Generating and Sharing Data on Migrants and Refugees

GENERATING AND SHARING DATA ON MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

28.06.2017 at London Funders

Participants

Rebecca Green AB Charitable Trust

Lori Stanciu Ariadne-European Human Rights Funders Network

Cristina Andreatta Association of Charitable Foundations

Abigail Ryan Big Lottery Fund

Laura Bowman Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

Vivienne Avery Greater London Authority

Charlotte Peel Joint Council For The Welfare of Immigrants

Hannah Chillingworth London Borough of Barnet

Charlotte Pomery London Borough of Haringey

Jessica Finnin London Borough of Havering

Juliana Bell Metropolitan Migration Foundation

Caitlin McMillan Migrants Rights Network

Lea Gorgulu Webb Networked Planet

Tracey Gyateng New Philanthropy Capital

Rosanna Thomasoo New Philanthropy Capital

Jonathan Price Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Anna Jones Refuaid

Bex Evans Social Finance Ltd

Pauline Nandoo Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers

In attendance

Geraldine Blake London Funders

Geraldine Tovey London Funders

1.  Welcome

Geraldine Blake welcomed attendees to the meeting and roundtable introductions were made. The main focus of this meeting is to gain the best possible picture of activity within the migrant and refugee sector (particularly within the capital) and encouraging sharing between broader civil society, funders and public sector.

Generating and sharing data on migrants and refugees: Context

·  London Funders has been involved in The Way Ahead (TWA) for the past 2 years – one of its key recommendations is the better sharing of data.

·  Hopefully posts will be created within the GLA and civil society organisations (such as the London Hub) to look at data in richer qualitative way, increasing capacity for collaboration.

2.  Vivienne Avery – GLA Intelligence Unit

Vivienne confirmed that the GLA be using recommendations from TWA and the London Strategic Migration Partnership (LSMP) to shape its future strategy.

London Strategic Migration Partnership

Chaired by Matthew Ryder, the LSMP brings together key migration partners and stakeholders to understand and address immigration and integration policy issues of strategic importance to the city.

Its priorities are:

·  Managing the impact of the EU referendum result for London

·  Improving data on migrants/refugees/asylum seekers in London

·  Integration and Communities

·  Economic Growth and Prosperity

·  Asylum

Improving data on migrants in London- key tasks

·  Understanding EEA nationals living in London (especially post-Brexit)

·  Improving migration and asylum data for London.

·  Analysis and insight of migration trends

·  Increasing datasets available. Currently there are big lags in migration data – London figures only go up to 2015.

Why is migration data so important?

·  37% of Londoners are born outside the UK. 38% of London’s workforce is foreign born.

·  High population churn – flows of migrants into and out of London in particular.

·  Migrants face significant challenges when arriving in the UK – these vary by group.

·  Understanding integration /social mobility/equality for migrants is a priority for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

·  Need better data into needs – migrants / refugees / asylum seekers

·  Migrant data important for London Plan, Strategic Housing Market Assessment, and Infrastructure planning.

·  Borough planning – schools, translation services

Sources of Data

·  GLA makes use of National Insurance numbers – not the same as migration data as you only register once, but good indicator of country of origin.

·  Census/survey data tell us about the stock of migrant populations in London by country of birth (and nationality), this doesn’t change too much from year to year. You can also use this data to map where migrants live.

·  GP data provides some help, but many migrants don’t register.

·  HMRC – tax and NI contributions to the economy.

Sources of Data- Asylum Seekers

·  The number of people with Section 95 support in London can be easily measured.

·  There has been an almost 70% increase in S95s between Apr16 and Dec16 (2,023 to 3,403), little change in S4s.

·  The majority of this increase is comes from younger age groups e.g. those aged under 35

·  Nationalities showing biggest increase in absolute numbers of S95s are from Iran, Albania, Iran and Nigeria.

