Read the full report here. 

Public Law Project’s study of 271 Upper Tribunal decisions finds that relationships, sexuality, and trauma are too often judged against narrow Western-centric expectations. 

Decision-makers in the asylum and immigration system often expect people’s family lives, LGBTQ+ identities, and experiences of trauma to fit a single, Western-shaped template, new research from Public Law Project (PLP) has found. 

The report, Identity, Relationships, and Vulnerability, is the second in PLP’s series on cultural, procedural and linguistic barriers to justice. It finds that the legal and policy framework contains important safeguards for fair process but those safeguards are hard to apply in practice. It also examines how applicants experience the system and whether it is possible to translate family and/or private life, LGBTQ+ identity and belonging, and mental health and trauma into ‘objective’ evidence, given the inherently heterogeneous ways in which people experience sexual identity, relationships and mental health.  

The report’s central argument is that cultural understanding lies at the heart of asylum and immigration tribunals, so cultural competence is a matter of procedural fairness. 

Key findings include:  

Families and private life – tribunals increasingly recognise different forms of relationships, such as extended families and cultural marriages, but expectations remain largely shaped by Western norms. In cases relating to family and/or private life, the following issues were observed:

• a rigid or prescriptive approach to what constitutes ‘family ties’; 
• hierarchical categorisation of family life; 
• assumptions about what constitutes ‘normal’, ‘natural’ or more deserving relationships; 
• and a rigid or unrealistic approach to evidencing relationships.  

LGBTQ+ identity – decisions highlight a limited or narrow approach to understanding what constitutes LGBTQ+ identity. Evidence found that Judges have: 

• treated sexuality as limited to relationships;  
• expected a clear, cohesive, and linear account of ‘coming out’ as an ‘emotional journey’;  
• expected uniform openness about sexuality from the applicants;  
• applied a one-size-fits-all approach to evidence;  
• and at times resorted to stereotypical language or observations.  

Mental health and trauma – Judges and the Home Office often expect the following: 

• a linear and coherent account of mental health issues that largely does not consider relapses;  
• a lack of consideration for how people in different cultures talk (or avoid talking) about mental health and trauma;  
• a lack of support for professionals involved in the process who might experience trauma and vicarious trauma;  
• and a failure to give an appropriate account of how participation is affected by trauma. 

What needs to happen?  

The report provides practical recommendations to address the issues on systemic and structural levels, including:  

• Stronger safeguards and specialist training: reaffirm existing safeguards and regulations, backed by regular briefings that bring an up-to-date understanding of private and family life, LGBTQ+ identity, and mental health.  

• A shift in mindset: recognise that culturally sensitive, trauma-informed approaches matter for evidence, credibility assessment and tribunal procedure. 

• More support for people in the process: hearings are highly traumatic, and trauma and vulnerability affect applicants’ capacity to recall and to engage effectively in the process. 

• Listening rather than assuming: decision-makers should explicitly recognise the variety of human experiences related to family and/or private life and LGBTQ+ identity and listen to the varied ways people describe themselves and their relationships.  

This change in procedural culture would help reduce avoidable appeals, improve consistency, ensure fairer outcomes for applicants, and enhance confidence in the fairness and integrity of the asylum tribunal system.

Dr Selbi Durdiyeva, Senior Research Fellow at Public Law Project, said:  

“Immigration and Asylum tribunals have a well-developed infrastructure and an array of experts, notably the unsung heroes of the justice system: interpreters and country experts. Instruments such as the Judiciary’s Equal Treatment Bench Book are also well developed and offer judges a comprehensive, though non-binding source on cultural and linguistic sensitivity and understanding (among else).  

But, as many cases in the report show, the socio, cultural and political context people come from varies widely, even within a single country or community, and they change rapidly. We call for greater emphasis on listening to and considering the individual circumstances of each case, including cultural and linguistic nuance. These are not only matters of procedural fairness and access to justice; they can materially alter the outcome of a case and should be afforded the attention and consideration their complexity demands.” 

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Read the report here.

People are unable to scrutinise or challenge decisions that affect their rights because current mechanisms for finding information about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making by public bodies are failing, finds new research by PLP. 

