Written evidence submitted by the Scottish Refugee Council
Recommendations
We ask the committee to recommend
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Executive summary
Introduction
Themes relevant to the Inquiry
Compass was made for a different time and is arguably out of date now
Compass is near the end of its 5-year life and needs radical change not automatic extension
Compass has lacked independent scrutiny since the start of 2014
Compass is increasing the complexity of provision of this public service of housing to people seeking refugee protection
Compass has weakened the local and national accountability of this public service
The result is not only more complexity but less accountability too. In July this year, Chris Stephens MP (Glasgow South West) led a Westminster Hall debate ("Asylum Seekers: Glasgow"). In that debate, he said:
"Outsourcing may well suit the UK Government, as it allows them to outsource not only service delivery but a fair degree of accountability. Many of us have lost count of how many carefully drafted freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions have not been answered, on the sometimes dubious grounds of disproportionate costs or commercial confidentiality."
A quick analysis of parliamentary questions submitted by Stuart McDonald MP (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) for the periods 1 January 2015 to 30 April 2016 and 18 May 2016 to date on "asylum housing" show that only 1 question out of 14 were answered on issues such as inspections, faults and complaints; anti-social behavior, abuse and safeguarding; and training and criminal records checks of providers’ staff. Almost all of these were rejected on the grounds of the information not being centrally held or that disproportionate costs would be incurred in gathering the information. One was refused on grounds of commercial sensitivity.
This is a public service and it is wrong in principle that it is so difficult, especially for parliamentarians, to get such information and use it to inform scrutiny and hold the Home Office and its contractors (and any sub-contractors) to account. We ask that the Committee critically interrogate if the public interest is being served in relation to accessing information on contractor performance under Compass and, and, if it concludes not, recommend that the Information Commissioner conduct an audit.
A further strand on ensuring sufficient accountability in Compass should be the Home Office’s fine regime for the Compass contracts. These are the "service credits" recovered following non-conformance with the Compass KPIs by its three contractors. A recent parliamentary question obtained the amount of "service credits" incurred by the three contractors across the six Compass regions.
The answer from the UK immigration minister provided a table of fines. This set out that Clearsprings Ready Home have never had a "service credit" applied from 2012/13 to 2015/16 (inclusive); G4S had none from 2014/15 to 2015/16; and Serco in the North-West had only £1,974 in 2014/15 and none in 2015/16. But Serco in Scotland and Northern Ireland had "service credits" applied amounting to £156,156 in 2014/15 and £443,545 in 2015/16. We were surprised at these figures in light of the persistent criticisms elsewhere and wonder if this reflects disconnect between what the Home Office contract compliance system is telling it and what refugees, NGOs and local statutory bodies experience.
These figures may raise not only a question on the efficacy of the inspection and fine regime within the contract but also the need for independent inspection outside of it. Such would regularly assess contractors’ performance in managing and delivering this public service. This need becomes acute in relation to the growing HMO estate being used to deliver this public service: on 31st March 2016 there were 2,804 HMOs being used partly or wholly for this public service. By 30th June 2016 this had increased by 10% to 3,073 HMOs.
We know of no requirement in legislation anywhere in the UK that requires a HMO applicant to disclose to a local authority that their intended use of the accommodation includes housing people seeking refugee protection. There would seem to be nothing to stop the contractors to either encourage a HMO applicant and / or "piggy back" onto a successful application. Such processes become very problematic if they develop without the knowledge of local statutory or national inspection bodies, which this expose of dozens of asylum seekers crammed into single Home Office property may have showed, graphically.
We ask the committee to consider not only if there is sufficient independent inspection around Compass but also specifically in terms of HMOs that are, increasingly, being used to house people seeking refugee protection. If the committee concludes there is not enough independent inspection of this public service including how and what HMOs are used, we ask them to make recommendations on these inspection weaknesses and gaps.
Compass is a policy framework that may undermine the Home Secretary’s "widening dispersal" objectives as it doesn’t fund, empower or adequately involve local agencies and communities to receive and integrate people seeking refugee protection
The Home Office policy since 2000 of moving, on a no-choice basis, those seeking protection to local authority areas around the UK is, in one sense, a policy of devolution. At its best "dispersal" as a method of policy delivery should fund and empower local institutions and services to receive and integrate new arrivals and to have local democratic oversight. They are best placed to do this as they have the local knowledge, networks and ability to provide wraparound services where needed.
