Home Office provides “inadequate and evasive” answers over controversial Rough Sleeping Support Service say Lib Dems

Wednesday, 7 August 2019 12:46

The Home Office has refused to give detailed responses to repeated parliamentary questions from Lib Dem Layla Moran on the Rough Sleeping Support Service, despite the MP tabling multiple follow-up questions in an effort to receive clarification.

The Rough Sleeping Support Service has recently received national attention for its use of data from homelessness and refugee charities to run immigration checks on rough sleepers. Layla has consistently campaigned for a more compassionate approach to be taken to rough sleeping and homelessness in Oxfordshire and nationwide, having led calls for the Vagrancy Act to be scrapped, and opposing Oxford City Council’s homelessness fines.

Layla has asked 11 parliamentary questions so far on the issue, with the Government still refusing to provide exact numbers for how many charities and local authorities it has worked with on the scheme.

Despite saying in an answer to one of Moran’s questions that “[t]he service is not an enforcement approach”, the five staff members who operate the RSSS were reassigned “from within Immigration Enforcement” at the Home Office.

Furthermore, the Home Office did not reveal how many cases were referred to and prioritised by the RSSS from elsewhere, nor how many status checks the scheme has conducted, because they “do not form part of the body of published official immigration statistics”.

The department also said that it could not show how many deportations had resulted from information supplied under the RSSS from charities and councils.

Commenting, Layla Moran said:

“These answers from Caroline Nokes were inadequate and evasive.

“The Rough Sleeping Support Service is a continuation of the Government’s hostile environment policy, and I think it says it all that it is being run from within Immigration Enforcement at the Home Office.

“The Home Office argues that this cannot be done with their statistics, but then what is the point of having a scheme where you can’t accurately measure its performance?

“I and the Liberal Democrats demand better. We need to end the hostile environment and take a compassionate approach to rough sleeping and homelessness in our society. That must include scrapping the cruel Vagrancy Act.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The Home Office has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (274616):

Question:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which charities his Department has consulted in developing the Rough Sleeper Support Service. (274616)
Tabled on: 08 July 2019

This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been deported from the UK as a result of information supplied by the Rough Sleeper Support Service (a) in the last year and (b) since the programme's inception. (274615)
Tabled on: 08 July 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of rough sleeping have been processed in relation to his Department's Rough Sleeper Support Service (a) in the last year and (b) since its inception. (274617)
Tabled on: 08 July 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) Border Force and (b) other staff from his Department are assigned to the Rough Sleeper Support Service programme. (274618)
Tabled on: 08 July 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Rough Sleeper Support Service (a) in the last year and (b) since that programme's inception. (274619)
Tabled on: 08 July 2019

Answer:

Caroline Nokes:

The establishment of the Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS) was announced as part of the Government’s Rough Sleeping Strategy in August 2018. The RSSS was set up to act as a central point of contact for local
authorities to help them to establish the immigration status of non-UK national rough sleepers and for the Home Office to prioritise any outstanding immigration cases, which might unlock entitlement to support and enable them to get off the streets. The service is not an enforcement approach but the Home Office may consider action on a case-by-case basis where individuals have exhausted all other avenues and are unwilling to leave the UK voluntarily. This is in line with existing immigration law.

Removals of non-UK rough sleepers cannot be disaggregated in the published statistics on the removal of those without lawful status. It is also not possible to directly attribute removals to interaction with the RSSS because a range of factors will have affected how decisions were reached in these cases. A person’s removal from the UK is determined by their immigration status and circumstances, including unwillingness to depart voluntarily, not by contact with the RSSS.
The Home Office has engaged with a wide range of local authorities and charities in and outside of London to explain how the RSSS can assist with swift immigration status checks, help those here lawfully to evidence this fact to unlock access to support and assist with those who wish to leave the UK.

Most of the cases referred to the RSSS have been internal referrals from within the Home Office. We have been developing processes to ensure all data sharing with other organisations is fully GDPR-compliant. This includes the requirement to ensure that rough sleepers are advised and informed about the possible use of their information by the Home Office.

The RSSS is a mixed grade team of fewer than five staff, none of whom is from Border Force. It does not undertake any enforcement action. It has an administrative role, conducting status checks, identifying cases for
prioritisation and ensuring that other parts of the Home Office are able to provide assistance to those who require evidence of their lawful status or assistance in leaving the UK.

The Home Office assigned existing staff to the RSSS team and no extra resources were required.

The Home Office has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (277282):

Question:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274618 on the Rough Sleeping Support Service, how many cases the Rough Sleeping Support Service has identified for prioritisation since that programme's launch. (277282)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274615, on the Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS), how many cases have been referred to the RSSS from (a) the Home Office and (b) external bodies (i) in the last 12 months and (ii) since that programme's launch. (277279)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274618, on Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS), from which teams in his Department were staff assigned to the RSSS. (277280)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274618, on the Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS), how many status checks the RSSS team has conducted as part of its administrative duties since that programme's launch. (277281)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

Answer:

Caroline Nokes:

The requested information on the number of cases referred to and prioritised by the Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS) and status checks conducted by the RSSS do not form part of the body of published official immigration statistics and we are unable to release unverified management information.
The team of up to five casework staff were assigned to the RSSS from within Immigration Enforcement.

The answer was submitted on 18 Jul 2019 at 16:39.

The Home Office has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (277283):

Question:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274616 on the Rough Sleeping Support Service, how many (a) charities and (b) local authorities his Department has engaged with as part of the Rough Sleeping Support Service programme since that programme's launch. (277283)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 274619 on the Rough Sleeping Support Service, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of reassigning his Department's staff to the Rough Sleeping Support Service team on the day-to-day functioning of the teams from which those staff were reassigned. (277284)
Tabled on: 15 July 2019

Answer:

Caroline Nokes:

The Home Office has engaged with a wide range of local authorities and charities in and outside of London to explain how the RSSS can assist with swift immigration status checks, help those here lawfully to evidence this to unlock access to support and assist with those who wish to leave the UK. This engagement has also focused on making sure the service works for those organisations and has included meetings with leading rough sleeping charities and local authorities working to support rough sleepers and informal discussions at homelessness and rough sleeping conferences. Due to the broad and varying nature of the engagement it is difficult to provide an exact figure of the number of organisations involved.

The team of up to five casework staff were assigned to the RSSS from within Immigration Enforcement. Where this transfer involved staff ceasing other duties, the work was absorbed by other teams without impacting the delivery of business.
The answer was submitted on 22 Jul 2019 at 18:03.