Data Gaps

·  Home Office data does not break down the number of migrants living in the UK by region, nor visa applications/issued and individuals granted settlement.

·  Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not have thorough refugee status data either. It is impossible to know how many people who register for a national insurance number are actually active in the British economy.

·  Academic data for reasons why people move to the UK are ad-hoc.

Migrant and Refugee Data Roundtable, February 2017

·  Representatives from GLA, business, civic society, academia, boroughs, London Councils and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) came together to discuss how to fill in data gaps and how ensure that data is ‘all in one place’.

·  The roundtable featured presentations from Doctors of the World, No Recourse to Public Funds database, PWC – employers and migration.

·  ONS are hoping to get funding from DWP looking at active NI data.

·  Oxford University is also undertaking a study on refugee data and how many refugees there are in the workplace.

Potential for voluntary organisations to provide data

·  Support provided to irregular migrants (e.g. Doctors of the World)

·  Also housing associations, Citizens Advice Bureau, faith groups.

·  There are other potential sources e.g. Utility companies, businesses, industry bodies, borough residents

Overall there is more need for more data on the positive contributions of migrants. The GLA is keen to find out what other data sources are available. There is the potential to pool together a rich data set that goes beyond trends, and can give a better insight into migrants’ lives.

Currently there is an opportunity for people to feed back to GLA with regards to how to interpret data and identifying other challenges. The GLA has found it difficult to gain data regarding some ethic groups not mentioned in the census (e.g. Roma), and relies on academic studies.

3.  Charlotte Peel – Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

The JCWI works on creating a positive view of migration through lobbying and advocacy work. As well as a focus on advocacy and campaigns, the JCWI also has a legal team of three solicitors who manage a legal aid contract and advice line.

Background: the Irregular Migrant Advice Line

·  This service provides one-off, confidential advice to undocumented migrants about their immigration status, legal rights and legal avenues to regularisation.

·  (Non-identifiable) information from each call inputted onto a ‘master spreadsheet’ by the policy team.

·  Data collection – originally collected for lawyers, but it was identified that this could be used for campaigns and other work.

·  Data collected includes demographic, medical and legal information

What the Data Can Tell Us

There is very little understanding of migrant data in the UK, and any data collected can be used to not only dispel myths about the migrant population but also to identify wider issues. The data collected can shed light on:

·  The demographic characteristics of the “undocumented” population

·  The impact of legal/policy changes on this population

·  The barriers to legal routes to regularisation

·  Wider trends in issues faced by the population e.g. homelessness, trafficking, exploitation

·  The potential impact of future policies based on the above

Benefits of Wider Data Collection

There is currently a hostile environment for migrants in the UK. Capturing data can help organisations to lobby for strategic legal changes e.g. barriers to removal, and help policymakers and others to understand the undocumented population.

However, it is becoming increasingly hard for migrants to regularise their status or for organisations predict any future legal changes that Brexit may create.

Briefing on the Immigration Bill 2015: Hostile Environment for Undocumented Migrants

JCWI presented a summary of data collected from callers. Callers to JCWI’s advice line came from over 50 countries, with ages ranging from 12 to 75 years old. The data collected highlighted the large proportion of the migrant population who suffer from mental health problems, with depression being particularly prevalent. Overall the data collected demonstrates the incredibly diverse backgrounds of the undocumented population and the wide variety of the problems they face.

Challenges to Data Collection

·  Migrants are often reluctant to share information, or paint a different picture in order to receive more positive advice, putting into question the reliability of the data received.

·  The initial call provides only a snapshot, and there is often a lack of follow-up from this call unless the caller is taken on as a client.

·  A balance must be found between time spent giving advice and the time spent asking for information – longer conversations mean less calls can be taken.

The JCWI does review and change its form fairly often to enable flexibility, but cannot do so too frequently as this makes interpreting data more difficult.