Compass, however, does not do that. The Home Office funds three large companies, and any sub-contractors, to source housing in "dispersal areas" with few obligations to engage with local statutory bodies, with the exception of getting HMO licences, facilitating health assessments and GP registration.
It is our experience that the system is too often housing-led and not needs-led. It does not give sufficient regard or notice to local statutory bodies or to the best interests of those dispersed. For example, we are aware that since May 2016 hundreds of people originally dispersed to Glasgow were then re-routed to the north-west of England and London. This begs a question: why were they not dispersed there in the first place?
We ask the Committee to recommend that the Home Secretary join up all of her refugee programmes across (i) asylum dispersal, (ii) resettlement and (iii) the transfer and relocation of unaccompanied children. Joining-up in this way would empower local statutory bodies and communities to receive and integrate those seeking and granted protection to give common services where possible (e.g. language support) and distinct ones where needed (e.g. asylum legal advice).
Compass as a gender, disabilities and equalities-blind system
Similarly, we know of no disability or other equalities monitoring. We have advocated against decisions that have placed people in top-floor housing despite medical evidence that such housing is unsuitable. In that context, it is of serious concern the Compass contracts and their delivery have not benefited from an equalities impact assessment, any other equality-proofing measure or equality monitoring. Given that the profile of women, men and children seeking refugee protection includes persecution and abuse, hazardous journeys with exploitation and significant trauma, this public service is likely to be of high priority to the public sector equality duty at s149 in the Equality Act 2010.
If the UK immigration minister remains unable to supply evidence that the Home Secretary and its three contractors have paid due regard, since the start of Compass in 2012, to this duty then the Home secretary may be vulnerable to a legal challenge. We ask the Committee consider this issue and make recommendations to address this, particularly as the rationale of the PSED is to prevent unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and promote good community relations through the delivery of public services, such as this one.
These potential omissions around the PSED may raise not only significant legal risks for the Home Office and its three contractors. It also makes for poor policy: the failure to monitor and prioritise gender or other equalities in asylum support data and decision making renders the Home Office unable to understand the needs of those it is supporting. This includes the provision of appropriate housing options for women, men and children seeking refugee protection, some of whom will be survivors of sexual violence, torture and trafficked exploitation with the psychological trauma and mental health such suffering entails.
Most fundamentally the failure to include gender and other equalities is perverse when one returns to the first principle that this is a public service to people seeking refugee protection. Many are women and children: the gender breakdown of Home Office asylum statistics for 2015 reveals that women accounted for over 10,000 of the 29,000 asylum applications with 3,000 female and 6,000 male children respectively. We ask that the committee recommend the Home Office should, as a matter of urgency, fill the gender gap in asylum support monitoring and start placing gender and other equalities at the centre of its asylum support and accommodation system.
Guita’s story
Guita is from Iraq and came to Glasgow with her two-year-old son, fleeing domestic violence. She paid a people smuggler to take them over the border in a lorry and they were then crammed into a hold of a boat to make the treacherous journey across the Med, a journey which lasted several days.
She has been living in her ‘temporary accommodation’ flat for three months after her neighbour phoned to complain about water damage to her flat. Though Guita says she had reported it several times, nothing was done until her neighbour’s flat was flooded and she intervened. Told she would only be there for a short period, she opted not to take all of her belongings. Here they live out of a battered suitcase in a room about 3 by 4metres, papered with peeling children’s cartoon wallpaper. Her son is too big for the cot that is pushed up against the wall beside his mother’s bed.
There is very little floor space but they spend a lot of time in this room as another family – a mother and her 8-year-old son - share a two bed flat. The two families do not share a language or culture. The older son of the other family and her own boy find it difficult to get along; there are squabbles and fights. So Guita and her son stay mostly in their little room, avoiding additional stress.
Now the family are out for a few hours. Guita’s little boy rides his trike up and down the hall while we speak. He doesn’t often get this chance for such freedom.
“I had a flood in the front of the window in my living room and bedroom and they said I must move for four days and we fix my flat,” she explains. “Then after two months they say they cannot fix your flat; landlords will not pay.
“When they move me there I say to my housing officer I wait for an important letter from physiotherapy and when it arrives you must forward it to me. So after eight days they send and I lost my appointment. I had been trying since last year but because of them I missed this.” She is now at the back of the queue again, and still in pain.
