The Scottish Government

ISBN: 0-7559-4450-X

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Introduction

Scotland has a long history of welcoming refugees and asylum seekers. Under the 1951 UN Refugees Convention, the UK and other signatories are obliged to consider properly any application for asylum made by a person who claims to be fleeing persecution by the state. The UK Government's dispersal policy, introduced in 1999, led to large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees settling in Scotland, particularly Glasgow. Some asylum seekers come directly to Scotland to claim asylum. Overall, the Scottish Refugee Council estimates there are currently approximately 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers living in Scotland, mainly in Glasgow.

The Scottish Refugee Integration Forum was established in January 2002 and was chaired by the then Minister for Social Justice. It was set up by the Scottish Executive to allow Scotland's statutory and voluntary agencies to work in partnership to support refugees more effectively. The original core membership is listed in full at Appendix I.

At an early stage the Forum decided to form six satellite groups which had additional and wider membership and which would look at specific issues. The satellite groups looked at positive images, community development and the media, housing, justice, community safety and access to justice, children's services, health and social care, enterprise, lifelong learning, employment and training. Three groups drawn from experienced practitioners were convened specifically to discuss translation and interpretation, advice and information and community preparation.

SRIF worked parallel to the National Refugee Integration Forum which was established to take forward the Full and Equal Citizens Strategy published by the Home Office at the beginning of 2001. The Home Office published their national refugee integration strategy Integration Matters in March 2005.

Over the course of around nine months SRIF and its satellite groups took evidence from a number of stakeholders and identified a wide range of issues affecting refugees and asylum seekers. These issues were developed into a draft action plan which was issued for consultation in October 2002. Following this consultation period, the final Scottish Refugee Integration Forum Action Plan was published in February 2003. This identified a series of key actions which would be likely to make a real difference to the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland.

At the time of publication, a commitment was given to report on progress in implementing the Action Plan in early autumn 2003 and in early 2005. This document is the second progress report. It has been discussed by the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum (membership listed at Appendix 1) when reconvened in February 2005.

Much has been learned in the two years since the publication of the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum ( SRIF) Action Plan - not least that the integration of refugees and asylum seekers is a two-way process which benefits host communities, Scotland as a whole and the new communities settling into life here. It is in everyone's interests to make integration as effective and easy as possible. Since 2001, the Scottish Executive has invested a total of over £9 million in projects and resources to aid integration. Glasgow City Council has invested £1.8 million through the ATLAS project, also supported by European EQUAL funds, for projects improving the standard of living for refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow and their local communities.

Scotland's progress in integrating asylum seekers and refugees is looked upon as an example of good practice and this is something to be proud of. It is important to recognise that this is largely thanks to the good work carried out by organisations and volunteers at a grass roots level, committed to making Scotland as welcoming as possible with a better standard of living for everyone. The recent research report, Building Bridges, (see bibliography) reveals the positive role of local people and groups in promoting the integration of refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow and explains how local networks have responded rapidly to changing local needs following dispersal.

The importance of partnership working should not be underestimated. Partnerships such as the West of Scotland Refugee Forum, its sub-group the Community Response Co-ordinating Group, New Roots Scotland and the partnerships established in the health sector by the National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health have played a key role in integration in Scotland.

This progress report seeks to portray a snapshot of progress at this point in time, two years after the 57 Actions were drawn up. The report highlights areas which have been implemented successfully as well as those which require further effort. This is important in directing future work and looking at alternatives to actions which are perhaps no longer relevant or practically difficult. The report aims to cover all areas of progress made on the specific actions, whether they are taken forward by the voluntary sector, other public bodies or the Scottish Executive. Whenever possible, the report tries to make the distinction between Scottish Executive sponsored and independent events or programmes.

Some of the Key Actions in the original Action Plan are fairly broad and non-specific - in effect more like principles than tasks. These actions in particular proved challenging to report on - such wide aims always call for improvement and are difficult to fully complete. More importantly, these broader tasks were less obviously the responsibility of one department or organisation and consequently difficult to delegate. Where actions were more specific it was fairly easy to determine if they have been achieved or not.

It is logical that some of the issues in the original SRIF Action Plan may no longer be deemed to be the most pressing matters. Indeed it may be the case that new issues have arisen since the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum was last convened and must be identified in our priorities for integration in the future. It is worth pointing out at this point that refugee integration in Scotland is far from being complete, although significant progress has been achieved. This report should not be seen as a final report.

The Progress Report

Refugee integration spans across many Scottish Executive departments: Development, Education, Health, Housing, Justice, Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning. The Equality Unit plays a co-ordinating role in refugee policy and in the compilation of this report in particular. Communication between the Equality Unit and the relevant officials in all the departments mentioned above is ongoing and contributions for the report from each were discussed and edited accordingly. Progress outwith the responsibility of the Scottish Executive has been collected in a more piecemeal way, following leads supplied by people with knowledge in that area and contacting stakeholders. The Scottish Refugee Integration Forum was reconvened on 4 February 2005 once a draft report was compiled and contributions were subsequently received. Amendments were made and circulated before the final draft went for publication.

The report is in three sections. The first text section provides a fuller discussion of the Key Actions and progress relevant to them, highlighting issues which require more work or discussion. The second section contains a summary of this information in an easier to read tabular form. Both text and tabular sections contain the same information. Action points in the text and table are cross referred. The third section looks at the way forward and how to further refugee integration from here on. It was drafted under the guidance of the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum.

The appendices provide the following additional information:

Appendix I Lists of Core SRIF membership

Appendix II Abbreviations

Appendix III Bibliography

Appendix IV List of projects funded through Scottish Executive Equality Unit's funding scheme over 2003-05.

Appendix V List of projects funded over 2004-05 through Equal, ATLAS scheme.

General Cross-cutting Issues

One of the main cross-cutting issues identified by the Forum was to ensure that work was undertaken to recognise and address racism in Scotland under the
Race Relations (Amendment) Act. The Executive's flagship "One Scotland. Many Cultures" campaign ( www.onescotland.com ) was launched in September 2002 to raise awareness of the negative impact racist attitudes and behaviour has on individuals and society more generally. The approach and tone taken in the campaign was based on extensive research undertaken prior to the initial launch.

Since then, and at key stages, the Scottish Executive has continued to consult a wide range of stakeholders, including the Scottish Refugee Council, to ensure that the materials used and the tone and focus of the messages are right. Research was undertaken shortly after the initial launch which suggested that the campaign had helped to raise people's awareness of racism as a Scottish problem. While it is recognised that changes in public awareness and attitudes will take many years, the findings were encouraging. One of the new TV adverts in the latest phase of media advertising features a refugee and his son, in order to help tackle prejudice against these groups more specifically.

As well as high profile media campaigns, there is, importantly, a supporting infrastructure of activity under the "One Scotland. Many Cultures" brand; including an interactive website, which has a section specifically on refugees, PR activity, and a wide range of practical measures that tackle racism and promote race equality. These include the Scottish Executive's Race Equality Scheme (page 72) which refers to refugees and asylum seekers particularly and places specific duties on all Departments and Executive agencies to eliminate racial discrimination and promote race equality. The Scheme includes Key Action Plans for each Department, some of which include specific commitments relating to refugees, and identify, among other things, Key Actions and outcomes. When commitments are entered in Plans, Departments are now asked to identify actual outcomes which will help to gauge whether work is helping to make real change happen on the ground. Plans are updated annually and are available on the Executive's website. The Scottish Executive is also funding awareness raising activities, including the STIC's One Workplace Equal Rights Project www.oneworkplace.co.uk , Show Racism the Red Card, and Heartstone. These projects are helping to take the anti-racist message out to schools, other young people, and workplaces. Progress reports from each of the projects are expected to include an evaluation.

The Commission for Racial Equality ( CRE) is an independent body and part of its remit is to monitor and evaluate public bodies' compliance with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act.

The Scottish Refugee Council's arts development work, funded by the Scottish Executive, has delivered anti-racist messages in Glasgow schools using drama and the arts. A play called "Washing Line of Wishes" toured Glasgow schools. It was performed by refugees and dealt with issues such as discrimination, alienation and asylum. The play was followed by an education workshop, where school children had the opportunity to explore the themes contained in the drama.

The Scottish Refugee Council is working in partnership with Show Racism the Red Card and the Scottish Professional Footballers Association to develop an education and coaching road show to tour Glasgow schools that will deliver workshops on race and refugee issues allied to a football coaching session.

