This suite of learning resources will also be accessible to third sector partners.

COSLA has also continued to support good practice and provide ongoing support to council officers on considerations for assessing support to people with NRPF, with a view to strengthen local authority approaches to the delivery of services. COSLA has scoped the models of guidance and training needed to strengthen Local Government capacity and to deliver the Ending Destitution Together Strategy. As part of this, it has delivered opportunities for local authorities to discuss their views on the national strategy; supported strategic and service discussions on responses to destitution and pushed for greater awareness within local authorities of the risks of destitution for EU nationals post-Brexit.

COSLA has continued to prioritise the COVID-19 recovery and response, and officers have worked to develop a COVID-19 recovery framework and supplementary guidance for local authorities and their partners on Supporting Migrants with NRPF during the COVID-19 recovery period, outlining how local authorities can implement this position.

Given the number of recent changes and complexities associated with EEA nationals’ rights post-Brexit, this has been identified as a key priority area for providing up-to-date resources and training to local authorities. As such, in 2022 COSLA commissioned new guidance and training for councils on EEA nationals’ rights and entitlements to reflect recent policy and legislative changes and set out clear information to help local authorities establish a person’s support options when they are destitute or at risk of homelessness.

COSLA continues to host quarterly meetings of the NRPF Scotland Network for local authorities, which incorporates practice-sharing, capacity-building and training, including in collaboration with third sector. While COVID-19 impacted on plans to deliver face to face training for local authority staff, COSLA has run an online session on migrants’ rights and is planning future training, awareness-raising and capacity-building events.

Action 7: We will improve access to mental health services for adults and children with NRPF by working to better understand the barriers and to collectively agree the practical actions that can be taken by local authorities, the Scottish Government and the NRS. We will also work to inform forthcoming work on mental health service renewal.

In December 2021, the Scottish Government provided funding to enable Safe in Scotland (SiS) and Simon Community Scotland (SCS) to explore and address particular challenges that people with NRPF face in accessing support for their mental health. Safe in Scotland works with people who are considered appeal rights exhausted in the asylum system, whilst Simon Community work with people from the EEA. The two projects are connected and share actions and outcomes.

Key deliverables include:

• developing the role of New Scots Advocates who will support people with lived experience and the appropriate language and cultural knowledge to develop mental health advocacy skills and to directly support individuals to access and navigate the local mental health system
• working in partnership with the Scottish Recovery Network and others to deliver a framework of mental health advocacy skills development for all staff engaged in helping people better understand their mental health issues and how best to engage with mental health support, treatment and recovery
• working in partnership with community-led groups and New Scots Advocates, develop and support a programme of activities and group work that contribute to overall well being
• improving understanding of the experience of mental health issues
• improving advocacy for people to know and exercise their rights to treatment and recovery support from health and associated resources
• improving understanding of the best way to support rights based access to mental health support for agencies working in the space
• improving skills and competence to deliver mental health advocacy support; and
• developing a model of peer advocacy for people perceived to have NRPF as a result of the immigration and asylum system.