Now she sometimes gets searing pain and her leg gives way. She lives on the second floor and the stairs here are steep. There is more stairs from the street too.
“I feel pain and I fall down,” she says. “Two times I fell down and my son he also fall down. My doctor has said I couldn’t carry more than 1kg and my son is more than 17kg.” But she has to carry him – he is scared of the dogs on the close, which bark loudly, and won’t walk. She says the neighbours let the dogs pee in the close. She say goes out to get her shopping she must leave it downstairs and hurry up with her son, leaving him crying at the doorway while she runs to fetch the shopping. There is no-one to help her. “Drug users and people drinking in the close,” she says. “Upstairs they fight and my son is afraid. He has very bad memories.”
When she moved here it was not just the close that was dirty – the flat was filthy too and infested with insects. “My son has a skin problem when I first came here because it was so dirty,” she
says. “I was prescribed cream and my GP wrote a letter for me to say that. The bathroom, the kitchen, all dirty. And I had to call them [the housing provider] because small insects came in.” They sprayed the flat and now they are gone and it is clean, though nothing is in good repair.
But the main problem is how far from her previous community she now is. It took four weeks to change the address of the post officer where she can access her support. But he GP is still in London Road; she has to take four buses to get there. “It’s not nice,” she says. “One day I call my housing officer, please my son is so sick. Please let me move me back. Then come and he was talking too fast and I didn’t understand. My neighbour listen and she said he told me he couldn’t do anything. Sometimes I’d be so angry I’d be crying. Now when I call my housing officer he doesn’t pick up the phone.”
One night her son had a fever. She says: “When my neighbour call my son she told me I need to call an ambulance. They [the doctors] saw bruises on my son and I explained he fell down. He said it is not like one time so they write me a letter and tell me to go to a bone hospital for children.
"Distraught she asked the housing officer if she could take her child by taxi: “She said she couldn’t do anything,” she shrugs.
“They don’t listen. From nine days please I need my paper from the Home Office but he don’t call me back. When you call they say leave your number but they don’t call you back.” |
The Home Office, its Compass contractors and some of their sub-contractors have attracted considerable negative media coverage, in particular since January 2016
The Committee responded quickly to these issues and in the first phase of this inquiry made important conclusions and recommendations in its report into the work of the Immigration Directorates Q3 2015 (2nd March 2016) (pp.13-22). The Home Office responded with an asylum accommodation advisory board. Scottish Refugee Council was invited to join this board. We regard it as an important initiative and hope it will continue as it provides a direct link between the UK-wide refugee rights community and the Home Office.
In Scotland, critical media coverage of the Compass contracts has escalated since February 2016 to become frequent adverse media coverage
As with the "red doors" and "coloured wristbands" exposés, connecting all these stories has been a breakdown between what the Compass internal contract management processes in Scotland are saying about performance and what those actually living in the accommodation or working at community level are experiencing.
Scottish Refugee Council’s services and community links concur with these reports
We ask the committee to consider whether the current KPI regime in Compass sufficiently recognises the need to hear directly from those living in asylum accommodation about standards and how they are being treated. If the Committee concludes it does not, we ask it recommend (i) a KPI on refugee voices is included in any extended contract to 2019 or in any successor policy to Compass; (ii) an independent advocacy service be built into any extended contracts for Compass in 2017-2019 and within future approaches to this public service after 2019. This will build confidence and stop costs shunts to other agencies; and (iii) that periodic independent inspection is built into how this public service is monitored including scope for unannounced inspections but such are done in a manner that respects the privacy of the women, men and children in the housing itself.
Scottish Refugee Council and many other agencies have had concerns from the outset of Compass about the design of the contract itself
Adequate shelter is a human right. The Home Office knows better than most the profile of people seeking refugee protection: women, men and children seeking protection from persecution that often will have experienced violence and trauma and in many cases also torture and exploitation. And yet, the Compass contract does not adequately recognise such vulnerabilities inherent in the population, nor does it factor in gender differences, or acknowledge equalities issues sufficiently. As such, it is simply not fit for purpose as it cannot meet the needs of the population it was designed to accommodate.
