No access to justice: how legal advice deserts fail refugees, migrants and our communities

The aim of this research was to review and map provision and demand for free and low-cost immigration legal advice throughout the whole UK, by region/ nation and sub-region, including legal aid and all levels of non-legal aid provision. It was commissioned by Refugee Action. There has never been a comprehensive examination of provision, across legal aid and free or low-cost non-legal services; much less an attempt to measure demand. This research attempts to rectify that, by producing an estimate and a geographical breakdown of both demand and supply across the UK, and exploring the relationships and links between places. It is inevitably flawed and incomplete, because the available data does not support more exact figures, and because there is constant change, but it offers a starting point. Data collection took place between January and October 2021 and included a variety of published statistics, Freedom of Information requests, 43 semistructured interviews, 61 survey responses, and Knowledge Exchange or other workshop sessions with Strategic Migration Partnerships, practitioner groups, advice groups and migrant support organisations. The detailed methodology for demand and provision estimates and the qualitative data collection are set out in the Provision Overview, Demand Overview, and Appendix. The report first explains the basis of estimates and quantitative data collection, and then sets out issues which arose across the whole UK or substantial parts of the UK. It then offers a region by region breakdown. It is anticipated that most readers will be primarily interested in a single region, within the context of the wider issues that affect the whole UK, perhaps referring to this Executive Summary to understand how their own region compares with others.