Challenges to Data Sharing

·  Client confidentiality – JCWI do not collect data on where clients live

·  Other data sources are lacking – the last survey of undocumented migrant data was ten years ago - so it is difficult to determine if the data collected is representative of the population as a whole

·  JCWI does not want its data on undocumented migrants to be viewed negatively, with the risk of misinterpretation by others following publication

4.  Q&A and group discussion

JCWI Advice Line

·  Outreach – the line is publicised through other organisations and community groups, and has been publicised to the law centre in Kensington and Chelsea following the Grenfell Tower fire.

·  The line does not receive calls in different languages, but instead asks those who cannot speak English to call back with someone who can translate

·  JCWI has a case load of approximately 800 clients per year, based on its Legal Aid Agency contract – it refers potential clients to other organisations if is at capacity.

·  Brexit has created a big unknown regarding cases for people with a European Right of Residence, and there are more European callers now asking for advice

·  The vast majority of callers are from London as it is a London-based advice line, but a significant proportion of callers are from other large cities in the UK

·  Whilst the JCWI’s opposition to hostile environment policies for migrants did not result in as much change as they would have liked, civil society did manage to influence welfare reform to an extent. Sharing data would help build a bigger picture that may be more influential in years to come.

JCWI has not yet collaborated with other organisations on data and doesn’t have a very clear picture of what kind of data these organisations are collecting. Overall JCWI would like to have a better understanding of other organisations collecting data in order to bring different sets together.

London Strategic Migration Partnership

·  The group is often held back by the fact that evidence is anecdotal or in small samples.

·  Information needs to be put carefully into the public domain with the right format to prevent misinterpretation.

·  Conversation regarding the sharing of effective data is timely, considering Brexit and the new government – there is a major risk of European citizens becoming undocumented, especially in London

Paul Hamlyn Foundation

·  Grant is going to panel next month for an organisation which is collecting data on integration and different integration indicators

·  More generally PHF is looking to embed migrant learning and data better as a foundation - funders are a useful source of evidence on what has/hasn’t worked.

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

·  Looking to be better at collecting its own data.

·  Esmee has funded 360 giving and is looking to become a Learning organisation.

Big Lottery Fund

·  Always striving to be a better learning organisation

·  Not prescriptive about asking grant holders for data collection, as it would take a lot of capacity to change this and they do not ask for lots of information.

-  Migrant data can also inform best practice across the foundation sector and targeting resources and capacity

-  It is important to never forget licensing aspect of open data – data needs to be cited and negative portrayals can be called out if they don’t have a representative sample

-  Also important that everyone starts using the same variable/metrics so that data can be more easily interpreted and the GLA could potentially set up a ‘data dictionary’.

-  GLA does currently help organisations to harmonise data, for example through harnessing data from all 33 boroughs, and is building a ‘City Datastore’ for information that shouldn’t go into the public domain but which could be shared between organisations – this should be launched this summer

Migrant Rights Network

MRN is a hub which brings together organisations from across the UK for grass roots campaigning and combining resources. Many of these organisations are at breaking point due to the hostile environment of legal aid cuts. The MRN has been looking at a more consistent way to interpret data and trends away from anecdotal evidence, and has been working with six frontline organisations in London looking at issues including homelessness and the rising costs of regularising immigrants.

The MRN are keen to data share in a more responsible and ethical way, and make it practical for frontline organisations.

-  Funders can help organisations to share data, which is vital considering the current funding crisis

-  Undocumented population is only going to increase – both historical and US data regarding deadlines for residency applications needs to be harnessed

EU Nationals

·  Historically GLA migration data has focused on third country nationals rather than EU nationals, which will prove problematic in the common months

·  Varying levels of vulnerability for different groups of EU nationals, with some more vulnerable than others – hopeful of drawing on Oxford University’s work on EU nationals and Brexit.

·  Reliance on formal data is problematic, as the 2011 census occurred before the influx of Romanian nationals.

Metropolitan Migration Foundation