We know of no direct funding from the Home Office to key local statutory bodies to respond to the needs of this population. We urge the Committee to consider any "savings" claimed by the Home Office made through Compass in its proper context of local statutory services and charities filling in the gaps from their own budgets via advocacy and services to lift vulnerable people out of them. We are concerned that any Compass "savings" actually stem from a displacement of responsibility onto local agencies, charities and communities and represent a false economy that masks the kinds of costs shunting that Councillor David Simmons of the Local Government Association told the committee when giving it oral evidence recently.
We recommend that the committee asks the Home Office and its contractors to disclose the criteria for calculating the costs and savings from the Compass contracts and whether this includes any consideration of other factors, including the potential for displacement costs incurred by local statutory services and agencies. If the answer is unsatisfactory we suggest the committee makes recommendations for a more holistic and therefore realistic assessment of costs and savings from Compass and the dispersal of people seeking refugee protection to local authority areas. In particular, we ask the committee to recommend that the National Audit Office conduct a social impact analysis of Compass asylum dispersal with such not limited to Home Office Compass budget lines and its "savings".
Key points from Scotland
Scottish Refugee Council’s contact with people seeking refugee protection post-2014
Scottish Refugee Council’s 2014 report on Compass asylum accommodation
Based on these findings, we made recommendations, including that:
Comments and response of the Home Office and the Compass contractors in Scotland to the report’s findings and recommendations
However, in January 2015, Serco initiated a third sector forum meeting which brought together some of the NGOs in Glasgow supporting refugees. There were two further meetings of the forum in May and September 2015. It then did not meet again until April 2016, but since then it has been convened more frequently. The forum is a welcome initiative for building relationships, sharing information, and monitoring issues and trends.
It is also an important mechanism for increasing the accountability of Serco and Orchard and Shipman (Glasgow), and a way to improve service outcomes for those in the accommodation. For example, the forum provided a space to raise problems, such as the fact that welcome packs and occupancy agreements have only been available in English since the start of the contracts. Four years into a five-year contract, Welcome Packs in Glasgow are still only available in English, despite the fact that it is well known that many among the asylum seeking population do not have English as a language either at all or to the requisite level.
We do not think it should have taken until the oral evidence session before this committee on 13th September 2016 for it to be clear to Compass bodies that English-only provision of vital documents was a problem. We agree with Rupert Soames’ response to Stuart McDonald MP (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) Q278: "It sounds like a no-brainer: you should have a welcome pack in the language of the person who is going to use it’.
To not provide crucial information in an accessible manner may not only be a breach of the Compass contract (Clause 2.2.5 in Schedule 2) but a symptom of a lack of sufficient regard being given to equalities and therefore to people’s real needs, in practice.
More positively, as a result of concerns raised by NGOs since 2015 on at the then new Serco third sector forum a commitment was given to translate occupancy agreements into five languages. We recognise Serco and Orchard and Shipman (Glasgow) have used a interpreting company at induction but the value of a welcome pack and an occupancy agreement are when you need them, which is not at the induction stage only.
The provision of interpreting and translation services at induction and at other parts of this public service is not only welcome but inherent to compliance with the Compass contract. It is for that reason that we had concerns about recent FOI data that that we have had sight of. This stated the interpreting and translation cost incurred by Serco in delivering this contract in Scotland in 2014/15 was £5,747 in 2014/15 (when the s.95 "accommodated" population ranged from 2,400 to 2,800) albeit it increased to £41,819 in 2015/16 (when the s.95 "accommodated" population was broadly the same: 2,600 to 3,000). It is important, in terms of accessibility and equalities, that information required in delivering this public service is in a manner and in languages that people can understand.
Positon of the Scottish Government to the report’s findings and recommendations and Compass in Scotland
We ask the committee to recommend that the UK and Scottish governments enter a working-level agreement on the dispersal of asylum seekers that is inclusive of not only Scottish local authorities but also from the outset of other key sectors such as legal, health and the third sector. An inter-governmental working-level agreement would not interfere with the UK government’s current or extended contracts with Serco.
Such an inter-governmental agreement would ensure that Scottish ministers, who have policy and funding responsibility for the bulk of the services for the reception and integration of people dispersed to Scotland, have strategic oversight of how this complex process is managed including so it supports and does not undermine community cohesion objectives.