Glasgow's Framework for Dialogue ( FFD) Project is continuing to receive Scottish Executive funding and in 2005 aims to link into the wider Scottish Executive remit to respond to racism. More specifically, FFD is currently attempting to establish a unified refugee position on how to tackle racism in new dispersal areas.

Essentially, all integration projects, from the youth soccer teams in Kingsway to work placement schemes, challenge racism and break down barriers which result in prejudice and discrimination. Scottish Executive funding for refugee integration projects 2005-06 has specified that projects incorporate an awareness raising element into their work-plan to increase the effect of this outcome.

Ministers and officials take every opportunity to increase awareness of successful projects we fund and promote their work as Best Practice. For example, the Minister for Communities helped launch the second phase of the New Glaswegians project, creating publicity for the project and announcing a further round of refugee integration funding.

Officials with responsibility for equality issues, in the Equality Unit and across other Scottish Executive Departments, ensure Scottish Executive policies take account of the needs of asylum seekers and refugees living in the community. Officials are also in regular contact with the Home Office and other Westminster Departments where reserved policies relating to services, such as those of the Department of Work and Pensions, may impact on integration in Scotland.

In addition, the Home Office's annual National Integration Conference has showcased a wide range of Scottish work, allowing good practice to be disseminated to a wide UK audience. In the past this has included SRIF itself and the Framework for Dialogue project run by the Scottish Refugee Council. The conference is to be held in Scotland in 2005. Moreover, the Scottish Executive's meeting with the National Refugee Integration Forum in December 2004 highlighted many areas of good practice in Scotland. The Scottish Executive is looking at ways of further promoting examples of good practice in Scotland once full evaluation of funded projects has been carried out.

Information and good practice is also shared between agencies through Scottish Refugee Council events and forums such as the West of Scotland Refugee Forum, training and stakeholder events, and information tools, leaflets and website.

Scottish organisations and service providers working with refugees and asylum seekers have shown expertise in facilitating multi-agency working and various structures have been set up to ensure multi-agency working at local and national levels. Forums meet in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh and Lothians Refugee Forum ( ELRF) brings together service providers from the public and voluntary sector in that area ensuring partnership working and shared experience of good practice. Similarly, the West of Scotland Refugee Forum and its sub-group the Community Response Co-ordinating Group have provided a structure of communication for all those involved in work with refugees and asylum seekers and encouraged a more joined up approach in Glasgow. COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seekers Consortium provides a similar structure at a national level. Scottish Executive officials attend meetings with all these groups whenever possible to keep policy making at a national level in touch with developments at a grass roots level. The meetings also provide an opportunity for Scottish Executive officials to keep grass roots organisations and service providers informed of Scottish Executive policy.

On a practical level, where service users are concerned, the Scottish Refugee Council provides a one stop shop for refugees and asylum seekers to direct them to the appropriate organisation or service, whilst taking into account and addressing language and cultural barriers at an early stage. In the Lothian area, the Edinburgh Refugee Centre, funded by Communities Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council, provides a central point of support and guidance for asylum seekers and refugees in Edinburgh, working with nine partner organisations from immigration, health, education and housing fields. Over 200 service users have visited the centre since it opened in May 2004 and Communities Scotland funding will continue into 2005-06.

At this time the Scottish Executive is not in a position to ensure that statistical and tracking information about the asylum seeker and refugee communities in Scotland is gathered at a national and local level. Officials in the Scottish Executive do not receive information or data on individual asylum seekers in Scotland. However, information about numbers of asylum seekers is obtainable from NASS. The situation with gathering statistics on refugees is practically difficult. On receiving refugee status, theoretically, the individual becomes assimilated into the general population and should not feel obliged to disclose her/his refugee status in everyday life. This makes recording information about numbers of refugees, for example passing through Job Centres, extremely difficult. The individual may be recorded as coming from a minority ethnic background but not necessarily that they arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker or refugee. Moreover, the Scottish Executive recognises that refugees might not wish to disclose information about their status.

However, the Forum recognised that this lack of management information and statistics hinders the ability of statutory and voluntary sector agencies to plan and deliver appropriate services. Home Office, health authority and local authority statistics should be cross referenced and analysed to improve understanding of refugee needs, and provide baseline management information. This need can be evidenced through the lack of housing needs assessments delivered for large refugee families which might reveal insufficient numbers of suitably large properties. Information such as this would allow Glasgow Housing Association and Local Housing Organisations to include these needs in any house building programmes, or tenancy allocation work.

Since the publication of the SRIF Action Plan, the Scottish Executive has provided over £9 million funding to improve refugee integration, including increasing access to specialist services such as translation and interpreting, legal and general advice, English classes and training courses (see also Action Point 52). For example the Community Response Co-ordinating Group ( CRCG) has been given funding in both rounds to provide extra translation and interpretation services for local networks, thereby directly increasing access to services. The Scottish Executive also provides funding to Castlemilk Churches Together Refugee Centre to run a project which assists refugees at the time of receiving a positive decision. This project provides refugees with information about training and employment in Glasgow, re-housing options and links into other services. The Scottish Executive has, over the period 2001-04, committed an additional £1.7 million annually to meet the increasing demand for ESOL courses. This went up to £2 million in 2002-04 and has now been absorbed into baseline funding.

The Scottish Refugee Council receives core funding from the Scottish Executive. It operates as the only national refugee organisation with a remit to provide generic and specialist advice services to asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow and Edinburgh on housing entitlements, the NASS system, education, employment and family reunion. In addition, the Scottish Refugee Council provides specialist services to housing and education providers, employers and legal practitioners. The Scottish Refugee Council also has a strategic role to influence and support the development of best practice in work with refugees across Scotland.

One area which may require further work is ensuring that access to specialist services meets the required standard in areas with a lower concentration of refugees. The Scottish Executive is keen to spread good practice across these areas and is willing to provide guidance and support to any local organisations wishing to tailor their service to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers. However, this is essentially for local authorities to take forward under their Race Equality Schemes.

Translation and Interpreting

The Scottish Executive Development Department has commissioned a two-stage research project to review current practice in relation to the provision of translation, interpreting and communication support ( TICS) within public services in Scotland. The research involves two key components. Firstly, an audit of TICS provision in Scotland in order to better understand the service that is currently available. Secondly, a fuller investigation of the practice of providing interpreting and translation support to users of community languages and deaf people in need of communication support. The aim of this review is to provide policy makers with a picture of the services that are currently available, while also opening up consideration of the actions that are required to help develop provision of future services.
The findings of the two-stage research project to review current practice in relation to the provision of translation, interpreting and communication support ( TICS) within public services in Scotland will bring to the fore areas which require further work, possibly such as the establishment of a national certification/accreditation body for interpreters and translators. This work will be taken forward as soon as the recommendations are received.

Funding is provided through the refugee integration fund for translation and interpreting services to refugees and asylum seekers. One recipient of the grant, Drumchapel Citizens Advice Bureau, has found this extra provision for translation and interpreting services has improved its service to asylum seekers and refugees:

"Prior to securing funding for translation services, we were having some success with benefits and enquiries, however, found interviews extremely involved and time consuming. We also were aware that we were unable to obtain all the facts, as often communications were misleading due to the language difficulties. We have found that the translation service helps clear up any misunderstandings and helps us to assist the client in all issues. The interpreter breaks down barriers and enables clients to open up more and divulge information more openly and discuss other problems that they may have. We believe it also helps build up trust and relationship with the adviser. As a result of this they tell their friends of our help and assistance and encourage them to seek our help."

Projects with a translation and interpreting focus are a funding priority for the Scottish Executive Refugee Integration Team in 2005-06.

In addition to reprinting and promoting the Scottish Translation, Interpreting and Communication Forum ( STIC) good practice guidelines the Scottish Executive is also funding the Happy to Translate logo initiative being taken forward by the Trust, Hanover (Scotland) and Bield Housing Associations. The logo will be a key tool to inform Scotland's minority ethnic communities of the obligations placed on organisations by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 to ensure they have equal access to information and services. The use of the logo by service providers in their literature, receptions and marketing materials aims to break down language barriers faced by minority ethnic communities throughout Scotland by encouraging the provision and use of quality translation and interpretation services. By doing so, it is hoped that members of minority ethnic communities, including refugees and asylum seekers, will benefit from enhanced social inclusion when service providers honour the "right to understand".

