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Social Services’ Support – INTRODUCTION
This chapter sets out the general legal position and good practice points for a social worker or other practitioners to consider when a migrant child or adult is referred for social services’ assistance, specifically, accommodation and financial support.
Later chapters provide more detailed information on eligibility for social services’ support for migrant children, adults with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
Key points
- Social services’ duties to safeguard the welfare of children, young people leaving care and vulnerable adults, may be engaged when a person or family is prevented by their immigration status from accessing social security benefits and requires accommodation and financial support to alleviate destitution.
- Social services’ assistance is not a public fund for immigration purposes and can be provided to children and adults who are in need, regardless of their immigration status. However, for certain adults and families, the provision of accommodation and financial support is subject to a human rights assessment which considers whether they can return to their country of origin to avoid a situation of destitution in the UK as an alternative to being supported by social services.
- Social workers need to be aware of the different ways that having ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) can impact on vulnerable groups, for example, women and children who are at risk of domestic abuse and must ensure that their practice is gender and culturally sensitive.
- When assessing eligibility for accommodation and financial support, in most cases social workers will need to undertake additional steps, for example, providing access to an interpreter, liaising with the person’s legal adviser, or obtaining immigration status information from the Home Office, ensuring that data protection legislation is adhered to.
5.1 Policy Context
Local authorities play an important role in promoting social integration and cohesion within their communities. The provision of accommodation and financial support by social services has been recognised by the UK and Scottish Governments, and the UK Supreme Court, as being an essential safety net to protect the most vulnerable migrants from destitution where their immigration status prevents them from accessing mainstream benefits and housing
services.39
Scottish Government has launched the Ending Destitution Together strategy in March 2021,40 with the aim of improving support for people with No Recourse to Public Funds living in Scotland.
The strategy asserts: “Destitution should be unthinkable in modern Scotland” and is framed as a response to the way in which the “UK Government’s immigration system, and No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) policy in particular, locks many people out of essential safety nets in times of need. These restrictions have, for many years, created dangerous divides in our communities, leaving people facing food and housing insecurity and limiting what the Scottish Government and Local Government can do to prevent destitution and homelessness.”
Supporting migrants who have NRPF is a complex area of social services’ provision, as a child or adult’s needs will be met, not only through the delivery of standard social care services, but also by providing accommodation and financial support. This is an additional budgetary pressure faced by local government, which also gives rise to extra demands on social workers and other officers in terms of knowledge and skills.
However, it is important to remember that key principles of social work ethics and practice will still apply. NRPF cases can be challenging, with problems arising from a person’s insecure immigration status compounding what may already be complex needs. Fear of immigration authorities, uncertainty about the future, and/or anxiety about not being able to access support from public authorities, can cause significant stress for migrants and their families.
Immigration status can be used as a tool for control or abuse in domestic relationships and can also be a factor in human trafficking and labour exploitation cases. Perpetrators and traffickers may use a survivor’s fear of being reported to the authorities to perpetrate abuse, preventing their victim from seeking help or going to the police.
Although often described as safety net support, UK data on NRPF service provision shows that the average time a person or family would spend in receipt of social services’ support is 1.5 years (families) and 2.5 years (adults with care needs). Local authorities must therefore ensure that they are administering support correctly by establishing need in line with social care legislation, taking account of immigration legislation where this is applicable.
Additionally, services will need to be delivered as cost-effectively as possible.41
Accommodation and financial support is typically provided to people with NRPF under the
following legislation:
- Section 22 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 – to a family to meet a child’s
needs - Sections 29 & 30 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 – to a young person
eligible for aftercare - Sections 12 or 13A of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 – to an adult in
need - Section 25 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003
For more information, see:- 8 Social services’ support – children within families
- 9 Social services’ support – adults
- Young people leaving care
- 14 NRPF service delivery
39The Scottish Parliament Equalities and Human Rights Committee, Hidden Lives – New Beginnings: Destitution, asylum and insecure immigration status in Scotland (22 May 2017); R (on the application of HC) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and others (Respondents) [2017] UKSC 73
40 https://www.gov.scot/publications/ending-destitution-together/
41 NRPF Network, NRPF Connect Annual Report 2020-21
5.2 Common Misunderstandings
The UK immigration system is very complex, as people can be issued with many different types of immigration status and documents. Misunderstandings can often arise about how the law applies to different migrant groups and that their entitlements are, for example, what assistance social services can provide to people with no recourse to public funds (NRPF).