We note similar points are being made by the Combined Greater Manchester Authority to have greater control over asylum dispersal in its member councils. There is good practice emerging from the Syrian resettlement process in Scotland and we think this arises from the Home Office and Scottish ministers working together in an open way with the latter having strategic oversight of how this process in managed here, supporting the effective country-level coordination of the efforts of local statutory and third sector bodies – particularly local authorities – who at the local level organise the reception and integration of Syrian families.
Persistence of Compass asylum accommodation problems
"Assisting families to report problems in their accommodation, advocating for these to be resolved and making families aware of their rights to safe and appropriate accommodation has increasingly become a major element of the service’s work:
‘At the start there were no accommodation complaints on the scale that there is now, accommodation complaint is a really big thing that have occurred over the last months or last year and become a bigger part of what we do’
This perception was supported by our review of the data. 27 of the 38 case files reviewed (71%) recorded incidents where families complained of unsuitable accommodation. This has largely been on an unplanned basis, with families contacting their keyworker by phone or in person to report problems that they have been unable to resolve themselves."
From April to August 2016 our family service worked with 35 families and has had to engage in intensive advocacy in that period on resolving 25 separate accommodation issues, spanning negative treatment to poor housing standards, and including:
Increasing numbers of people seeking refugee protection dispersed to Glasgow
The most recent national asylum statistics published in August 2016 plus local data from the Scottish Asylum Stakeholder Forum show that in winter 2012 there were 1,664 people (on s95) in "dispersed" accommodation in Glasgow. In summer 2016 there were 3,900 (s95) in the city plus 404 (on s98) and 507 (on s4) making a total of 4,811 people. These are levels of dispersal to Glasgow not seen since the start of 2007.
This has exerted significant pressure on the contractors and sub-contractors as they are working within a smaller budget to that of 2011 or 2007. And, they have to do so at a time of foreseeable but ever-increasing demand as more people seek refugee protection in the UK. The Home Office continue to bear down on the contractors and sub-contractors to source suitable accommodation. This is proceeding with a persistent refusal by the Home Office to inject funds, proportionate to demand, into Compass sufficient to meet this upward trend.
We suggest the committee questions the Home Office and its providers on the financial impact of increased numbers and whether they are considering any wider displacement costs on local statutory services and charities. We also suggest the Home Office is asked whether it is prepared to inject new funds at the proportionate level into Compass.
Increasing use of private rented housing and greater dispersal across Glasgow
Most asylum accommodation in Glasgow is in the city’s 5% most deprived areas as measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (2016). For example, housing is increasingly being procured in the east of the city. This is an area with multiple socio-economic challenges, which includes low levels of investment in and regulation of its housing stock. Historically the east of Glasgow has not received many people seeking refugee protection and so lacks the networks and services that have developed in other areas, such as Govan in the south-west.
These developments have deepened the already high risk of social isolation for people seeking refugee protection stemming fundamentally from the denial of the right to work and the very low levels of Home Office financial support of £36 per week per person. People seeking protection are being scattered across the city into neighbourhoods of with historically low levels of public investment and unfamiliar with refugees. This is a symptom of how housing availability and costs are trumping the wellbeing of those accommodated.
We suggest the committee considers and questions the Home Office and its providers on the extent to which Compass prioritises housing-led decisions that cause harm to those dispersed including isolation and mental health. If the responses are not satisfactory then the National Audit Office should conduct a social impact analysis of Compass with a view to informing any contract extension and, in particular, any successor contracts to Compass post-2019.
Lenka’s story
"I had terrible experiences in asylum housing in Glasgow. I and my two children have been treated in my accommodation in Glasgow, and how this has hurt me and my children. The roof fell in my property. A huge chunk fell directly on my son’s bed. Thankfully he was at school; otherwise he may be damaged seriously. I was shocked but since then others have told me that this happened in other flats in Glasgow where asylum seekers are put.
I phoned my housing provider and they came quickly, which was good. They moved me within a few hours to accommodation at the other side of the city. I was sad to go as I had friends there. I was worried too. What about my children, they loved their school and were excelling. They have awards and are famous at their school and respect their teachers. Will they have to change school?
I didn’t know my new area, I was isolated. I was asking the housing provider to repair the ceiling and move us back due to it was not safe place for us.
I was spending almost ½ of my money every week on the bus to take my two children miles across the city to get to school. They travelled 15 miles every day. I had hardly any money and it was all going on the bus. Every day: 1 and ½ hours there and 1 and ½ hours back. I was tired, hurt, and desperate to get back to my old flat, at least I knew people there.
