Unit 4: Immigration services
What are immigration services?
The definition of immigration services in the 1999 Act requires:
- 'making representations' on behalf of an individual
- to a civil court or government department in the UK
- about a 'relevant matter'
What is 'Making Representations'?
Making representations is simply speaking or writing on someone's behalf. This covers a very broad spectrum of activities. At one end we have representation in court. This would involve detailed written and oral 'submissions' before a judge, as well as extensive correspondence with the court and with the Home Office before the hearing. At the other end of the spectrum, we have making a single phone call, fax, letter or e-mail.
Wherever you are speaking or writing to a court or Home Office official on behalf of client, you are making representations. So you need to know whether you are affecting a 'relevant matter' (see above.)
Example 1:
Notifying the Home Office of an asylum seeker's new address
The asylum seeker's bail conditions will specify where they must live. Therefore, notifying the Home Office of the new address amounts to a de facto application to vary the conditions of immigration bail. Immigration bail is a relevant matter, and you are communicating with a government department. Therefore this activity needs to be regulated.
An unregulated adviser can inform an asylum seeker that they must notify the Home Office of any change of address (because this is true of all asylum seekers, an so does not relate to a 'particular individual.')
An unregulated adviser can also support an asylum seeker to notify the Home Office themselves, for example by providing them with a template letter, or template text for an e-mail.
Example 2:
Requesting travel tickets from the Home Office to enable an asylum seeker to attend their appeal hearing
This does not have a direct effect on any relevant matter:
Okay, so their attendance at the hearing may or may not affect the outcome
However, both attendance and non-attendance are possible with or without the tickets
The mere fact of the Home Office receiving the request will have no direct bearing on the outcome of the case
Consequently this does not need to be regulated