Local authorities are empowered to help people improve their lives and wellbeing and are not prevented from doing this just because a person faces barriers in accessing benefits or because of their immigration status. Social work interventions lead to better outcomes for
people.
The table below addresses some common myths about entitlement to social services support and provides the factual position in social services law and practice.
| MYTH | FACT |
| People cannot be assisted by social services when they have no recourse to public funds (NRPF). | The NRPF condition is only a restriction on access to mainstream benefits, homelessness assistance and a local authority allocation of social housing. Social services’ support is not a public fund for immigration purposes and assistance should not be refused for this reason alone. For more information, see: |
| Social services only have a duty to assist a child in an NRPF family, so can only accommodate the child and not the parent. | Section 22 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 requires the local authority to promote the upbringing of the child with the parent, which it has the power to do by providing accommodation and financial support to the family as a whole. Offering to accommodate the child alone or taking the child into care is not an appropriate response in the absence of any safeguarding concerns additional to the risk to the child arising from the parent’s lack of housing and income, and is likely to give rise to a breach of Article 8 ECHR (the right to respect for a person’s family life). For more information, see: |
| Social services cannot help because the local authority does not get funding to provide support to people with NRPF. | Although the local authority is not under a duty to meet all formally assessed needs and may take into account its resources in determining which needs are to be met, it is under an obligation to ensure that an individual’s human rights are not breached by a failure to provide support, or the provision of inadequate support. A decision to meet some – but not all – assessed needs must therefore be reached rationally and the local authority must act reasonably in the circumstances. 42 For more information, see: |
| Social services cannot help a person who is without leave because they have not made an application for leave to remain to the Home Office. | A local authority’s obligation to conduct a GIRFEC assessment, a carer’s assessment, or a community care assessment arises independently from any consideration of the type of immigration status a person or family may have. A person’s immigration status does not prevent a GIRFEC or community care assessment from being undertaken with respect to a child or young person, or adult, respectively. The absence of a pending immigration application should not prevent an assessment being carried out or interim support being provided when this is necessary. However, the adult or parent’s immigration status, and whether any applications have been made, will be relevant factors when determining whether the Schedule 3 exclusion to social services’ support apply. For more information, see: |
| A pregnant woman with NRPF who has no other children in her care cannot be provided with support until her child is born. | A local authority may need to consider whether a pregnant woman is in need of assistance and therefore can be provided with accommodation and support under section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, until her child is born, at which point duties under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 may be engaged. For more information, see: |
| In families where the parent has leave to remain with NRPF, the local authority does not have to provide support because the parent can work. | A local authority can only refuse to provide support when a child is not to be found to be in need following a GIRFEC assessment. Where a parent has NRPF and has permission to work, one aspect of the assessment will involve considering whether employment is a viable option for them, as a conclusion about whether a child is in need must be made by evaluating all the available information about the family’s circumstances. Parents with NRPF are often prevented from working due to unaffordable childcare and housing costs. For more information, see: |
5.3 Social Work Approach
The legal basis for providing accommodation and financial support to people with NRPF stems from children’s and social care legislation, so standard social work assessments will need to be carried out in line with the applicable statutory guidance in order to establish an adult’s or child’s needs, and therefore eligibility for support.
As well as following the statutory guidance, practitioners will need to ensure that considerations are made within social care assessments that do not usually apply to other groups, for example:
- Establishing how a parent’s financial circumstances and lack of access to employment/ benefits impacts on the welfare of their child in a GIRFEC assessment (family cases)
- Whether the destitution exception applies in community care assessments (adult cases)
- Establishing how a career’s financial circumstances (or that of the person being cared for) and lack of access to other forms of mainstream benefits might apply in a career’s assessment
Additionally, practitioners will need to be alert to the different backgrounds and experiences of migrant children and adults and should draw on various elements of their practice experience to inform their approach to this group.
