Migrants Organise working with Wilson Solicitors is proud to publish our report on the lack of access to support under the Care Act 2014 for migrants.
Our research analyses more than 40 case studies, interviews with front-line professionals working with vulnerable migrants, and hundreds of FOI requests to all 33 local authorities in London.
Our findings reveal various systemic issues for migrants when accessing support under the Care Act 2014, including:
- Lack of Awareness of Entitlements under the Care Act 2014 – Many migrants and asylum seekers are unaware of their rights under the Care Act 2014 and are not provided with the information they should receive from local authority social services, potentially in breach of Section 4 of the Care Act.
- Barriers to Accessing a Care Needs Assessment – Our FOI results reveal that on average, between the period of January to June 2024 only 42.56% of requests for a Care Act assessment actually resulted in assessments being carried out. This is despite Section 9 of the Care Act providing for assessments to be carried out on anyone who “appears to” have needs for care and support, which is a very low bar. Qualitative data from our casework and interviews also reveals that there are especially high barriers to obtaining assessments for migrants and asylum seekers.
- Inadequate and Legally Non-Compliant Assessments – Even when assessments are conducted, they are often superficial and inadequate, with needs for care and support being missed or not being understood.
- Lack of Reliable Data and Monitoring – FOI data reveals that a significant number of local authorities are unable to report how many people with NRPF were referred, assessed, or supported under the Care Act (or what their immigration status is). The absence of such data appears to be indicative of a failure to monitor local authorities’ compliance with their statutory duties, particularly under the Equality Act and the Public Sector Equality Duty.
- Inadequate Support for Migrants Following Needs Assessment – Migrants and asylum seekers face distinct challenges and require specific support to access and understand the support they are entitled to, for example in terms of accessing adequate and appropriate asylum support from the Home Office. Additionally, there is often an incorrect and widespread assumption that the availability of Home Office asylum support relieves local authorities of their statutory responsibilities under the Care Act.
We hope that this research will provide a useful evidence base for any future work around this issue and we would be grateful if you can help spread this report in your network.
We would like to thank the Strategic Legal Funds for funding our work.
We would like to thank Brian Dikoff, Katy Robinson, Shu Shin Luh, Jennifer Blair, Rada Lewis, as well as interview participants and volunteers for their invaluable input and support in the preparation of this report.