Public bodies across the UK are increasingly using automated tools, including AI, to make or support important decisions about people’s lives such as social security, tax or adult social care services. Yet those affected often cannot find out whether a tool was used in their case, let alone how it works or whether it treated them fairly. 

Missing Pieces: Transparency and Accountability in Public Body Automated (and Automated Assisted) Decision-making, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, finds a patchwork of transparency mechanisms that both individually and collectively fail to provide people with the information they need, in the time they require it. The report sets out how to close these gaps and turn the government’s commitment to transparency, accountability, and contestability into reality. 

The report is published amid growing calls for legislative reform on AI, including from the Joint Committee on Human Rights. 

Key findings include: 

• People are rarely told whether a tool has been used to make a decision. As a result, they are unable to effectively contest the use of tools or decisions made using them.  

• High-risk systems are missing from the government’s own register. Of 15 automated systems identified in the research that are believed to still be in use, only four appear on the government’s public register of algorithmic tools, the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS), even though several fall within its mandatory scope. 

• Information about the risk of discrimination is especially thin. Of the 125 ATRS entries reviewed, researchers found only one linked to an Equality Impact Assessment (the document public bodies  use to evaluate the risks of discrimination posed by a policy or decision).

• Public bodies often withhold information under Freedom of Information exemptions, most commonly on law enforcement grounds. Other challenges include information withheld due to concerns about commercial confidentiality. 

• Notification requirements under data protection law are inadequate: current provisions under data protection law draw a binary distinction between decisions which are “solely” automated and those where there is a “human-in-the-loop”. Rights to be notified and informed do not apply where AI or automation is used to shape, inform or assist decisions made about them. 

• People working in public bodies support transparency but face barriers. Public body participants, without exception, were supportive of transparency but identified challenges to meeting requirements in practice. These include lack of technical capacity, concerns about public trust and difficulty obtaining information from third-party suppliers. 

• Information gaps create a “vicious circle” in judicial review litigation. Without enough information to assess the merits of a case, claimants find it too risky to issue a claim so never reach the stage when full disclosure is required. 

What needs to happen? 

The report concludes that the legal and regulatory framework for an increasingly automated state cannot be left to evolve through the courts alone. PLP recommends that: 

• Governance, engagement and design processes are informed by public law considerations from the outset. 

• The ATRS be placed on a statutory footing, to strengthen monitoring, compliance and enforcement. 

• A legal requirement is introduced that requires people to be notified when and how automated systems have been used to support individual decisions about them, with enforceable individual rights to information about those systems.

Image: Summary of extent to which current transparency mechanisms apply to automated and automated assisted decision making systems

Read Annexes1-3 here. 

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• There is not enough immigration legal aid to meet eligible demand – so providers increasingly have to make difficult decisions about which clients they take on.
• The fixed-fee payment system rewards providers for taking on more cases, even if they dedicate less time to each one.
• The eligibility rules for immigration legal aid make certain types of cases and clients harder for providers to take on.
• People who are financially eligible for legal aid can struggle to access it because they lack the right kind of evidence.

Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’

Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’

There isn’t enough legal aid to go around: demand for legal aid far outstrips supply, particularly for immigration and asylum law.  So how is our scarce legal aid funding distributed?

This project aims to explain how legal aid providers’ commercial incentives may affect the distribution of legal aid. The central argument is that the immigration/asylum legal aid scheme makes certain types of cases and clients more financially rewarding to take on.

Its findings are that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), legal aid providers and the people who need legal aid all want different things. People seeking legal aid want access to a provider who can help them establish eligibility and properly develop their case. Providers need the work they do to be financially sustainable. The Legal Aid Agency, meanwhile, wants to deliver access to justice cost-effectively, using fixed fees and eligibility rules to control spending and target funding.

Both reports argue that the immigration legal aid scheme does not align these interests well enough. Providers are rewarded for meeting administrative and financial priorities of the legal aid scheme, rather than for meeting the needs of the people it serves. They conclude that there is no inherent conflict between these different interests: the scheme could be reformed so that LAA, providers, and people seeking legal aid are incentivised to want the same things.

Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’

The first report considers the way immigration and asylum legal aid providers are paid. It argues that fixed fees incentivise providers to minimise the time spent on each case and maximise the number of cases taken on – a ‘supermarket model’ of provision: “stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap”. Because providers can earn more per hour from quick, simple cases, while complex and time-consuming cases can attract greater financial and compliance risks, the scheme rewards administrative convenience over clients’ needs.