The housing provider told me they would get me back but nothing good happened, all summer. Some of my belongings were lost. In the rush to leave most of my stuff was left. They did move some of it to another office. But, I had to get taxis to take it to the new accommodation. Some of my belongings were lost: I don’t know where they are, they don’t, and nobody does.
They left my Christmas tree at the old place. They laughed at me when I kept phoning to get it. How dare they, I got a good Christmas tree for my children, I saved for it: £70. It mattered to me but not to them. They didn’t take my keys from me, so I could still go back. I told them I wanted the tree, they laughed again, eventually I got it. They had moved someone else into my old flat.
My children were due back at school in August, but I was still in the other side of the city. I kept trying and at last in September my housing provider said I would be moving back and to the old place, on a specified time and date. I packed everything, all ready to go.
That morning, nothing: no van, no phone call. I waited until lunchtime and called the housing provider. I was told the van would be there soon. I waited, nobody came. I called again, many times but no answer. I couldn’t even leave a message. I had told my children to go to the new property after school – it was close after all. It all made sense: after school go back to the old flat.
So, as nobody was telling me what was happening, I went to the old flat, my new home again. The housing provider had a cleaner there, under contract. He was nice. But he received a call from one of the housing officers, who was angry that I was there. The cleaner passed the phone to me. The housing officer shouted at me. He ordered me: "to get out". Where was I to go, I asked? He said it again, this time to my neighbour: "she needs to get out". They sent a taxi for me and my children.
The only good thing is that they promised to move us the next day. The next day: no one came. I was crying. What was happening? I phoned them, many times, but no answer. I went to an advice agency. They helped. They responded to them but why not me? I am the person they should be talking to. It wasn’t good news. My move was cancelled.
Apparently, the Home Office instructed them to cancel the move. That was it. I had to go back, across the city, taking my children every day to school. Then, I wait around before taking them back. What kind of life is this, what kind of way to treat people? The advice agency asked the Home Office for an explanation. No response or explanation.
At last I was told a flat had been found. Finally after six months I was moved to housing closer to the school. I was relieved. That day the van did turn up. I hoped the flat would be okay, clean at least, all the main things would work. I was wrong. It was filthy: the floors, carpets, and sofa. There was rubbish behind the washing machine (which didn’t work), the fridge, and under the bath. There was no heating in the living room and the cooker didn’t work either. There was a terrible smell.
I couldn’t believe it. After all the mistakes, the delays, the fact that my son could have been damaged when the roof collapsed. Now, they had put me in here. It was worse than what I had left. I knew I this wasn’t right and no one should live in these conditions. Many asylum seekers don’t stand up for the rights though, in case it damages their claim, or they are too traumatised.
My children and I had to stay overnight but after the advice agency again advocated we were moved to a hotel, until the problems were sorted out. We moved on Friday evening and over the weekend we were at a hotel. On Monday morning, the housing provider told the hotel to tell me I had to leave and return to the property.
I asked them if the problems were sorted but the company couldn’t say. I didn’t know what to do. Again, after help from the advice agency, I was told I didn’t need to go back yet – the repairs and redecoration hadn’t been done yet, but I was to go to another hotel that evening.
I am now out of the hotel, back in the accommodation, and things improved a little, But, now the electricity water supply has been closed down, the rubbish under the bath and behind the washing machine are still there – despite me asking that they be taken away - and I have been told another family may be moved in, but most of all I have been told ‘not to complain again’."
Operational problems from gender and equalities perspective
As mentioned above, for the most of the past 1 ¾ years there has been no fully integrated and co-located initial accommodation services in Glasgow. We understand from sources in the statutory and third sector that this has had a significant and at times harmful impact including for women in so far as health assessments are not done, or done quickly enough. We further understand that such problems are not due to the local health authority but stem from this gap in fully integrated and co-located initial accommodation services. At its worst, no health assessment may lead to what should be preventable deterioration in health or in related support needs being worsened or unmet.
More broadly, gender based violence is endemic in conflict settings and on migration journeys. In a study of women newly arrived in Scotland seeking refugee protection in 2009, 70% reported having experienced physical and/or sexual violence. Given what we know about this population, it is of concern that prompt access to specialist support may be undermined by gender and other particular needs not being integral to this public service. We hope the Committee agrees that this is an omission that must be urgently addressed.