Information and Advice

Local networks and voluntary organisations have, in many areas, fulfilled the role of providing advice services and these groups are encouraged to network through forums such as the Community Responses Co-ordinating Group ( CRCG) - a thematic subgroup of the West of Scotland Refugee Forum - and Edinburgh and Lothian Refugee Forum ( ELRF). Invitations to apply for Scottish Executive Refugee Integration funding were circulated through the Edinburgh and Lothian Refugee Forum as well as Glasgow-based networks.

The Scottish Refugee Council provides a one-stop shop for refugees and asylum seekers to direct them to the appropriate organisation or service, whilst taking into account language and cultural barriers at an early stage. Over 14,000 people used the One Stop Service in 2003 and the expertise base being built up in the Department is considerable. In the Lothian area, the Edinburgh Refugee Centre, funded by the Scottish Executive and the City of Edinburgh Council, provides a central point of support and guidance for asylum seekers and refugees in Edinburgh, working with nine partner organisations from immigration, health, education and housing fields. Over 200 service users have visited the centre since it opened in May 2004 and Communities Scotland have announced funding is to continue into 2005-06.

The Scottish Refugee Council has recruited a training officer to co-ordinate the delivery of training on asylum seeker and refugee issues to a wide range of stakeholder agencies throughout Scotland. This training addresses general refugee issues and also provides courses on community development and integration, housing and welfare rights and education and employment entitlements.

The Children of Asylum Seekers and Refugees Information Service ( CARIS) website (joint project by Save the Children and Glasgow Centre for the Child and Society and part funded by the Scottish Executive) has been developed as an information base for children of asylum seekers and refugees as well as a legal resource for solicitors. The "Young People" and "Family" sections provide accessible information on living in Scotland, including where to go for legal advice, for asylum seeking children and families. The legal section provides up-to-date information for the legal profession clarifying the legal position of asylum seeking and refugee children in Scotland. The website has been developed in consultation with young people who have contributed their own ideas to the site. The material in the Young People/Family sections is being translated into languages other than English, with a target to make two alternatives available eight weeks after the main site goes live. The website was launched on 31 January 2005 by the Minister for Communities and aims to remain as up to date as possible.

Essentially, restricted recourses have meant that funding and energy spent on developing resources have been concentrated on areas with the highest demand, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Many of the local organisations have taken on this role reactively and so the services have not necessarily been duplicated elsewhere. Maryhill Citizens Advice Bureau receives Scottish Executive funding to provide support and training to Maryhill CAB staff/volunteers regarding the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. Projects such as the Maryhill Citizens Advice Bureau would be identified as an example of Good Practice for meeting the needs of asylum seekers and refugees outwith major dispersal areas. Online and printed resources, such as the CARIS website and the National Resource for Ethnic Minority Health website and information pack, are nonetheless available, and mostly relevant, nationally. Evaluation of projects funded by the Scottish Executive to provide services to asylum seekers and refugees will be carried out in 2005.

With regards to health needs specifically, research is being carried out on the health needs of asylum seekers in Glasgow. Assessment of whether these needs are adequately met or not will follow. Resource implications exist in all areas for improvement of services.

Furthermore, the Forum agreed there are still significant gaps in the delivery of appropriate training on asylum law and related matters.

Community Preparation

The Scottish Executive wrote to the Home Office and NASS on 30 April 2003 to ensure Scottish local authorities receive the right information at the right time in advance of dispersal. Officials will write again as necessary and depending on future NASS contracts in Scotland.

The £9 million provided for refugee integration (Action Point 13) is made up of
£1 million through the Scottish Executive's refugee integration fund, £3 million through Communities Scotland's allocation of funds to Glasgow Alliance and Glasgow City Council and £5.4 million for additional ESOL and vocational training provision. The increase in Communities Scotland allocation to the City Council in 2004-05 better reflects the asylum seeker and refugee populations that now reside out with designated SIP areas. The Glasgow Alliance has commissioned consultants to determine the impact of the first phase of funding. Grant was also provided through Communities Scotland to the Edinburgh Refugee Centre to meet the needs of asylum seekers and refugees in the Lothian area.

The Glasgow Alliance plays a key role in supporting frontline staff and voluntary projects involved in integration. The Glasgow Alliance is a multi-agency partnership organisation concerned with regeneration of Glasgow and its communities. Its role is to bring together public, private, voluntary and community sectors to change Glasgow for the better. Partners of the Alliance are the Scottish Executive, Communities Scotland (who also provided over £3 million funding since 2001), Glasgow City Council, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, NHS Greater Glasgow, Strathclyde Police, Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector and Scottish Business in the Community. One of the Alliance's guiding principles is to make Glasgow a more inclusive city. Working to integrate asylum seekers and refugees into local communities and providing a range of support services for them is part of this commitment. North Glasgow was one of the first areas of Scotland to receive asylum seekers and currently over 3000 asylum seekers and refugees from over 50 countries are resident in the area. As a result, the North Glasgow SIP is playing a lead role in asylum seekers initiatives in the local area and across the city and receives the largest proportion of the integration resources provided to the Alliance. Information on projects supported in North Glasgow can be found at www.northglasgowpartnership.co.uk .

The role of multi-agency forums and groups, such as the Edinburgh and Lothian Refugee Forum and the Community Response Coordinating Group, has proved essential in community preparation and was highlighted in the Building Bridges report (see bibliography) as integral to the success in the integration of asylum seekers in Scotland. The local networks are more in touch with local needs and availability of services and are better placed to provide these services where needed. The work of the local networks was found to be "highly responsive" to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees and highlighted church drop-ins as playing a particularly key role.

The Scottish Refugee Council delivers a portfolio of integration services including housing and move on advice for new refugees, a family reunion service, careers guidance services and general advice. In addition, the agency works collaboratively with most stakeholders on integration initiatives in Scotland.

Action for Training and Learning for Asylum Seekers ( ATLAS), funded through European EQUAL programme and Glasgow City Council, has provided £1 million for 29 projects in Scotland to provide innovation in the integration and training of asylum seekers, thereby enabling asylum seekers who become refugees to gain more rapid transition into work. The partnership has received positive evaluations and some ATLAS projects are now being identified as best practice on a European level. Many of the projects in the partnership did not have previous experience of work with asylum seekers. The partnership approach taken by ATLAS enabled projects to learn from, support and complement each other. ATLAS has been approved to develop further innovative projects for asylum seekers under Round 2 of Equal from June 2005. An outline of the work done by the 29 projects can be found at Appendix II.

Integration work is being taken forward elsewhere in Scotland, for example, a multi-agency group has been set up in Dingwall (Highland Council) to work with refugees who have sought employment in the area. The multi-agency group includes the local authority, health service, police, employers and the refugees themselves. Together they are working to improve access to services, community safety, general health and safety and issues relating to driving.

Action 14 suggested partnerships take a strategic approach to supporting front line staff and volunteers. The COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seekers Consortium provides support of this kind in the form of training, seminars, briefings, workshops, provision of information, problem solving, advice and assistance relating to both legislative and policy changes. Furthermore, as discussed in Action 13, Glasgow Alliance and Glasgow City Council are ensuring a strategic approach is taken to the deployment of resources across the city, to provide the most effective support to frontline staff and volunteers involved in integration. The Forum felt, however, that a gap exists in terms of a strategic body of senior officers to oversee the delivery of staff support and services.

Positive Images, Community Development and the Media

The actions contained within this section related to addressing negative media coverage of asylum seekers and refugees, the need for community development work in areas where refugees and asylum seekers live and the need for race equality schemes to address refugee issues.

Action 15 called for national and local politicians to take a role in promoting refugee integration by targeting key opinion formers in the media. Scottish Executive Ministers take every reasonable opportunity to re-affirm the Executive's commitment to supporting integration and promote a positive image of refugees and their host communities. Some local politicians are active in promoting positive messages at a local authority level and some are on CRASC's working group. However, the Executive has no power over the message given out by local politicians. The Forum agreed that it would be beneficial to look at ways of encouraging these positive messages to be disseminated at a local level.

