Some are receiving poor advice which can harm their immediate prospects (e.g. housing) but also their longer-term quest to stay in the country. This was seen as a very serious issue which needed to be addressed. PB2 also pointed out that there could be a lack of accountability around how effective funded support was in practice: PB2 commented: “… there are organisation that are funded to support integration, and clearly one of their tasks is to support people to access… [public] services. Now, if the service user then comes round and says, I don’t know how to access… [public] services, where does the fault lie? Does the fault lie with the community and voluntary sector organisation that has been funded? Yeah, quite clearly it does. It doesn’t sit with me. If you are being funded to provide an orientation service that includes access to education, access to health, access to housing and you don’t do your job right you can’t blame the service on that. But then what you will do is you’ll produce a glossy report saying refugees can’t access… [public] services” (PB2). CSO1 noted that while the advice sector was crucial, what was needed was improvements to the substantive public services provided to meet the needs of asylum seekers and refugees. The advice sector could only be a “sticking plaster”: “We know that there’s no advice, we know because, like, we’re swamped, on top of everything else. So, why not solve the problem, rather than, you know, sort of say, there’s more advice needed… advice is part of the whole thing, but advice into a system that doesn’t work, or how to navigate a system that doesn’t work, is not going to solve the big problem” (CSO1). CSO1 noted, however, that there was a lack of groups supporting asylum seekers and refugees compared to those operating to support other people in need: “Another systemic barrier… is the support services that are often, they’re to support other vulnerable groups. So, we have a very well developed sector here in terms of that. But there is very few, and we’re one of only a handful of, I suppose, voluntary sector organisations who are non-statutory… who are actually working in this field, and trying to meet the needs” (CSO1).
CSO3 agreed that there was a lack of groups specifically working on issues related to asylum seekers and refugees: “… when I came here, they had a lot of big, strong BAME [Black and Minority Ethnic] organisations, but they’ve all gone… I don’t think there is a strong BAME group in existence led by lived experience people. It’s difficult to find this, and those groups who exist find the funding elsewhere, but not from the government. That’s the reality” (CSO3). W2 participants noted that the structure of the voluntary sector and the funding environment meant that grassroots organisations and those with lived experiences could be marginalised. For example, some organisations who do have funding do not reach out and involve smaller organisations. Some organisations were better equipped to apply for and win funding but often lacked the lived experience and knowledge needed. Funded organisations tended to choose the issues they thought were important, but these would not necessarily reflect community priorities. A barrier to services was how the charity sector was funded, with funding being put into things which had already been funded in past. Asylum seekers and refugees were being “mined” for information when it suited but were then often not able to apply for funding. W2 participants said there were too many “events” , “fun days” , and “diversity festivals” , but questions were raised about who these were for; the people who really need help and services did not attend these events. PB2 pointed that there was a need for support services to avoid removing people’s agency and to help them in a way that was empowering: “… what you cannot do is develop a system that creates dependency. You’re free to make mistakes, you’re free to say no, you have all the rights that we have to do exactly those things. What happens if you make a phone call to your GP and get it wrong? Nothing. What happens if you phone an ambulance in error? Nothing. So, let people go ahead and make those mistakes, you know, which they have the right to make” (PB2). CSO3, commenting on the lack of organisations led by and including representation of asylum seekers and refugees agreed that the approach adopted in some cases could be disempowering: “ And here lived experience is not big at all, lived experience is not something people value or is like in England or Scotland, here, it’s very rare. It’s still the same thing, like ‘we would do things for you’ and ‘we don’t want you to do for yourself’, ‘we will do it for you’” (CSO3).
42 | Access to Public Services and Access to Justice for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Northern Ireland
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