The experience in Glasgow and, indeed, the written evidence to the committee from many other organisations across the UK on particular needs and vulnerabilities not being recognised or met sufficiently, may indicate that the Home Office, in designing the Compass contracts, did so primarily with financial and accommodation considerations in mind. If that is the case then that is clearly wrong. Any extended and post-2019 contracts must start from the profiles of the refugee population themselves and the imperative is how housing can meet those needs and not the other way around. This can be done by centring gender and equalities into their development, using the public sector equality duty, it is intended.
We ask the committee to recommend that any extended and post-2019 contracts for this public service of housing have gender, equalities and vulnerabilities stemming from torture, exploitation and psychological trauma, at their centre. In doing so, the committee will seek to ensure that in any extended as well as post-2019 contracts that it is the fundamental rights of the women, men and children seeking refugee protection are as influential in accommodation decisions as is the availability of the housing stock itself.
More use of hotels and hostels as "short-term" measures and reputational damage
The increased use of hotels and hostels not only raises questions as to the adequacy of joined-up forward-planning within the Home Office and its Compass contractors (and sub-contractors) but has wider adverse impacts too. One of these may be to undermine the confidence that local statutory bodies, charities and communities can have in the ability of the Compass bodies to manage this contract in an effective and sustainable way that inspires rather than undermines confidence.
In 2015, Glasgow City Council passed a Motion in 2015 expressing its "strong concerns at the reported treatment of asylum seekers" under the Compass contract in the city. After receiving the Home Office’s written response to this Motion in December 2015, the Council agreed to write to the Home Affairs Committee to call for an inquiry into asylum accommodation.
We know of other local statutory bodies that have had concerns about the impact of Compass on its ability to provide vital services to those newly dispersed to the city. We have been made aware of recent FOI data that would seem to indicate there was a doubling in missed health screening appointments in January to July 2015 in Glasgow as compared to the equivalent periods in 2014 and 2013. In so far as this data is valid it may have been aggravated by the tendency in Glasgow since late 2015 to use hotels or hostels for weeks and months.
Weaknesses undermining full provision of initial accommodation services
As the new facility at Clyde House in the Govan area of Glasgow has recently become fully operational, for most of the preceding 1 ½ we understand that those newly dispersed to the city have been transported, using taxis and buses, to health appointments in NHS offices elsewhere in the city. We understand from a range of sources that this has, at times, contributed to a reduction in the % of health assessments completed as mentioned earlier.
Furthermore, we understand that the delay in securing an initial accommodation office space has also impacted adversely on the number of briefings that can be delivered and the time taken to submit asylum support applications. These difficulties may also have been compounded by the increasing resort to hotels and hostels during this period, which are not appropriate places for health outreach work, for example.
Our concern throughout has been twofold: (i) the adverse impacts on those newly dispersed to the city and on key local statutory services, such as the local health authority and, (ii) that the demolition of the previous "high-rise" initial accommodation facility at 33 Petershill Drive in Glasgow had been foreseeable for a number of years. This latter concern raises for us, again, a question about the quality of joined-up forward planning within the Home Office and its Compass contractors and sub-contractors.
Increasingly housing-led practice in managing and delivering Compass accommodation
As is the case in other dispersal areas in the UK, our experience is that decisions are increasingly housing-led rather than needs-led. Some of our clients, with physical health conditions, have been accommodated in the upper floors of tenement blocks despite medical correspondence advising against this. Others have been moved at short notice around the city to free up space, sometimes with insufficient consideration for the difficulties this creates for families with school-age children or those needing to access their local health services.
Such predicaments are rendered worse when people have to spend large parts of their small weekly financial support on transport costs, with negative knock-on effects on meeting other essential living needs. We understand that sometimes people have to be moved from their dispersal accommodation, but we have seen this happen too often and in ways that are detrimental to the wellbeing of people dispersed to the city.
Chitra’s story
Chitra and her family had been accommodated at their address for 2 years. For most of that time there were three of them in a tiny bedsit: Chitra, her husband, and their three-year old son. Then Chitra had another son. So, there was even less space and the overcrowding got even worse.