Oxfam's Positive Images project undertook a number of activities in 2004 designed to monitor media reporting of asylum in the Scottish print media, gauge public and political perceptions of asylum and consult with people seeking asylum regarding their views of media reporting. The information was required to provide a baseline of evidence and understanding of the situation in Scotland, with a view to developing a programme of work that would seek to influence public perceptions of asylum in a positive way. The multi-agency steering group brings together people from refugee community organisations, the voluntary sector, academics, journalists and the public sector, including the Scottish Executive.

MORI Scotland were commissioned by the group to conduct a survey of Scottish adults aged 16 and over. The public opinion report showed that the media is the most common source of information on the issue of asylum. However, given the importance of the media as a source of information, only 27% thought that most reporting of asylum issues by newspapers is fair and accurate, the majority of those interviewed, 51%, disagreed.

The research also suggested a degree of confusion surrounding asylum issues: while 64% agreed that Scotland should offer a safe haven to people fleeing persecution only 11% used the word "welcome" in association with asylum seekers. Only 16% however, used the term illegal immigrants. It is unclear whether these views apply to refugees as well as asylum seekers. The results suggest that further work on positive images and education of the public, in terms of the global picture, would be beneficial to refugee integration. The MORI poll included a second survey of 64 MSPs to find out their own attitudes and those raised by their constituents.

The media-monitoring aspect initially showed positive stories about integration were difficult to locate. The findings are to be published by Oxfam in early 2005.

The Positive Images group held an event in November as a starting point for increased communication between the media and asylum seekers and refugee organisations. This was seen to be an important step in encouraging accurate reporting in asylum and refugee issues as increased communication between refugee groups and the press may work towards more positive news stories being written about refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland. Oxfam's Positive Images group hope to take this work further. It is also worth noting that the Press Complaints Commission recently told all newspapers that the phrase "illegal asylum seeker" is legally inaccurate and should no longer be used.

The Scottish Refugee Council has developed a Media Group of refugees and asylum seekers receiving regular training and one to one support in both print and broadcast media. This has increased the capacity of refugees and asylum seekers to respond to media requests for comment and to visit newspaper editors to explain why inflammatory coverage is so damaging. This programme will continue through 2005. The Scottish Refugee Council also runs a rapid response e-mail group briefed to write letters to editors in response to negative media coverage.

Refugee Week provides an annual opportunity to deliver positive messages nationally and promote the work that is being done on integration in Scotland. This year the week will take place from 20 to 26 June. The appointment of a full-time
co-ordinator for Refugee Week in Scotland by the Scottish Refugee Council has significantly increased the number of organisations already committed to support Refugee Week 2005. There will be significant expansion beyond the Central Belt with a major schools project being carried out in partnership with Save the Children Scotland and IDEAS. Planned events already exceed the 2004 programme, which included 43 events and attracted 40,000 people, and the increased media capacity of the members of the Scottish Steering Group will ensure increased media coverage. Planned events for Refugee Week 2005 include the production of a 35-page resource pack distributed to 360 schools across Scotland, an employment event targeting employers and refugees and in partnership with Job Centre Plus and the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, a midsummer carnival and community arts workshops.

The CARIS (Child Asylum and Refugee Information Service) website also aims to promote a positive image of young asylum seekers and refugees. http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/caris/young/yp_top.htm

Funding for the Scottish Refugee Council's Framework for Dialogue Project was extended in 2004 and 2005. The project works alongside other key Scottish Refugee Council community development initiatives such as the Refugee Community Organisation ( RCO) Development Project. This project was awarded Beacon Status in an independent evaluation carried out for the Home Office. The partners that work with the Scottish Refugee Council on community development are local host community networks, Refugee Community Organisations, Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Executive. Reports show that the Framework for Dialogue ( FFD) project is successfully laying the foundations of dialogue and establishing the lines of communication necessary to support refugees into host communities and achieve integration. Consultation events at the beginning of the programme reached out to around 500 volunteers from refugee and host communities. In addition to agenda setting, many of the volunteers have stayed involved and a full analytical report is currently being produced outlining the outcome of these events. The local consultative structures which emerged as a result have refined their agendas, built up their capacity of knowledge and skills, engaged with a range of service providers to raise local issues of concern, for example a range of meetings with the police regarding the way racist interviews are dealt with in some cases leading to drop-in surgeries being established by the police.

The direction of FFD work during 2005 will be to consolidate the work so far and to develop a strategic response to issues of policy, law and social cohesion. This includes linking the FFD with the wider Scottish Executive remit to respond to racism. In summary:

• local FFD groups will continue to build bridges with host communities in seven dispersal neighbourhoods. This is being carried out by involving refugees and asylum seekers in planning and delivering work which leads to refugee integration, and in tackling issues that affect the wider community;
• across Glasgow, FFD groups will work collaboratively with Refugee Community Organisations to tackle issues of broader concern to refugees in Scotland. These include access to specialist services; the operation of the UK asylum system; and
• supported by the Scottish Refugee Council community development team, the FFD initiative will seek to take forward wider objectives to mainstream knowledge and skills in engaging with refugee communities, and to contribute to the development of a UK strategy to deliver refugee integration and community cohesion.

Housing

The Forum recommended a number of changes to housing legislation and guidance to ensure the needs of refugees are being met. These have now been made and can be found in detail in the table under Key Action 22. In practice this should mean that when local authorities are developing their housing and homelessness strategies the needs of refugees are taken into account routinely, along with the needs of other sections of the community; and that when a person with refugee status in Scotland looks for a home, or considers moving home, he or she knows they have the same choices and opportunities as everyone else.

In Action 26 the Forum recognised that the need for the right information at the right time and in the right format was crucial to allowing people who received a positive decision on asylum claims to act quickly and effectively to find a suitable home for themselves and their families. The Scottish Executive worked with Communities Scotland who in turn received help from a number of voluntary bodies to produce a model "Welcome Pack" to assist local authorities to ensure this happened. The Communities Scotland "Welcome Pack" (separate to the British Red Cross Welcome Pack which is for service users rather than providers) contains information, or pointers to the source of information, on housing and welfare benefits, education, health, getting into work and a number of other related topics. It is anticipated that the pack will act as a checklist for local authorities with the necessary information tailored to their local area.

Information often needs to be supplemented by advice and support, as reflected in Action 21. The Scottish Refugee Council are funded by the Scottish Executive Housing Department to:

Over the last two years the Scottish Executive has contributed funding to Positive Action in Housing to support their Frontline Housing Advisory Service. Positive Action in Housing is a Scottish wide Glasgow based minority-ethnic led charity whose mission is that everyone should have an equal chance to live in good quality, affordable and safe homes, free from discrimination and the fear of racial harassment and violence. Scottish Executive funding enables them to provide an outreach service for refugees in need of advice and support with housing related issues. Between March 2003 and April 2004 they helped 390 people, about a third of whom were refugees, with problems ranging from homelessness, overcrowding and racial harassment to debt, health problems, and social isolation. The Frontline Housing Advisory Service is currently being evaluated by Colin Hann Associates and the report is due shortly. It is hoped this will enable other organisations to learn from Positive Action in Housing's experiences in helping this section of the community.

The Scottish Executive has also commissioned Michael Bell Associates to look at the housing and support needs of refugees both recently arrived and those who may have been in Scotland for some time. This research is nearing completion and a report should be available by the summer of 2005. The aim is to produce a model service specification which will outline how the varying needs of refugees can be met. It is intended that the outcome should be a practical document which will help ensure that the housing and support needs of refugees, whether they are needs shared with other members of the community or are specific to their experiences as refugees, will be met in appropriate and sensitive ways.
(Actions 23 and 24). For the future it is anticipated that approximately a year after publication an assessment will be made of the use of the service specification, along with a wider assessment of service provision across relevant parts of Scotland and an evaluation of how comprehensive and appropriate these are.

The Scottish Executive provides comprehensive funding for the Scottish Refugee Council's housing advice and development work. This service delivers direct support and advice to 700 refugees per annum in addition to a range of development, advice and capacity building services to housing providers and advice agencies throughout Scotland.

Justice, Community Safety and Access to Justice

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 made provisions to:

Key bodies, including the Scottish Executive, had to draw up a race equality scheme, setting out which of its public functions are relevant to the duty. It also required bodies to set out its arrangements for:

Under this structure, the civil and criminal justice systems should be assessing the relevance of all their functions, services and policies in relation to ethnic minorities and refugees as outlined in Action 27.