Key recommendation: the Immigration Contract’s fixed fee scheme should be reconsidered. It introduces a significant incentive for providers to cherry-pick simple cases and has had questionable efficacy in meeting the policy objectives for which it was introduced.

Read the report here.

Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’

The second report considers how the eligibility rules on scope, means, and merits can make some eligible cases easier for providers to take on than others. It argues that the immigration legal aid scheme creates a hierarchy of eligible work: some cases are more administratively burdensome, slower to be paid for, or more exposed to the risk of non-payment. Where demand already far exceeds supply, those differences can affect who is able to secure representation.

Scope: exceptional case funding can require providers to navigate a complex test and work at risk of non-payment. Providers may lack incentives to coordinate support where clients have several connected legal problems. The report recommends simplifying exceptional case funding and paying providers for supported referrals and coordination across different areas of law.

Means: people who are financially eligible can still struggle to prove it, particularly where they lack straightforward evidence, or are waiting for asylum support decisions, or have inaccessible assets overseas. The report recommends implementing the Means Test Review, paying providers for reasonable work helping people evidence eligibility, and improving how asylum support can be verified and used as evidence of means.

Merits: providers must carry out a more demanding assessment when deciding whether to take on appeal work, whilst remaining aware that their payment will likely be substantially delayed. The report recommends exploring earlier payment for Controlled Legal Representation so that commercial pressures do not distort decisions about whether a case should continue.

Read the report here. 

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• Language and cultural barriers are undermining access to justice in immigration and asylum tribunals.
• Interpretation errors and misunderstandings do affect evidence, credibility and case outcomes.
• Applicants without legal representation face the greatest disadvantage in navigating a complex system.
• PLP is calling for stronger interpretation services, cultural awareness and procedural support to make justice genuinely accessible.

Read the report here.

Access to justice depends on more than having a right to a hearing. People must be able to understand proceedings, communicate their experiences, present evidence, and participate effectively in decisions that may profoundly affect their lives. When language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, or procedural obstacles prevent this from happening, the fairness and accuracy of legal decision-making can be undermined. 

In a new report by PLP, Cultural, Linguistic and Procedural Barriers to Access to Justice in Immigration and Asylum Tribunals – Report 1: Language, Evidence and Procedure, Selbi Durdiyeva examines how these challenges affect people navigating the immigration and asylum system and what can be done to address them. 

Drawing on an analysis of 271 Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) decisions issued over the past two years, alongside hearing observations and interviews with legal representatives, interpreters and intermediaries, the report explores how procedural fairness operates in practice. 

The findings show that interpretation and translation are often treated as administrative services rather than essential components of fair proceedings. Yet tribunal decisions demonstrate that misunderstandings, translation errors and failures to account for linguistic differences can influence credibility assessments and, ultimately, case outcomes. 

The report also highlights the importance of cultural and contextual understanding when assessing evidence. Immigration and asylum claims frequently require decision-makers to engage with unfamiliar political, social, religious and administrative contexts. Tribunal decisions reveal that misunderstandings of these contexts can contribute to procedural errors and undermine confidence in decision-making. 

The research further demonstrates that effective participation is closely linked to access to quality legal representation. Applicants who are unrepresented, or who receive inadequate legal support, face significant disadvantages in navigating a complex legal system, particularly where language and cultural barriers are also present. 

While the report identifies many examples of careful and conscientious decision-making, it argues that procedural fairness cannot be achieved through legal safeguards alone. Fairness also depends on the practical conditions that enable people to participate meaningfully in proceedings, including high-quality interpretation, careful engagement with evidence, cultural awareness and adequate support structures. 

PLP recommends that strengthening linguistic, cultural and procedural sensitivity is not only important for protecting individual rights but also for improving the overall functioning of the immigration and asylum system. Its recommendations, directed at the Ministry of Justice, HM Courts & Tribunals Service, the Judicial College and the Home Office, focus on improving guidance, training, interpretation services and support for applicants to help ensure that justice is both accessible and effective in practice. 

This is the first of two reports on the importance of cultural awareness and understanding in immigration and asylum tribunals. The second report focuses on family and private life, LGBTQ+ identity, and trauma, mental health and vulnerability. 