They were left there for two months and there was no sign of a move, despite the monthly visit by their housing officer. The bedroom space was small and the number of beds couldn’t fit inside it. In particular, the eldest son sleeps in the open plan kitchen/living room on a bed behind the sofa and as such has access to kitchen equipment which for Chitra presents a safety risk.
Orchard and Shipman staff had been inspecting their property for 2 years and 2 months but the family had been left in there despite the overcrowding and safety issues.
To make matters worse, Chitra and her family suffered anti-social behaviour from their neighbours and local youths and, crucially, these problems and incidents were reported to the Orchard and Shipman housing officer inspecting the property but Chitra said her concerns were ignored and nothing happened. Chitra felt she and her family had been left to suffer in silence.
Chitra told a local community worker about her suffering and she contacted an advice agency who raised the matter with Orchard and Shipman (Glasgow). The matter was resolved quickly and Chitra and her family were moved quickly to new, more suitably-sized accommodation. Whilst that is positive, it should not have needed this intervention. The housing officer, when doing the inspections, should have initiated it and not only doing so after receiving representations from an advice agency.
Short-term measures as evidence of forward planning issues and housing-led decisions
Similarly, we know of cases where singles were to be moved at very short notice from Glasgow despite not being new arrivals but living in the city for a number of years. We advocated successfully in these small number of cases and the contractor to its credit dealt with it well when alerted to it, but the underlying concern is a question of how rigorous the selection criteria for this relocation programmes is and why people with strong links to Glasgow were being uprooted at short notice and at great distress.
As noted above, we understand that around approximately 400 single adults have been moved to London from Glasgow since May, principally from hotels, which is positive in that hotels are not suitable accommodation for the people affected or the exchequer. But, we understand also that health and other agencies in Glasgow do not know where people have been moved to and, especially, whether their (sometimes urgent) health needs are being met at their destination.
Our sense is that the Compass system in Glasgow has come under greater strain through increased numbers but that this is only part of the justification for some of these problems. Other factors should also be considered, such as the quality of joined-up forward planning and contract management that could, as we suggest above, have prevented initial accommodation service access issues, led to less resort to hotels and hostels, and the need for transfer agreements and relocations from one dispersal area to another, often hundreds of miles away.
We can’t be certain that such decisions whether more about administrative preference than other factors but in so far as they are that should never justify uprooting people settled in an area or relocating people at short notice from one dispersal area to the one they should have been moved to in the first place.
Displacement of Compass costs to Glasgow’s public sector, NGOs and communities
We agree with what Councillor David Simmons, Chairman of the Asylum, Refugee and Migration Task Group at the Local Government Association, told the committee on 13th September 2016:
"One of the big challenges for a local authority is the risk of cost shunts. What you achieve as a saving on the Home Office contract by, for example, saying, ‘We are no longer going to pay for accessing GP services’ means that the local hospital, through its A&E, suddenly picks up a load of extra costs. Saying, ‘We are not going to specify anything to provide appropriate educational support’ means that the local authority needs to step in. The same goes for saying, ‘We are not going to provide appropriate social care through the contract.’ So that is one of the issues with it."
We would only add that such "cost shunts" from the Home Office and its Compass contracts are not confined to local statutory bodies but to NGOs, third sector and community-based organisations too. As Gary Christie, Head of Policy and Communities at Scottish Refugee Council told the committee also on the 13th September 2016:
"I just know that we are using resources that we would prefer not to be using to resolve accommodation problems, and I am sure that many third-sector organisations and public bodies would say that as well. We would prefer to be doing our job than things like that."
Profits and losses being made from the Compass contract generally and in Scotland
Scottish Refugee Council does not object to profits per se through Compass but we think it raises the following serious questions of public policy and the best use of public funds:
As mentioned, Orchard and Shipman (Glasgow) reported making profits of nearly £200,000 for the 18 months from 1st April 2014 to 30th September 2015. This figure should be considered in the context not only of the private subsidy arrangement but also the Glasgow subsidiary reporting significant losses from this contract in 2013/14.
There is a wider question on the appropriateness of any profits if they have been generated in a period where reports are being presented of people being placed in unsuitable housing including reports of infestation, overcrowding and unsuitable shared accommodation.
We ask the Committee to consider the profit / loss issues in Compass from the perspective of whether there should be a no-profit rule in any extension of Compass into 2019 as well as in terms of any post-2019 contracts.
Scottish Refugee Council
November 2016
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