Action 28 called for a review of the regulations on advice and assistance to ensure that they adequately reflect the work involved in dealing with asylum applications. This was not taken forward as a separate exercise. However, ongoing discussions between the Scottish Executive, Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Law Society of Scotland on reform of advice and assistance resulted in the publication of a general consultation paper on a number of proposed changes to the advice and assistance system which was issued in early December 2004. This asked in particular about the implications of advice and assistance for ethnic minorities. The Commission for Racial Equality, the Glasgow Immigration Practitioners' Group, the Immigration Advisory Service and the Scottish Refugee Council were consulted.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board ( SLAB) has issued guidance to solicitors about charging for immigration and asylum work and, following consultation with immigration practitioners, developed templates which simplified the process of seeking increases in authorised expenditure in Advice and Assistance and ABWOR cases. These were launched in August 2003 aiming to ease administration burdens.

With effect from 8 July 2002, and following discussions with the Scottish Executive, SLAB introduced an administrative scheme for Advice and Assistance whereby a solicitor can seek reimbursement of outlays incurred before the case finishes. This applies to cases where there is no potential for the applicant to recover or preserve property, since section 12(3) of the Legal Aid Act 1986 requires the solicitor to seek payment of his bill out of such property. This scheme has the practical benefit in an asylum case that where the solicitor instructs and pays an interpreter or translator, he/she can ask SLAB to reimburse that outlay, provided it exceeds £100. This assists the solicitor with cash flow, since interpreters' fees can be expensive, and the solicitor would otherwise have to wait until the end of the case to be paid.

It is worth noting that all Advice and Assistance and ABWOR on civil matters (including asylum, immigration and nationality) was subject to an increase in the initial limit of authorised expenditure and levels of fees from 28 June 2004.

The Forum suggested that the recently-introduced system of peer review for civil legal aid work requires to be assessed in terms of its effectiveness in asylum and immigration law work.

In response to Action 29 the Scottish Executive provided funding for 70 places at Law Society Training in 2003. As only 24 places were taken up this scheme was not continued into 2004. Should a greater demand for this scheme become apparent the Scottish Executive would consider funding a similar project in the future. The Scottish Executive also provided funding to the Ethnic Minority Law Centre and Legal Services Agency to allow each body to appoint a trainee solicitor. Both agencies also offer training on asylum and immigration. The Ethnic Minorities Law Centre and Castlemilk Law Centre are funded to organise an information and education asylum "roadshow" and to provide training on the legal process and access to those directly involved in the system. SLAB is also running a pilot project in Glasgow under Part V of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 to provide legal advice on asylum. However, the Scottish Refugee Council recommends that research and assessment on the effectiveness and capacity of Part V funded projects to deliver training should be carried out. The Scottish Refugee Council's review of legal services in Scotland, carried out during 2004, identified significant gaps in training and knowledge on primary asylum law work, and in issues such as cultural sensitivity and using interpreters.

The question of advice provision by local authorities (Action 30) will be covered in the follow-up to the Strategic Review of the Delivery of Legal Aid, Advice and Information, on which the Justice Department hope to issue a consultation paper in 2005. The Strategic Review team engaged with immigration practitioners and other stakeholders (such as the CRE and Scottish Refugee Council) when preparing its report.

Taking forward Action 31, the Gorbals Initiative received Scottish Executive funding in 2003-04 and 2004-05 to establish a community advocacy resource involving asylum seekers and refugees and the host communities. Evaluation of the resource will be carried out in 2005.

Implementation of Action 32 should fall to local authorities as the Scottish Executive does not specify the issues which must be addressed within local community safety strategies. It is for each community safety partnership to undertake an audit and community consultation to identify local community safety priorities. Community Safety strategies were provided on 31 January 2003 as part of the application process for Community Safety Partnership Award Programme. However, in March 2003 the Scottish Executive highlighted the report's recommendations to every community safety partnership.

To implement Action 33, the Scottish Executive has provided funding for a number of integration projects working with young people such as Kingsway Court soccer teams and Operation Reclaim to help tackle prejudices and racist attitudes. The STIC's One Workplace Equal Rights Project, Show Racism the Red Card, and Heartstone are all helping to take the anti-racist message out to schools, other young people, and workplaces.

The implementation of some of the Key Actions in the Children's Services section have been mainstreamed into general policies aiming to ensure children's individual needs are met in schools. Whilst mainstreaming is effective in the sense that it ensures sustainability of policies, the Forum recognised that specialist mechanisms were originally envisioned for meeting the needs of asylum seekers and refugee children. However, it should be recognised that some of these actions need to be implemented by local authorities and the Scottish Executive is looking into ways of ensuring this is taken account of.

The Forum was reconvened to discuss this progress report in February 2005 and the issue of unaccompanied asylum seeker children was raised. This subject is dealt with in the Way Forward section of this report.

Local authorities and their local partners have a statutory duty to prepare Children's Services Plans for their areas, as advised in Action 34. The Plans should take account of the full range of issues relevant to the needs of all vulnerable, deprived or disadvantaged children and young people. This should include issues facing asylum seekers and refugees.

Revised Scottish Executive guidance was issued in October 2004 for Integrated Children's Service Plans 2005-08. A section covers mainstreaming equality and though it doesn't specifically refer to asylum seekers or refugees in the text there is reference to race/culture. It reads "Children's Services Plans should reflect local activity to mainstream equality and diversity for children, young people and their families. The new integrated plans will combine the following existing core statutory and other planning requirements into a single Plan:

Under Action 35, local agencies should already ensure that children, young people and parents are consulted in preparing their local Children's Service Plans. Local agencies should ensure that effective arrangements are in place to consider the views of different interests, including children and parents from minority ethnic backgrounds. Engagement with children, young people and their families is covered in the integrated children's services planning guidance.

The Scottish Executive's Education Department is currently piloting Personal Learning Plans which aim to meet much of the needs outlined in Action 36.
The overall aim of a Personal Learning Plan is to support increased achievement and maximise personal development. They are important in matching individual and learning needs to strategies for individual development and programmes of learning. They embody concepts of self evaluation, self assessment, cooperative planning, target-setting and monitoring.

The Executive has been developing, piloting and evaluating Personal Learning Plans since 2000 as part of the "Assessment is for Learning" development programme, building on previous work in New Community Schools (now Integrated Community Schools). In 2004-05, groups of schools in all local authorities are taking part in further piloting of the personal learning planning process, developing local approaches around a common framework. The aim of this second phase of work is to reflect best practice from the previous work, encourage pupils to take a fuller part in managing and evaluating their own learning, engage parents and carers as partners in the planning process, and improve the quality of information about young people's learning for all involved, regardless of age, stage or circumstances. Personal Learning Planning will draw together the diverse arrangements for progress planning, reporting and recording which currently include report cards, Individualised Educational Programme, transition records and Progress Files. This will help in identifying and addressing any barriers to learning. The Scottish Executive believes that Personal Learning Planning will provide an effective basis for meeting the specific needs of asylum seeker and refugee children, while cutting down on bureaucracy, maintaining consistency and limiting the number of plans for each child.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 introduces a new framework built around the concept of additional support needs. This new concept will apply to any child or young person who, for whatever reason, requires additional support, long or short term, in order to help them make the most of their education. A child whose first language is not English may require additional support to help them access the curriculum until any difficulties with English are overcome. A new Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP) will be introduced for those pupils whose enduring additional support needs arise from complex or multiple factors and who require a range of support from outside education.

The Standard for Initial Teacher Education in Scotland has been prepared as one part of the arrangements for a collaborative approach to assuring and enhancing the quality and standards of Initial Teacher Education ( ITE) in Scotland. The document has been prepared by a group of ITE specialists drawn from higher education institutions, the GTCS, local authorities, schools and HMI, and with an observer from QAA (Action 37).

The Standard for Initial Teacher Education ( ITE) in Scotland (October 2000) includes benchmarks relating to inclusion, which are directly relevant to the children of refugees and asylum seekers. For example, students should "demonstrate an understanding of the principles of equality of opportunity and social justice and of the need for anti-discriminatory practices."; new teachers should be able to "demonstrate that they value and promote fairness and justice and adopt anti-discriminatory practices in respect of gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, age, religion and culture."

The Standard for Full Registration, against which probationary teachers are measured for full registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland ( GTC), contains competences corresponding to the standard of ITE, for example, that registered teachers possess sensitive and positive attitudes towards differences among pupils and show, in their day-to-day practice, a commitment to social justice and inclusion.