Read the report here.

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• Judicial review — a legal process that holds public bodies to account — is financially out of reach for most ordinary people 

• 97% of legal practitioners surveyed said costs rules are an obstacle to the rule of law and access to justice 

• People earning above just £32,000, the threshold for legal aid, frequently do not pursue or abandon legal claims due to the financial risk of losing 

• PLP is calling on the Government and Parliament to reform costs rules to make judicial review accessible to all, not just those who can afford it 

Read the report here.

New report finds costs rules in judicial review are pricing people out of justice 

Justice comes with a price tag — and most people cannot afford it. That is the central finding of a new report by Public Law Project (PLP), which sets out evidence that the financial cost of bringing a judicial review is systematically denying access to justice for ordinary people. 

Judicial review is a legal process where the High Court decides whether the decisions of public bodies, including government ministers, have breached public law or the fundamental rights of individuals.  

Under current costs rules, the losing party usually must pay the winning party’s legal costs, including solicitors’ fees, barristers’ fees, expert costs, and court fees. PLP’s report found that for many claimants this creates an unacceptable financial risk, making judicial review effectively inaccessible unless they qualify for legal aid or can self-fund a case. Often, people earning above only £32,000 — above the threshold for legal aid — do not pursue or abandon otherwise valid claims because they fear having to pay legal costs if they lose. PLP argues this weakens both access to justice and accountability for unlawful decision-making. 

An overwhelming 97% of legal practitioners surveyed in this report – 36 practitioners who collectively have acted in dozens of judicial reviews for claimants, defendants and interveners – identified the costs rules as being an obstacle to the rule of law and access to justice. More than three quarters reported seeing claimants who did not pursue an otherwise arguable claim for costs reasons. 

PLP warns that this has consequences that go beyond individual cases. When unlawful decisions are unchallenged, systemic problems within public bodies may remain uncorrected, affecting many more people. The organisation also argues that barriers to judicial review undermine Parliament’s sovereignty, as public bodies that may not be fulfilling their statutory duties cannot be reliably held to account. 

The evidence in this report indicates that costs rules produce significant obstacles to the rule of law and access to justice at all stages of judicial review proceedings. 

Contrary to the practice elsewhere in civil litigation, claimants cannot recover their legal costs at the pre-action stage, even if a public body concedes that they have acted unlawfully and grants the relief requested by the claimant. This means that claimants may still face significant legal bills for highlighting a public body’s unlawful conduct. 

When a claimant seeks permission to pursue a claim, claimants are exposed to potentially substantial costs because protective measures known as Costs Capping Orders (CCOs) are generally only available after permission has been granted by the court. If permission is refused, claimants are liable for the defendant’s legal costs. The report also found inconsistent use of CCOs by courts and noted they are currently limited to a narrow category of “public interest proceedings”. 

Finally, after a case proceeds to a full hearing and the High Court has reached a judgment, claimants without a CCO face uncapped legal costs that parties can recover from the losing side. This means that claimants, even with strong claims, may have to exhaust their life savings if they lose a claim at trial. Moreover, even successful claimants often do not recover more than 75% of their legal costs from defendants, while legal costs of public bodies have increased significantly over the last decade.

To address these concerns, PLP recommends several reforms: 

• The “Judge Over Your Shoulder” (JOYS) guidance produced by the Government Legal Department (GLD) should be amended to advise public bodies to pay claimants’ pre-action costs where they concede unlawfulness early. Claimants should be allowed to apply for CCOs when they lodge their claim, rather than only after permission is granted. 
• CCOs should be available for all judicial reviews and not just public interest proceedings. 
• Introducing “Qualified One Way Costs Shifting” (QOCS) in judicial review proceedings, so claimants may only be ordered to pay defendant’s costs where it is reasonable considering the claimant’s financial resources and conduct. 

The report’s author, PLP Senior Research Fellow, Lee Marsons: 

“Judicial review matters to everyone. It advances the public interest in being governed according to law.  

The Government – including the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General – have consistently highlighted the importance of the rule of law to the UK’s social, economic and political success. If they truly wish to put their words into action, the Government should implement the proposals outlined in this report to put the UK on the path towards inclusion rather than exclusion, and towards promoting the rule of law rather than undermining it.” 

