Birmingham Law Centre Blog

In March this year, ‘Alison’, aged 19, came to see us at the law centre.  She was referred to us by Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid who had accommodated her in one of their refuges on the basis of her homeless application to Birmingham City Council.  The Council had accepted the full homeless duty to the claimant on the basis she was homeless and in priority need.  Alison had moved in to the refuge on 30 November 2011 and had applied for Jobseekers’ Allowance but it had not been put into payment.  She was desperate; had not received any benefits for 4 month; and had been surviving on food parcels and hand-outs from the refuge.

Alison’s relationship with her mother had always been uneasy and finally broke down completely in early October 2011.  She was kicked out of the family home and has not returned since.  It became clear that the JSA application had been refused on the basis that her estranged mother was still receiving Child Benefit for her.  Indeed, Alison’s mother had continued to receive Child Benefit without a break despite the fact that Alison had left school 12 months before leaving home and had worked in a call centre for 10 months.  This was full time paid work for which she paid tax and national insurance.

Despite the fact that the DWP could very easily have cross referenced her tax and national insurance payments as evidence of her Mother’s fraud, they told Alison it was her responsibility to contact the Child Benefit in order to resolve the problem of the conflicting benefits claims.  Child Benefit then of course refused to deal with Alison on the basis of the Data Protection Act.  She was stuck in a loop unable to remove the obstacle to her entitlement to JSA and the DWP were unwilling to help either.

On the basis that matters were clearly urgent, we decided to issue the DWP solicitors with an immediate pre-action letter threatening Judicial Review.  This triggered a very quick response from local DWP managers, resulting in a counter payment being issued within 7 days.  As a solicitor agency with a legal aid contract, we are able to undertake Judicial Review work.  We have extensive experience of challenges in the High Court and, whilst it was always unlikely that this case would end up being litigated, it was never an empty threat and we were prepared to go to court if necessary.  Due to the changes wrought on the legal aid scheme from April by LASPO, this work will be impossible.  Welfare Benefits work has been taken out of the scope of legal aid and we will no longer be able to assist clients like Alison.

In the weeks after Alison’s benefits were put into payment, she came to volunteer with us at the law centre.  Within a month she had been offered a property and moved out of the refuge.  A month after that she had asked us for a reference for the job she had just been offered.  This is a good news story and such a positive outcome for our client.  We are clearly very proud of the work we did to help Alison but we are equally angry that funding for this kind of case will cease to exist from April leaving us unable to help clients like Alison and at a time when welfare reform and the introduction of Universal Credit are likely to create problems that will only increase the need for legal advice.

By Michael Bates

Birmingham Law Centre often meets families in desperate situations.

A recent case related to a young woman who had fled domestic violence, with her two year old son and was being accommodated in a women’s refuge run by Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid.

She had successfully been granted status to claim benefits in the UK six months prior to her appointment with us but was still without any benefits despite making the appropriate claims. She was surviving on food parcels and clothing donations as well as the good will of the women’s refuge.

The Law Centre helped her to pursue challenges to the DWP, Tax Credit Office and Child Benefit Office. In particular we were able to make interim payment requests on the basis of hardship. When the Child Benefit Office failed to act on these requests, a threat to take action for judicial review ultimately resulted in Child Benefit being awarded, which was key to awards of Child Tax Credit and Income Support.

We were able to take this action because of the funding available from the Legal Services Commission. From April 2012 this funding is being cut and we are extremely concerned that many families and individuals will be without the help necessary to resolve situations such as these in the future .

By Megan Ward

Birmingham Law Centre successfully threatens G4S with Judicial Review of their continued and unreasonable delay in providing accommodation to a disabled asylum seeker.

In May this year, G4S were given the contract to provide accommodation under ss 4 and 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to destitute asylum seekers in the Midlands.  There have apparently been a number of difficulties in G4S reaching agreement with existing accommodation providers which has led to a lengthy delay in finding suitable or adequate accommodation for asylum seekers to move to from the Initial Accommodation they are provided with when they first apply for asylum.

This was they case for our client who had been living in the Initial Accommodation for three months before making contact with us.  Our client suffers with post traumatic stress disorder and has had his right leg amputated below the knee.  Difficulties with coping with his prosthesis had led to him falling in the bathroom on five separate occasions and his fragile mental state was being exacerbated by the living conditions that he had been exposed to in the shared hostel-type accommodation of the Initial Accommodation.

We sent a letter to G4S in accordance with the Judicial Review pre-action protocol on the basis that the Initial Accommodation was simply unsuitable for a man with our client’s disability and health problems and that the continued delay in providing adequate accommodation to him was unreasonable on public law grounds.  Happily, G4S agreed and found suitable alternative accommodation for our client within days.  In fact, our client has moved in to accommodation that has been freshly renovated to accommodate the kinds of aids and adaptations necessary to cope with his care needs.

Whilst we are pleased that there was a successful outcome for our client in this case, we are also aware that many other people continue to be poorly served by the increasing number of private providers of public services such as accommodation for asylum seekers.

Our argument is that many private providers of public services avoid scrutiny of the way in which they are providing these services precisely because they are the private sector and claim not to be subject to public law principles.  We believe that this case shows G4S, as a private company that is performing a public role, should be subject to public law principles and judicial review.

Public scrutiny of the way in which services are provided is essential in a democratic society.  This creeping privatisation disempowers all of us by excluding us from the courts as a means of challenge or redress when services are performed badly, unlawful decisions are made or administration is poor.

G4S did not say that this is a contractual matter between them and UKBA.  Neither did they offer any challenge to our argument that they are providing a public service and should be subject to judicial review.  If they had taken a different view on this matter, they would have said so but they didn’t.

Hopefully this case can provide encouragement to advisers and confirm to them that private firms such as G4S can be challenged by way of judicial review for any failure to provide the public services for which they have been contracted.

By Michael Bates

We have now been granted permission by the Court of Appeal to apply for Judicial Review of the decision to suspend payments of Income Support pending the substantive appeal in the Upper Tribunal.  Lord Justice Maurice Kay considers the grounds to be arguable.

Details of the original Permission Hearing in April this year can be found here .  We will continue to update the blog as and when we hear anything further.

The Claimant is represented by Desmond Rutledge of Garden Court Chambers.