Our vision

Access to justice within London communities is increased, enabling grassroots organisations and those who are led by people with lived experience of the immigration system to cultivate their own immigration advice skills.

Our approach

• Grow your own: To take an asset based approach to cultivating and investing in organisations’ existing staff and volunteers

• Grassroots power: Valuing grassroots organisations and those led by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system

• Inclusive & adaptive: Expanding to cover new and emerging populations, stepped increases in need, or under-served client groups

• Increasing access to justice: Developing the availability of high quality in-depth casework and OISC regulated advice

Refugee Action’s Frontline Immigration Advice Project (FIAP) offers support, advice and training to enable organisations to provide quality legal advice to asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.  We know that many organisations face barriers to gaining and raising their levels of Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) registration. That's why we want to invest in organisations and provide wrap-around tailored support to give them the best chance to succeed, and to grow the capacity of the immigration advice sector.

Our core partners

Following on from the recruitment process in 2022, we are very pleased to share with you the list of 6 partners who have been offered spaces on the MJGL programme:

- Release

- Sufra NW London

- Harrow Association of Somali Voluntary Organisations (HASVO)

- Latin American Women's Rights Service (LAWRS)

- Polish Migrants Organise for Change (POMOC)

- Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers (SDCAS)

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What we are offering

The 6 partner organisations will receive:

• Funding towards engagement and capacity building costs, including staff time and the maintenance of service provision during the OISC training and exam period.  The amount available per organisation in Year 1 is £14,981 and in Year 2 is £17,893.  
• External legal supervision 
• One-to-one needs assessments, with support to develop a sustainable advice model and action plan
• Help to register with the OISC
• OISC training (Level 1 and Level 2)
• Study support for OISC assessments
• Continuous professional development to progressively increase the quality and complexity of their advice provision
• Awareness raising sessions to enable anyone who is unregistered to work within their legal boundaries
• A quarterly Community of Practice meeting bringing together newly qualified and experienced advisors, the formal legal sector and other support organisations. This will promote an information, skills and learning exchange, as well as helping to ensure effective utilisation of local capacity.

The funding

Funding available per organisation

• £32, 874

Running until August 2024

What we can fund

The funding is available to cover the 6 partner organisations' engagement and capacity building costs, including:

• Resourcing staff time to train and study for OISC assessments (including backfilling staff time to enable them to attend OISC training)
• Costs associated with maintaining service provision during the training and exam period(s)
• Organisational expenses related to OISC accreditation
• Casework costs associated with delivering immigration advice, such as interpretation

What we cannot fund

• Activities that are already funded by the GLA or another funder (i.e. we are unable to duplicate or ‘double fund’ work that is already funded).

The Criteria

Essential

Organisations must be:

• Working with Londoners in the Greater London area.
• Planning to increase the complexity of the immigration advice that they are able to give by registering at OISC Levels 1, 2 or 3. 

Additional

This section covers the criteria that we will use to prioritise applications.  Every single point does not need to be met by your project, but we will use this list to score your application. 

We are looking for organisations who are (or would be as a result of this project / funding):

• Led and / or informed by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system.
• Committed to investing in their own existing staff / volunteers to develop their immigration advice skills - taking a ‘grow your own’ approach. 
• Expanding to cover new and emerging populations, or where there has been a stepped increase in need.
• Covering a geographic desert or an under-served client group.
• Focusing on developing advice services in the OISC ‘Immigration’ category.
• Offering in-depth casework support (e.g. completing forms and gathering the evidence, to progress the cases). 

In prioritising applications, we will consider the balance across different areas of immigration law, OISC Levels, beneficiary groups and geographical locations.

_{We welcome applications from organisations that are led and/or informed by people with lived experience of the UK immigration system.}

What we ask for

Successful partners would also commit to participating in the project to gain full benefit from the support that we are offering, including:

• Attending one or more FIAP online OISC courses. See our events page for examples of the training we offer on a rolling programme.
• Attend an initial one-to-one support and action planning meeting, plus any follow up sessions, as required.
• Actively participate in the Community of Practice immigration advice group (quarterly meetings)
• Engage in 6-monthly monitoring and evaluation, such as providing budget information on how the funds have been spent, returning questionnaires, sending case studies and quotes etc.

Invitation to tender: Immigration Advice Supervision

We are looking for immigration advice supervision partner(s) to provide OISC supervision and support to our 6 core MJGL partners.

We would like the successful candidate(s) to work with us to pilot an organisation-centred approach to strengthening the quality and complexity of the immigration advice provision of our 6 partners, increasing their OISC levels.  

• ‍Maximum budget available: £66,000
• ‍Deadline: 2 June, 9.30am

‍Find out more and apply

Suggested further reading:

• A Huge Gulf: Demand and Supply for Immigration Legal Advice in London
• Our FIAP microsite