Read the report here.

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Authored by Professor Jacqueline Kinghan and Professor Lisa Vanhala.

Read the report

Using public law to tackle unfair systems can bring transformative and tangible change. Yet it’s complex, takes time and resources, and risks being counterproductive when not done well.

In 2017, PLP partnered with the Lankelly Chase Foundation to gain a better, more rigorous understanding of the conditions that are necessary for successful public law-oriented collaborations and subsequent system change. The partnership aimed to use PLP’s public law expertise to support a group of frontline charities and NGOs across wide ranging areas, including criminal justice, welfare benefits, discrimination, domestic abuse and child protection.

PLP’s lawyers worked closely with organisational leaders, advocacy workers, community groups and frontline advisers to provide in-depth training and support, identify public law issues and support routes to challenge.

Learning was central throughout. Together, PLP and the Lankelly Chase Foundation explored when and how legal approaches can support systemic change, and what role public law — through judicial review, litigation and other strategies — can play in making that change happen.

Victoria Pogge von Strandmann, Legal Director at PLP, said:

“This report offers a unique perspective and detailed insights for organisational leaders, advocacy workers, community groups, frontline advisers and second tier advice organisations on how to build successful partnerships that build confidence in using public law to challenge injustice and achieve systemic change.”

Webinar

PLP held a free webinar in conjunction with the launch of this report, where key learnings were discussed. You can watch the recording here.

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Read the research

The research uses evidence from casework support provided to over 100 sanctioned individuals, alongside analysis of Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) data, to consider who is being sanctioned and in what circumstances – and the significant and often harmful impact sanctions have on those individuals.

This new research evidences:

• as currently designed and applied, sanctions are frequently applied as a first resort not a last resort measure,  
• safeguards do not prevent inappropriate and harmful sanctions being imposed,  

• the rate of sanctions (100% of someone’s standard allowance) is disproportionately severe – and far more severe than even the average criminal fine. 

Research participants reported sanctions leading to the need to use food banks, incur debt, negative impacts on physical and mental health and reduce their ability to search and undertake work.

The research also highlights that some groups are more likely to be impacted by this harmful regime than others – with people often sanctioned for reasons outside of their control (e.g unexpected health emergencies) or due to barriers they face in engaging with the system (e.g. language barriers).

It also evidences that digital exclusion puts people at risk of being sanctioned – and makes it harder to challenge sanctions that have been unfairly applied.

Recommendations

The report recommends the current sanction regime should be revoked entirely or fundamentally reformed to ensure sanctions are applied as a genuinely last resort measure, only after clear warning, and make sanctions less severe.

Read Annex 

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Read the report

“Albanians are being used as scapegoats,” said PLP senior researcher Lee Marsons, author of “Punishing the Victim: How the UK’s broken asylum system fails the people it should protect.” He argues that these changes ignore the brutal reality of blood feuds, LGBTQ+ persecution, and modern slavery in Albania.

“The average successful grant rate for Albanians in 2022 was 49%. Just a year later in 2023, it was 14%. In 2024, it had dropped to an average of 9%. We also know that under the last Government’s Operation BRIDORA, launched in December 2022, there was a secret and probably unlawful target that only 2% of Albanian claims should be granted.

“Unless the Albanian state has carried out a miracle in under two years, this suggests that political pressure from all sides has filtered into Home Office decisions. Albanian claims should be fairly considered on their facts, without political interference.

“As with Rwanda, new laws and agreements will not magically change the facts on the ground.”

The timely report describes the experiences of six Albanians being supported through the UK’s asylum system by Shpresa Programme, a user-led Albanian national organisation, and lawyers at Islington Law Centre’s Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU):

• Timi, who is a survivor of life-threatening anti-LGBTQI+ violence and persecution in Albania at the hands of his father and classmates. He struggled to share these traumatic experiences due to lack of support from the Home Office and subsequently attempted suicide twice after his claim was wrongfully refused.
• Hasan and Gezim, who were trafficked by violent criminal gangs as children to smuggle drugs across international borders. Hasan regularly went without meals for days at a time while in the UK asylum system due to inadequate financial support.
• Ola, survivor of domestic abuse, who was trafficked to Spain by her abusive ex-boyfriend who forced her to work in a brothel.
• Ervin and Arber, who are survivors of blood feuds where family dishonour or debt bondage is passed onto male children, often settled by murder and violence.