Under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 ( RRAA) and the subsequent Specific Duties (Scotland) Order 2002, every Local Authority has a general duty to promote race equality. They also have a specific duty to have in place a written race equality policy and have arrangements for schools to assess and monitor impact of their policies. They must also ensure that schools maintain a copy of the Race Equality Policy. The Commission for Race Equality ( CRE) are legally empowered to promote and enforce the RRAA. And since it came into force, CRE Scotland has been working with Education Authorities to help them understand and meet their duties.

The Scottish Executive's Education Department (SEED) are in the process of commissioning a project that will provide assistance to local authorities in meeting their duties through offering training and preparing guidance. Furthermore, at the suggestion of the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum, this report will be circulated to all public bodies, including training institutions, in time for the revisiting of Race Equality Schemes.

Action 38 was also mainstreamed in the sense that all organisations should, as a matter of course, ensure that the information they produce for the public is easily understood and is accessible as far as possible. In line with this, a series of equality in education projects that Scottish Executive Education Department will commission contains guidance ensuring that "any research paper or information released is accessible, understood and comprehensive".

(Action 39) The actual responsibilities for providing English as an Additional Language ( EAL) support devolves on to the 32 local education authorities although they receive designated funds from the Scottish Executive. In order to better monitor numbers of EAL teachers from September 2003, the Executive collected information on teachers' qualifications in teaching English as an Additional Language.

The issue of monitoring the number of, in relation to demand of, bilingual teachers, is more problematic as ethnicity data does not identify the linguistic group a teacher is from.

Following the Scottish Executive response to the report of the Action Group for Languages Citizens of a Multi Lingual World the funding for Modern Language Education (around £4 million) can be used for teaching community languages and not just French, German, Spanish and Italian. That report also recognised the support for the mother tongue was important in general language development as well as for issues such as self-esteem. Some of the evidence gathered during preparation of the report indicated that the majority of support for the mother tongue is delivered in community/and or religious settings rather than in schools. It may therefore be that language support might be best offered from within the community, albeit schools and local authorities should be looking to see what kinds of additional support can be offered, e.g. in making available school resources or facilities, or in employing people from the community as classroom assistants to support the work of qualified teachers. The Executive is in discussion with the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland regarding the production of a document to give guidance on good practice in this area.

The Scottish Executive Education Department is in the process of completing a leaflet entitled Education Guide for Asylum Seekers and Refugees as suggested in

Action 40. This is a comprehensive guide that will offer details on school education in Scotland, also informing where support and guidance can be obtained. The leaflet will be widely distributed and will be available in a number of languages relevant to the asylum seeker/refugee community in Scotland.

The CARIS (Child Asylum and Refugee Information Service) website, a joint project by Save the Children and Glasgow Centre for the Child and Society and part funded by the Scottish Executive, has been developed as an information base for children of asylum seekers and refugees as well as a legal resource for solicitors. The "Young People" and "Family" sections provide accessible information on living in Scotland including where to go for legal advice, for asylum-seeking children and families. The legal section provides up to date information for the legal profession clarifying the legal position of asylum seeking and refugee children in Scotland. The website has been developed in consultation with young people who have contributed their own ideas to the site. The material in the Young People/Family section is being translated into languages other than English, with a target to make two alternatives available eight weeks after the main site goes live. The website was launched on 31 January 2005 by the Minister for Communities. The site has been written with the needs of unaccompanied asylum seeking children in mind as well as those in families. Unaccompanied asylum seeing children will find the answers to questions relevant to them and information on where to go for support. The website can be found at the following address: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/caris/young/yp_top.htm .

The Scottish Executive Education Department will also shortly look to commission a research project that will analyse the educational experiences of the children of asylum seekers in Scottish schools. It is the intention to commence the research phase in January 2005 and look to release findings later that year. The findings will inform future Scottish Executive Education Department policy in this area.

The Glasgow Centre for the Child and Society, University of Glasgow, funded by the Scottish Refugee Council, are carrying out a qualitative study that seeks to explore the services provided for unaccompanied asylum seeking children and young people in Scotland, as well as the experiences, needs and aspirations of the young people themselves. This one-year project (January-December 2005) will involve consulting service providers and young people, exploring in particular:

Given that there is little information available about the services available for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people in Scotland, this project is essentially a scoping study that will identify the range of services available, as well as any strengths and weaknesses in such services. Most directly, this project will better inform the future policies and practices of the Scottish Refugee Council, highlighting examples of best practice as well as any deficiencies in service provision.

The statutory costs of educating asylum-seeker children are not met by NASS (Action 41). The revenue grant awarded to local authorities supports around 80% of local authorities current expenditure, with the remainder funded largely from local taxation. It is granted using a needs-based formula. The GAE total is the amount that the Government thinks local authorities need to spend on the provision of services. Local authorities are free to spend either more, or less, on a particular service. They have to make funding decisions that reflect local needs and priorities. The councils remain answerable to the electorate for any decisions that they make. The COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seeker Consortium has formally requested the Scottish Executive to ensure parity between Scotland and England and Wales in relation to the support available. Ministers have offered an additional fund of £1 million in 2005-06 in recognition of the work Glasgow is doing on asylum seeker and refugee integration and the costs associated with that.

In terms of wider policy issues this action is fairly wide and complicated for the Scottish Executive to take forward. This action point requires to be looked at again and if necessary taken forward with a new angle. The Scottish Executive's Schools Group have agreed to look at this action again in consultation with the Equality Unit.

Action 42 should also be implemented by local authorities. Community learning and development describes a way of working with and supporting communities. The aim is to help individuals and communities tackle real issues in their lives through community action and community-based learning.

All local authorities have Community Learning and Development ( CLD) Strategies which set a framework for Community Learning and Development Action Plans. These strategies and Key Action plans contain details of what CLD activities/ development are to take place with young people. The guidance for producing strategies indicated that CLD partnerships should target CLD support to disadvantaged individuals, groups and communities, which would include refugees and asylum seekers. Also, the steer for which issues should be focused on should be based on a dialogue with local communities, and a needs assessment of the area. By implication those areas containing a high number of asylum seekers and refugees are likely to be the focus of some CLD work.

Action 43 advised the Scottish Executive to draw up guidance on Children's Services funding. The Education Department did not take this action forward as local authorities make funding decisions autonomously based on local needs.

Health and Social Care

Scottish Executive officials remain in close contact with National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health ( NRCEMH) who have been taking forward the SRIF Actions identified by the Health sub-group. Resources developed by NRCEMH, such as the online information pack, can be used by Health professionals all over Scotland as a training guide and reference point.

Research seeking to quantify the health needs of asylum seekers and refugees is currently being carried out in one Local Health Centre in Glasgow working with asylum seekers. The research aims to identify barriers and support available to them and to elicit the views of health care professionals in providing that care. Joint collaborative work is being carried out through NRCEMH and the Travel Medicine Section of Health Scotland following 50 families, assessing their health needs and revisiting the families after six months to reassess if their health or social needs have changed.

Following the SRIF report, and with specific relevance to Action 44, initial funding to NRCEMH from the Scottish Executive Health Department, followed by an extension of a grant through the Scottish Executive Health Department Health Improvement Process, has led to the consolidation of specific initiatives which will be of value to staff and users alike. A formal launch is expected in April 2006. From an operational perspective the funding for general medical services and interpretation lies with Greater Glasgow NHS Board. This arrangement is now being reviewed. In terms of social care there is considerable emphasis from the voluntary sector.

NRCEMH is a partnership working on a multi-agency basis and there is a sharing of good practice where appropriate. All asylum seekers and refugees are informed about the registration process within primary care and available services. Current work is ongoing with home safety information with Strathclyde Fire Service. The " Welcome to Glasgow" Guide for new arrivals and refugees, published by the British Red Cross gives basic information about health services in Glasgow. Minority Ethnic Health Inclusion Project ( MEHIP) (NHS Lothian) provide information and advice on health services and a multi-lingual link worker/advocacy service.

Training for frontline staff (Action 46) is available through NRCEMH with almost 2000 staff now trained within Greater Glasgow. Further collaboration takes place in teaching institutions.

An Asylum Seekers/Refugee Training Programme for cultural awareness and mental health understanding (COMPASS Programme) is available for staff within Primary Care Division in Greater Glasgow NHS (Action 47). Visits from Professional Bodies such as Royal College of Nursing have taken place.

