9. The Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman should:
Recommendations 1. The Home Office should ensure that it consults with The Executive Office and relevant devolved public service providers prior to making any significant changes in policy and practice that have consequences for provision in Northern Ireland. 2. The Executive Office should publish the Refugee Integration Strategy and use the strategy as a key reference point for more joined up approaches to supporting asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland, including evaluating the effectiveness of current approaches to coordinating the work of public bodies and civil society. encouraging the development of a comprehensive programme of training to enable culturally competent service provision across the devolved public service landscape, and should map out the availability, and evaluate the effectiveness, of existing training around trauma informed practices. 4. The Executive Office and devolved public service providers should ensure that there is wide awareness among public service staff of the availability of interpretation services and that feedback regarding availability and quality issues is routinely sought, monitored, and acted upon. 3. The Executive Office should take the lead, along with devolved public service providers , in providing or 5. The Department for Communities should work with civil society organisations to strengthen capacity within the voluntary and community sector and to identify where there are gaps in provision of support and advice for asylum seekers and refugees. 6. The Department for Education, the Education Authority, and the Department for the Economy should review provision available for asylum seeking children who arrive in Northern Ireland between the ages of 14 and 15 with a view to ensuring they have access to appropriate school-age educational provision and subsequent pathways through further education and into employment. 7. The Department of Health and Health and Social Care Trusts should monitor the effectiveness of the new approach to GP registration in order to ensure that longstanding issues in registering with a GP are resolved. 8. Health and Social Care Trusts , along with other relevant statutory agencies , should come together to clarify the role of devolved public bodies in relation to the safeguarding of asylum seeking children in hotel accommodation and ensure that current approaches to safeguarding this vulnerable group are working effectively.
a. Keep a watching brief over the issues highlighted in this report, encouraging civil society organisations to bring specific complaints in the areas discussed above, and/ or considering the potential for launching an own initiative investigation (including potentially looking at some issues as part of a broader investigation). b. Continue with its outreach and engagement work in relation asylum seekers and refugees and other vulnerable groups, continuing to develop this work as an example of good practice in the wider ombudsperson community. c. Consider developing and publishing a set of criteria for determining when particularly vulnerable individuals or groups (such as asylum seekers and refugees) could be allowed direct access to NIPSO without having exhausted the complaint process of the public body. d. Consider what additional support may be necessary to assist asylum seekers and refugees in making complaints (including providing extended support and “hand holding” through the complaint process) and consider how it can support civil society organisations to help individuals raise complaints. e. Consider how to facilitate the submission of anonymous feedback which, even if it cannot be acted upon on an individual basis, can provide an additional source of intelligence for the use of its own initiative powers, and which can also allow asylum seekers and refugees to voice concerns without fear of reprisals. f. Consider developing links with international organisations with an interest in, and/ or responsibility for, asylum and refugee issues, as an additional way of promoting and developing its work in this area. 10. The International Ombudsman Institute should consider the potential for encouraging further exchange of experiences and good practice in relation to how ombudspersons can support and protect asylum seekers and refugees, for example through knowledge exchange events or the development of an IOI Best Practice Guide. There is also scope for developing good practice in relation to how ombudspersons collect demographic data about their users in order to identify access to justice gaps.
62 | Access to Public Services and Access to Justice for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Northern Ireland
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