For example, in assessing, designing and delivering services to migrant children and adults, it is appropriate to consider a model of practice which adopts:
- An anti-discriminatory approach to social work practice, takes as a starting point the idea that our views of others are all partial and affected by our social position and background. An anti-discriminatory approach then asks us to critically examine our own views, as well as to consider how discrimination may colour the decisions and actions of others, in formulating an approach to work which seeks to combat and reduce discrimination as an element in decisionmaking. An anti-discriminatory approach to social work practice, in the context of working with migrant children and families, might result in social workers identifying and challenging policy and practice which appears to discriminate on the basis of race, cultural difference or migration status.
- A human rights based approach to social work practice, is associated with a child-centred, or person-centred, model of service provision, and seeks to provide services in a manner tailored to meet the needs of the individual, as identified and articulated by that individual. A human rights based approach also proceeds from the proposition that individuals have rights which the state has a positive obligation to meet, rather than looking at organisational policy or available resource as the starting point for identifying appropriate services. This approach is linked to a model of work which highlights the role of social workers in educating individuals about their rights, and empowering them to attain those rights.
- A trauma informed approach to practice requires social workers to bear in mind that individuals may have suffered traumatic experiences, and to provide services in a way that is sensitive to this fact, regardless of whether the trauma has been idenitified in the course of their work together. Therefore, all social workers should initially approach all service users as if they have a trauma history. A trauma informed approach has been described as taking a set of universal precautions, designed to be both preventive and rehabilitative, which take into account the relationship among environment, triggers and perceived dangers which could make it more difficult for individuals to engage with services.
In households where an adult and child may be in need of assistance under different statutory provisions, the respective social services departments would need to work together and may need to undertake an integrated joint assessment.
For more information, see:
5.4 Use of Interpreters
Working with migrant children, families and adults often requires the use of interpreters in order to ensure full participation and understanding, especially during key appointments in which evidence is gathered for assessments, or where individuals are being provided with advice or the results of an assessment.
Interpretation should be provided to people that require this free of charge, and upon request, when engaging with statutory services. It is particularly important that a careful assessment be made of the need for an interpreter, which goes beyond a determination that an individual’s English proficiency might be ‘good enough’ for purposes of conducting a meeting.
It can be challenging, in Scotland, to source an interpreter who speaks an appropriate language and dialect, due to the relatively small pool of available interpreters. This can be frustrating for social workers, and for people requiring assistance, as it can lead to delays or the need to reschedule meetings when interpretation is necessary, but not available. Whilst the in-person attendance of an interpreter is best practice for face-to-face meetings, it is possible to use a telephone interpretation service via a speakerphone, in the alternative.
Using an interpreter effectively at work is a skill that requires practice, and conscious effort.
Best practice tips for using an interpreter:
Best practice tips for using an interpreter:
- Select an appropriate interpreter. Ensure that you specify the appropriate language and dialect, aiming always to provide an interpreter in the person’s first language. Consider whether you require to specify the gender of the interpreter (for example, where there has been gender-based violence) and also whether the person has a preferred interpreter or interpreters they would rather not work with (evaluating whether or not this is for good reason). It is not appropriate to allow a friend or family member of an individual being interviewed to interpret on their behalf.
- Introduce yourself to the interpreter. If possible, arrange some time before the meeting to introduce yourself and discuss the subject matter of the meeting. Check the interpreter’s level of English proficiency and professional training and request that the interpreter interpret everything into the first person (to avoid ‘he said, she said’).
- At the start of the interview, check the interpreter and person understand each other, and are happy to proceed. There are many different dialects of some languages, and it may be the case that the person cannot understand the interpreter well enough to proceed. It may also be the case that the interpreter and the person know each other – and this has not been identified previously – which might be a legitimate reason not to proceed with the meeting.
- During the meeting, speak directly to the individual, not to the interpreter.
- Speak more slowly rather than more loudly.
- Speak at an even pace in relatively short segments. Pause so the interpreter can interpret.
- Assume, and insist, that everything you say, everything the individual says, is interpreted. If you are aware this is not happening, pause the meeting to discuss this directly with the individual and the interpreter.
- Be aware that many concepts you express have no linguistic or conceptual equivalent in other languages. The interpreter may have to paint word pictures of many terms you use. This may take longer than your original speech. Use simple direct English to help the interpreter in this task.
- Remember that the person may have experienced torture or trauma. This may also be true for the interpreter. If you need to ask questions that may be extremely personal or sensitive, explain that doing so is part of your evaluation and reiterate that the information will remain confidential.