Ola said:

“If I wasn’t Albanian and didn’t know what it’s really like, I’d ask why Albanians needed to be protected. If you listen to the media or politicians, Albanians are criminals or thieves and you need to get rid of us. But there’s lots of violence and corruption in my country and we do need help.”

Lee Marsons said:

“Sadly, Albania has become a proxy in the political fight over the UK’s broken asylum system. But the evidence demonstrates beyond doubt that Albania is unsafe for far too many of its citizens, due to modern slavery and human trafficking, blood feuds, organised crime, political corruption, failing institutions of protection and law enforcement, violence against women and girls, and LGBT+ persecution.”

The testimonies of Timi, Hasan, Gezim, Ola, Ervin and Arber have highlighted five of the key problems that people currently face in the UK’s asylum system. These include: difficulty accessing quality legal advice and representation, difficulty making personal and traumatic disclosures, poor Home Office decision-making, inability to meet basic needs due to lack of financial support, and encouraging returns to unsafe countries.

Section 59 of the new Border Security Bill would make Albanian asylum claims generally inadmissible, alongside claims from India and Georgia. Section 29, which enables the Home Office to remove modern slavery survivors from the UK if they have been convicted of a crime here, would further punish victims of trafficking who have been coerced into crime.

Lee Marsons said:

“Both of these potentially devastating changes must be dropped before they put people in real danger of further trafficking, exploitation, and death.”

Read the report

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Read the report

“New depths of an ocean of unmet need?” has revealed a “mirage” of capacity in the south-west. This report follows the Government’s announcement of a boost to housing and immigration legal aid fees (the first fee increase since 1996.)

“The news of the fee increase could not have come at a more opportune time. Our detailed analysis of potential provider capacity has revealed shocking new depths of unmet legal need in south-west England.

“The region urgently needs a boost in legal aid funding, so the proposed increase is a step in the right direction. It is good to see that the Government has engaged with a fundamental cause of the collapse in legal aid providers.

“But given how challenging it has become to find a legal aid lawyer, there is still more that needs to be done.”

In November 2023, the Ministry of Justice set up a list of legal aid providers outside of the south-west who may have capacity to give legal advice remotely.

When researchers contacted everybody on that list over a period of six months, however, they consistently found limited capacity. This was particularly true for asylum appeals, as PLP found by working with refugee support organisations in the south-west.

Between 14 February and 1 August 2024:

• There was no month where 50% or more providers listed had capacity.
• On average, 39% responded to say they had no capacity.
• 29% did not respond, probably showing a lack of capacity.
• 20% of providers had capacity, but not for asylum appeals.
• Only 11% of providers had capacity for asylum appeals.

Often these providers would state that they needed to prioritise their current waiting lists of local clients.

Dr. Jo Hynes said:

“This approach has created a mirage of capacity. On the face of the directory, it looks like there are a range of providers able to take on cases. But when you actually call people up and ask if they can take on specific kinds of cases, this capacity doesn’t materialise.

“The Legal Aid Agency must reassess how they monitor capacity and get a meaningful picture of the state of the sector. The Government must also start addressing the long-term structural challenges alongside this very welcome fee uplift. Legal aid must be fixed through a variety of means.”

Questions remain for the Ministry of Justice about their recent fee increase, including:

• Will there be an independent fee review board to embed a better system?
• Will the legal aid increase still be restricted to only immigration and housing, given the risk of creating backlogs elsewhere?
• How will they tackle problems with recruitment and retention caused by the emotional toll and second-hand trauma of working in immigration law?

Dr. Jo Hynes said:

“Our research clearly shows that capacity for legal aid providers looks different in person than on paper.

“Providers are working in extremely difficult circumstances to help protect the rights of people who have nowhere else to turn. This was particularly true this summer during the outbreaks of far-right and anti-migrant riots.

“Given how high the stakes are for people seeking legal aid, the Government must continue to meaningfully engage with this unfolding crisis.”

Read the report

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Read the report

By comparing the reported effectiveness of transparency requirements from Canada, the USA, France, Japan, and the EU, ‘Securing meaningful transparency of public sector use of AI’ provides key recommendations for developing equivalent regulation in the UK.