A Roundtable National Network meeting was held to gauge perception views and
needs of asylum seekers and refugees. Following from it a series of posters and leaflets are at the planning stage to develop awareness and to raise the issues for health professionals.

In compliance with Action 48, NRCEMH are continuing to input to seminars and conferences at local and national levels so that information, good practices and learning on issues and needs of asylum seekers and refugees is promoted.
A paper on Good Practice Integration has been delivered at various conferences on asylum including the Nurses Conference on Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Sheffield in January. NRCEMH held a seminar in January 2005 for Home Office colleagues setting up an accommodation Centre in Bicester. Good practice was shared on providing suitable health and social care service, translation and interpretation services, mental health provision and co-ordinating services. Joint collaborative work is underway on a surveillance system between the NRCEMH and "Health Protection Scotland" which includes a follow up of 50 asylum seekers and refugees on arrival and after six months.

Enterprise, Lifelong Learning, Employment and Training

The European Commission's first Annual Report on Immigration and Integration highlighted employability as one of the key crucial aspects of integration among non-EU nationals ( European Handbook on Integration _ see bibliography). Studies in Scotland, such as the Skills Audit, supported by the Scottish Executive (see bibliography) show that this is one area which poses particular challenges and barriers for refugees. In recognition of this, and in addition to the many threads of work being carried out in this area outlined below, the Scottish Executive's refugee fund 2005-06 will focus particularly on projects with an employability theme.

Since the publication of the SRIF Action Plan, the UK Government has withdrawn asylum seekers' automatic right to apply for permission to work after six months. Refugees can participate in New Deal as soon as their National Insurance number has been received. The National Insurance number gives refugees unequivocal proof of permission to work (Action 57). New measures are currently being put in place to make sure this happens as soon as a positive decision has been made. However, figures for numbers of refugees using schemes such as the New Deal are not robust as refugees are not obliged to advise their status when taking part in these programmes.

The progress highlighted in this section has been managed within the responsibilities devolved to Scottish Ministers. Some of the Actions relating to employability are reserved to the Department for Work and Pensions. Consequently, Equality Unit officials have taken steps to ensure they are consulted on the development of the national employability strategy so that particular needs in Scotland are accounted for. This strategy encompasses many areas which could directly benefit refugees looking for employment and affects services provided by Job Centre Plus. It was published in March 2005.

In response to Action 51, the Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department in conjunction with Learning Connections (Communities Scotland) commissioned a research exercise to map ESOL provision across Scotland. Concurrently, the Department also appointed an ESOL steering group, chaired by a member of HM Inspectorate of Education and composed of a number of ESOL practitioners (from Further Education colleges and community education) along with representatives from the Scottish Refugee Council, the SQA, and Communities Scotland, to oversee the project and, informed by the research and their own deliberations, produce a series of their own recommendations.

The report identified over 9,000 learners enrolled in around 900 ESOL classes or home tutor arrangements in 2003-04. Four-fifths attended classes delivered by Further Education (FE) Colleges. The report highlighted that waiting lists are common in Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere, and learners sometimes have to wait several months before being able to join a class. This suggests a fairly widespread shortage of provision and of support. A full version of the report can be found online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/about/ASD/CSU/00017534/ELL-p.aspx The report along with the recommendations of the ESOL steering group will inform the formulation of an ESOL strategy for Scotland which will be overseen by a strategy group and completed by summer 2006. This process will include a four-month public consultation on the document between summer and autumn. In the meantime, the Scottish Executive has, over the period 2001-04, committed an additional £1.7 million annually to meet the demand for more ESOL in Scottish FE Colleges, particularly in Glasgow. This was subsequently increased to £2 million annually in 2002-04. From 2004-05, this £2 million will be embedded in Further Education baseline funding.

Action 53 was met soon after the publication of the Action Plan when the Scottish Further Education Funding Council agreed that Further Education colleges should have discretion to accept asylum seekers as funded students on part-time Higher National courses, and that they are eligible to claim fee-waiver grant for them. Guidance was also issued to the Student Awards Agency for Scotland to ensure that asylum seekers attending these courses are eligible for hardship support in respect of the provision of course books and (where considered appropriate) travel passes.

Accreditation is proving to be one of the major stumbling blocks in helping refugees access work. Without some form of professional accreditation, it is extremely difficult for a refugee tradesperson to work at the level appropriate to their skill and experience. Although NARIC (National Recognition Information Centre for the UK) offers general comparability information for international qualifications it is expensive for refugees to access. Furthermore, New Roots Scotland has carried out an audit through Universities of Scotland of Higher Educational Establishments use of NARIC regarding academic qualifications and a full report will be available soon. New Roots Scotland has also set up an accreditation subgroup with the view of developing an alternative accreditation route applicable to refugees and overseas workers generally.

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework is providing a new way of comparing qualifications in Scotland. It has only just begun to credit rate qualifications/learning programmes outwith the mainstream SQA and HEI ones, so this credit rating service is in the early stages but has potential for international qualifications. Again, the service is expensive for Scottish qualifications and so is expected to be more so for international ones. Anniesland College is developing an accreditation model that aims to establish it as a centre for accrediting practical skills and a "lead centre" for recognising educational and employment skills among younger asylum seekers (16-18 years). The development of this model aims to ensure that those asylum seekers who already have skills can have these recognised and receive further vocational training, thereby preparing them for employment. College staff act as mentors as the participants go through the training, and links have been made with other projects within the partnership who are involved in activities such as work shadowing.

Projects such as the OTAR, PEPE and the Refugee Doctors Programme (described in more detail below) provide avenues for accreditation (Action 54) and training routes to employment (Action 55).

With regards to preparing for employment, Action 55, Jobcentre Plus offices in Glasgow now have named contacts for refugee work and Jobcentre Plus is represented on local committees and the West of Scotland Refugee Forum.
The Ethnic Minority Enterprise Centre has been awarded a contract to provide outreach services in Glasgow. Their objective is to encourage people to obtain work or access Jobcentre Plus offices, will be reflected in a number of targets. This provision is in place for 18 months from October 2004. A consultant has been appointed to encourage minority ethnic communities to use the Jobcentre Plus services. This should help inform the direction of future services. At a regional level, Jobcentre Plus has engaged a Minority Ethnic Development Officer with Glasgow having a Minority Ethnic Outreach worker.

There are a range of appropriate provisions more specifically tailored to help remove barriers to employment for refugees, including basic skills. In Glasgow, this includes ESOL courses at Anniesland College (Anniesland College have a Basic Skills New Deal contract which covers ESOL). Currently, there are no waiting lists for this provision.

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce's New Glaswegians project is supported by the Scottish Executive and has run in two strains; "Supported Professional Development" is designed to assist professionally qualified refugees into the labour market and "New Skills for New Glaswegians" focuses on assisting the integration of semi-skilled and manual refugees into the labour market. Both projects are underpinned by a marketing campaign aimed at raising employer awareness of the potential that exists in the refugee community. This campaign takes the form of seminars to employers and trade unions and an information pack for employers which identify legal issues, myths and facts, benefits of refugees' skills to employers and case studies of refugees who are contributing to their employers' businesses.
The impact of this project will be examined in 2005.

On a more local scale and following a successful pilot, Maryhill Citizens Advice Bureau are funded by the Scottish Executive to run a project to recruit and train asylum seekers and refugees to become volunteer advice workers. The project also aims to provide support and training to Maryhill CAB staff/volunteers regarding the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.

The Bridges Project, the first work shadowing scheme for asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland, run by the Institute for Contemporary Scotland with the support of the Scottish Executive, allows asylum seekers to gain first hand experience of a Scottish workplace and facilitates integration as it allows different communities to work together. All placements are fully monitored and are for initial period of 12 weeks, although many have been extended. Mentoring and coaching are provided and on completion of the placement, a certificate is awarded and a reference is available where appropriate. There are 35 corporate partners involved with the project and companies are now approaching Bridges to arrange potential placements.

