Umbrella body NCVO has responded after the Home Office announced that there will be a “greater” role for voluntary organisations as part of its plans to reform the UK’s asylum system.
On Monday, the department published an asylum and returns policy paper that sets out how it will ensure that “the UK is no longer an outlier that draws flows of migrants across Europe”.
The paper says the government will shift to community sponsorship as the main framework for refugee resettlement, with “greater local and voluntary sector involvement”.
The sponsorship model will give “greater say to communities and support refugees as they settle, become self-sufficient, and contribute to their local areas”.
To do this, the government will “reform refugee sponsorship to give voluntary and community sector organisations a greater role in resettlement through named sponsorship, within caps set by government”.
Commenting on the paper, NCVO chief influencing officer Leigh Brimicombe told Civil Society: “Charities have the lived experience, deep understanding and community connections needed to be a vital partner in delivery.
“These proposals place voluntary organisations at the centre of making the system work, and a shift of this scale has real implications for capacity, safeguarding and funding that government must consider.
“Following this announcement, we need to see a genuine partnership with civil society, in line with the principles of the Civil Society Covenant, so that the policy is developed with organisations, not for them.
“That’s essential to ensure the approach meets the needs of voluntary organisations and the communities it’s designed to support, and to ensure government’s plans can be delivered effectively.”
UK’s asylum system ‘can no longer cope’
The publication of the paper follows over 300 charities and voluntary organisations, including NCVO, saying they would refuse to comply with home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s plans to introduce a volunteering “test” for migrants applying for indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
The paper does not mention a volunteering test, but Civil Society understands that plans remain for a consultation on the contribution-based settlement model, of which the test may form a part.
In the foreword to the paper, prime minister Keir Starmer said the UK’s asylum system can no longer cope with an increasingly volatile and insecure world, “with increased conflict leading to a significant increase in the movement of people across the globe”.
Starmer said the number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel by boat and remaining in the UK places a severe strain on the country’s asylum system and wider social contract.
“The UK is a decent, compassionate, tolerant country that celebrates diversity and wants those values reflected in its institutions – that hasn’t changed,” he said.
“But demonstrating control at our borders isn’t just an essential task of government. It’s also vital for maintaining confidence in those values as we navigate our changing world. This statement sets out our plan to achieve that.”