The current UK framework is lacking in robust and legally enforceable transparency requirements for AI use in the public sector. The report, written by Mia Leslie with Caroline Selman and Fieldfisher, recommends that the UK address this by:

• Introducing statutory requirements for public bodies to publish information on the Government’s Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS) Hub
• Mentioning the ATRS whenever people interact with or are impacted by an AI, algorithmic or automated tool or system
• Notifying individuals of the presence of automation in decision making when they are affected by those decisions
• Proactively providing explanations to individuals about how the systems work and how decisions are reached.

PLP’s Caroline Selman said:

“Public bodies are increasingly using automation, including AI, to make or inform decisions about our rights and entitlements which would previously have been made by humans. At PLP, we are aware of 75 algorithms but only nine are listed on the Government’s Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS), which is supposed to be mandatory for government departments.

 

“If the Government wants to avoid a widespread miscarriage of justice like the Horizon scandal, we need systemic and individual transparency. Anyone should be able to find out what systems are being used right now through publicly available information. Individuals deserve to be directly told when an algorithm is being used to make decisions that can significantly affect their lives.”

In recent years, shadowy algorithms have been used to help make key decisions across areas like health, education, immigration, welfare benefits, policing, and prisons. For example, individuals may be flagged for investigation by the DWP because a machine decided that they seemed likely to commit benefit fraud.

The Government has announced an upcoming AI Bill that will seek to regulate those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models. But focusing solely on the development of frontier AI rather than public sector use would be a missed opportunity to improve the status quo and increase Government transparency and fairness, warns PLP.

“The new Government has an opportunity to place trust and transparency at the heart of its approach to public sector algorithms from the outset. We encourage them not to take a ‘hurt first, fix later’ approach, like the previous Government, but instead, demonstrate leadership by getting regulation right the first time around.”

Read the report

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Read the report

Since “legal aid deserts” have left many in the immigration and asylum system unable to access legal help, the Legal Aid Agency has suggested that in some contexts, remote advice could help link people up with providers.

But this under-researched solution could create new problems and put people seeking asylum at risk of harm unless best practice guidelines are developed, according to new research from Public Law Project (PLP), in partnership with A & M Consultancy, Helen Bamber Foundation and Asylum Aid.

PLP’s Dr. Jo Hynes says:

“While remote advice could be more convenient in some scenarios, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to the immigration legal aid crisis. Wherever possible, refugees and people seeking asylum need to have a say in how they speak to their legal representatives.

“Remote advice might not be appropriate for sharing difficult or traumatic details, especially when so many people in the asylum system already feel so isolated and struggle with trusting strangers. If they’re in an environment with no privacy, they might not want to share crucial information on the phone.”

By speaking to people with experience of remote and in-person advice, researchers found that these experiences varied widely based on circumstances. Some were able to access remote advice in terms of their technical capabilities and access to a quiet, private space, but the complexity or emotional weight of their case meant that it was potentially harmful for them to receive advice remotely.

“I want to stress that for people who are seeking asylum and were in the mental state that I was, face to face is crucial,” said one interviewee, who also stated that remote advice “has a very negative impact on [the] mental health of people.”

Other people seeking asylum may find remote advice beneficial: for example, if they have a medical condition that makes it difficult for them to travel. But a lack of technical skills, resources or confidence may mean that it is not accessible to them.

PLP’s Dr. Jo Hynes says:

“Remote advice is not a safe harbour in an ocean of unmet need, but one intrinsically connected to the wider systemic issues facing the legal aid sector.”

Much remains unclear about the use of remote advice:

• We do not know the impact of delivering advice remotely on a broader range of services, including providers in both urban and rural areas.
• There is no evidence on its impact on clients’ outcomes.
• We have no clear data on what circumstances and demographic characteristics make remote advice accessible or beneficial – or which groups would find it completely inaccessible.
• There is no established best practice guidance.

PLP recommends that the Ministry of Justice conduct or commission further and updated research into the above, as well as developing best practice guidance.

Giving clients a meaningful and informed choice about the mode of advice delivery is also vital for clients to be able to weigh up whether remote or in-person advice was appropriate in their specific circumstances.

‘Remote immigration and asylum advice: what we know and what we need to know’

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