- Ask the person to repeat back important information that you want to make sure is understood.
- Check the quality of interpretation. If possible, seek to speak to the person after the meeting, privately, to ask whether the interpretation was of a good standard and if they were otherwise satisfied with the service.
Practice Tip
Differences between certain oral and written languages may seem subtle, but can have a clear impact on migrant families who have recently arrived in Scotland. For example, Hong Kong BN(O) migrants speak Cantonese, rather than Mandarin, and use Traditional Chinese characters instead of the Simplified Chinese characters used in Mainland China. These differences represent key cultural distinctions between these two populations that interpreters and local authority officers should be aware of.
5.5 Data sharing when administering NRPF support
Personal information can only be collected, stored and shared with other organisations in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including when a local authority is seeking to obtain or share information about migrant individuals and families. Local authorities must therefore ensure that they adhere to this legislation when a person’s information is shared with the Home Office or any other organisation, and it is advisable to have a clear and reasoned policy that sets out when any exemptions to obtaining consent may be relied on. 43
Local authorities need to ensure that statutory duties are correctly enacted in order to safeguard the welfare of vulnerable people and children with NRPF and must ensure that resources are being correctly used to alleviate presenting need.
In many cases, the fulfilment of statutory duties will not require data sharing with the Home Office at all, for example, in order to meet urgent needs whilst assessments are being undertaken, protecting vulnerable children, conducting a needs assessment and establishing a support or care plan.
In some circumstances, however, the local authority may need to obtain data held by the Home Office or other central government departments, in order to fulfil its statutory duties when a person with NRPF requests support, for example:
- To check a person’s immigration status to establish what support options the person has, and whether they have recourse to public funds or not.
- To establish whether the Schedule 3 exclusion to social services support applies and whether the provision of support is subject to a human rights assessment.
- To find out the progress of a pending application of a person being provided with social services’ support.
Local authorities can make use of the NRPF Connect database to manage caseloads and obtain the support of the Home Office in confirming immigration status and escalating cases where appropriate.
It may be counter-intuitive for a local authority not to share data with the Home Office, for example, where achieving a more expedient resolution to a person’s immigration status would be in the best interests of a child as well as being in the public interest by saving tax payers’ money.
However, decisions about whether to share data or not are likely to face scrutiny, and such
decisionshave been the subject of two Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigations
in England:
- A family complained that Hertfordshire County Council had failed to provide appropriate support to them under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and had not provided sufficient information to the Home Office about the local authority’s involvement in the family’s care. The LGO found the Council to be at fault for failing to advise the Home Office of the subsistence allowance being paid to the family or that the family remained in hotel accommodation it was funding. The family also wanted the Home Office know that their child had special educational needs but the local authority failed to pass on this information. The LGO found that: ‘The family needs to know the Home Office has all the relevant information about them and their circumstances. The council’s failure to provide this has caused them distress.’ 44
- Thurrock Council was found to be at fault for sharing information about a family’s immigration status, without the parents’ consent, with the children’s schools.45
For the above reasons, it is advisable that local authorities have clear policies on data sharing, which are regularly reviewed to take account of legislative developments, to ensure consistent practice across teams. Any policy would need to be established in conjunction with the local authority’s legal and information governance teams, and the policy would need to recommend that social workers and other officers consult with their legal team if there are any doubts about whether data can be shared in a particular instance.
Local authorities would need to ensure that people requesting a service are provided with information about how their data will be held and when it may be shared, including situations where explicit consent may not be required. An interpreter must be used to explain this where necessary. Local authorities should also consider whether to provide this information within consent forms, information leaflets and/or on the public website.
If a local authority believes processing of data is necessary without explicit consent being provided, then careful consideration must be given as to whether such activity is justified in light of governing legislation and the administration of services being provided.
Social workers and other officers would need to refer to their local authority’s internal guidance and the Information Commissioner’s Office website for more information on data protection requirements.
For more information, see:
43http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents;https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/justice-and-fundamental-rights/data-protection/2018-reformeu- data-protection-rules_en
444 Local Government Ombudsman investigation: Hertfordshire County Council (16 010 518) (17 March 2017), paras. 26 to 28 & 47
45 Local Government Ombudsman investigation: Thurrock Council (16 012 994) (15 March
2017)