 Distant voices ( 270kb) - CAB clients’ experience of continuing problems with the National Asylum Support Service
Executive summary
i. Serious and systemic problems with the standard of service provided by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) remain unresolved. This is despite assurances by Ministers that problems with the past performance of NASS have been rectified by a number of internal administrative reforms of NASS since late-2001.
ii. In February 2002, a NACAB report – Process error: CAB clients’ experience of the National Asylum Support Service – recommended that NASS, which has no local counter services, should be fully decentralised so as to provide an efficient and responsive service at a local level. Ministers rejected the proposal, claiming that NASS provides a “comprehensive service” which meets the needs of all NASS supported asylum seekers in the dispersal areas and elsewhere.
iii. This report, based on more than 400 social policy evidence reports received by NACAB from CABx since 1 March 2002, demonstrates that the Government’s stated perception of the current performance of NASS is far from reality. Fundamental problems with the administrative efficiency and, in particular, the accessibility of NASS continue to present huge challenges to CAB clients and advisers.
iv. As we found in Process error, the recent evidence from CABx relates both to problems faced by asylum seekers during the period when they are supported by NASS, and to problems faced by successful asylum applicants seeking to claim mainstream welfare benefits. In many cases, vulnerable individuals have been left for weeks or even months without the means to buy food and other essential items.
v. The report notes that the Government’s proposed replacement for the NASS support system – a combined system of asylum induction and accommodation centres – is no more than embyronic, and will remain so for many years. This means that NASS will remain the principal provider of welfare support to asylum seekers for the foreseeable future. It is therefore essential to address the current failings of NASS.
vi. The report reinforces our previous call for the establishment of NASS counter services in the dispersal areas and elsewhere. And it makes further recommendations for the reform of the NASS system, and for improvements in NASS’ liaison with the rest of the Home Office’s Immigration & Nationality Directorate, with Jobcentre Plus, and with stakeholders such as NACAB, CABx and other advice agencies.
vii. Without investment in the creation of local counter services, NASS is effectively displacing costs to other agencies, such as CABx and other advice agencies, and local authorities. The report therefore calls for a joint ‘value for money’ audit of NASS and the NASS support system by the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission.
Social Policy contact: Richard Dunstan Social.policy@citizensadvice.org.uk
Distant voices ( 270kb) - CAB clients’ experience of continuing problems with the National Asylum Support Service
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