The Bridges Project has partnered with Anniesland College, CITEC, The Construction Academy, Glasgow City Council, Laing O'Rourke Scotland, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and Stow College, to create a training and employment route for refugee tradespersons called OTAR (Overseas Trade Assessment and Reskilling). Without some form of professional accreditation, it is extremely difficult for a refugee tradesperson to work at the level appropriate to their skill and experience. This course is designed to fast track refugees through Scottish tests, up-skill where necessary, and finally send refugees to employers with both recognised accreditation and vital knowledge about the working practices of the Scottish construction industry. The course is currently open to refugees with permission to work who have skills in a trade discipline, such as electricians, joiners/carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, painter/decorators, tilers and welders. The programme takes clients through general construction training, trade specific assessment of skill level and job preparation.

The Bridges project also runs PEPE (Pathways to Employment for Professional Engineers) which is an MSc in sustainable engineering for graduate engineers at the University of Strathclyde. This MSc is very work based and aims to ensure participants access employment at the appropriate level at the end of it. PEPE mark II is currently in development which will be in association with the appropriate Professional Institutes for engineers, civil, mechanical, electrical and architects.
It will aim through a mixture of work placements and specialised training to give all participants either chartered or incorporated status.

Glasgow Overseas Professionals into Practice ( GOPIP) was set up by Glasgow Caledonian University in October 2002 in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Community Health (NMCH). The project developed in response to the shortage of nurses in the NHS in Scotland, recognition of the skills and nursing expertise of refugees in Scotland and a corresponding need for clinical and academic supervision in order to successfully adapt these nurses' skills. GOPIP has a Scotland-wide remit and is jointly funded by NHS Education Scotland (NES) and Queens Nursing Institute Scotland (QNIS). The Refugee Doctors Programme is under review to ensure clients can access employment level on an equal footing to other graduates.

In September 2004, the University of Strathclyde and partners' REMIT (Recruitment of Ethnic Minorities Into Teaching) programme was awarded a ¤75,000 grant from the Home Office European Refugee Fund to appoint an advisory worker to co-ordinate a project to establish a detailed register/database of refugee teachers in the West of Scotland including data collected through an audit of their qualifications, skills and experience. Through close liaison with the General Teaching Council Scotland ( GTCS), the requirements which each individual has to meet in order to join the profession in Scotland will firstly be identified and secondly be provided, where possible, by the project. This will include the development and provision of an adaptation course on the Scottish education system, tailor made to be subject specific where necessary, the development of a mentoring scheme (drawing on the experience of the Bridges Project) and support for ESOL. The worker will be based at the University of Strathclyde. The project is managed by a steering group consisting of representatives of each of the partners and at least three refugee teachers. Research will be carried out which will evaluate the effectiveness of the programme from the perspective of all stakeholders: the teachers themselves, the GTCS, the employers and the schools.

The Scottish Executive has been asked to provide input to a new group called New Roots Scotland. Previously working together as the Employment and Training Subgroup of the West of Scotland Refugee Forum, the members of this group aim to help refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland integrate effectively into Scottish life through access to training and employment opportunities. The group is chaired by Jim Gaffney, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Laing O'Rourke, and founding members include Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Refugee Council, Scottish Enterprise, STIC, Institute of Contemporary Scotland, Glasgow North Ltd, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, Careers Scotland and Universities Scotland. All members are sharing and pooling their expertise of training and the workplace to support refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland. The group was officially launched by Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, on 13 December 2004.

The principal service provider for refugees offering comprehensive careers guidance services is the Scottish Refugee Council, who provide 800 careers guidance interviews in Glasgow and Edinburgh each year. Scottish Refugee Council also provides comprehensive support and advice for partner agencies, colleges and employers.

As part of the work being carried out by the Cabinet Delivery Group on Closing the Opportunity Gap, the Department for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning has been asked to deliver a cross-Executive Employability Framework. The framework will review, plan and implement the future shape and direction of interventions in Scotland to support people's employability, in order to:

Work is now underway to develop a series of work streams which will form the basis of the framework. These will include work on bringing together a better common understanding of the client groups most excluded from the labour market, such as refugees.

More generally, there are schemes in place to assist the wider sector of unemployed and disadvantaged groups. For example, customers in Glasgow aged 25 and over (who are 18 months plus unemployed) can access Employment Zone provision. Early entry from day one of unemployment also applies to those with refugee status.

The Way Forward

This section was written following the reconvention of the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum on 4 February 2005. It aims to highlight areas requiring further work and issues which were not reflected in the original action plan. These issues should be looked at and carried forward by all stakeholders including the Scottish Executive where issues are devolved.

The Forum

The Forum has decided not to reconvene on a regular basis. The Action Plan will continue to be implemented by the Scottish Executive, COSLA, the voluntary sector and local authorities. The Scottish Executive will aim to encourage this implementation in a co-ordinating role.

Evaluation of refugee integration projects

Many projects funded by the Scottish Executive are playing a major role in implementing the Action Plan. This is why the Scottish Executive aims to evaluate integration projects which have received funding. This will help determine funding criteria in the future and highlight areas of good practice. The main difficulty lies in comparing very different, innovative projects in a relatively new and evolving environment. The Scottish Executive will liaise with Home Office Refugee Integration Team to discuss best methods of evaluating refugee integration projects.
In measuring integration activity in Scotland, Forum members suggested adopting the Indicators of Integration work, carried out on behalf of the Home Office.
These indicators may allow funding to be directed to areas of need, provide a comprehensive map of integration in Scotland and allow agencies to consider where their work fits within an overall map of integration activity. Analysis and evaluation is required to assess the effectiveness and value for money of publicly funded integration projects. It may be possible to develop guidelines for funding and monitoring integration projects from the Indicators of Integration research,
or Best Value benchmarking. For example the unit cost and impact of providing services through the Bridges Project or the New Glaswegians Project could be measured against specialist careers services for other vulnerable client groups.

Local Authorities

Writing the progress report highlighted some of the practical difficulties in implementing the SRIF Action Plan, most notably the fact that some actions are more effectively carried out by local authorities. The Forum felt that the requirement of all public bodies to review their Race Equality Schemes and policies by November 2005 provided an opportunity to ensure asylum-seeker and refugee issues were mainstreamed. Accordingly, the Scottish Executive will send out this report to all local authorities in time for the review of Race Equality Schemes.

COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seeker Consortium already carry out work furthering refugee integration at a local authority level, particularly training and awareness raising through seminars and workshops with local authority and other public sector staff. The future potential of this role in delivering SRIF Actions will be looked at in more detail with regards specifically to:

Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children ( UASC)

At the time of print there were 120 unaccompanied asylum seeker children in Scotland. Officially they are treated as any other looked after young people in Scotland and policies which apply to one apply to the other. However, work is being taken forward by the voluntary sector in support of the specific needs of these young people, the CARIS website (Action 40) being one example. The Forum recognised that there is a specific issue for young unaccompanied asylum seeker children who fall between the ages of 16 and 18 years old and Further Education Colleges need to be made more aware of their needs.

Opportunities to disseminate good practice emerging in Glasgow and elsewhere of the assessment and provision of support to unaccompanied and looked after young people should be investigated.

COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seekers Consortium plays an important role in supporting local authorities who have unaccompanied asylum seeking children in their area. This includes making representations to the Home Office on the adequacy of the grant levels available to local authorities to re-imburse them for expenditure incurred as well as advice on a wide range of legal and support issues. The Consortium will also be the lead agency in Scotland in relation to the National Register for Unaccompanied Children. This will be the first time an accurate up-to-date database on the numbers and location of unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the UK has been available. Individual local authorities will be able to input and have access to their own data, but will require going through the Consortium to find information about other parts of Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Gateway Protection Programme

Des Browne, UK Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Nationality, re-launched the Gateway Protection Programme in Scotland on 22 November 2004 at an event attended by many Scottish Local Authorities and COSLA. The Gateway Protection Programme offers a legal route for some of the most vulnerable refugees to enter the UK following determination of their cases by the UNHCR and the Home Office. The programme is run as a partnership between the Home Office, the host local authorities, the voluntary sector agencies who co-ordinate the programme, and Jobcentre Plus.

More information on the Home Office's Gateway programme can be found on COSLA Refugee and Asylum Seeker Consortium website at: http://www.asylumscotland.org.uk/news_events.php

Fresh Talent

The Fresh Talent Initiative seeks to attract more people to come and live in Scotland as well as retaining our own home grown talent.

The Forum suggested consideration should be given to promoting Scotland as a place to settle for refugees who obtain permission to stay in England or Wales, given the range of services and initiatives described in the progress report.

The Fresh Talent team has links into existing projects to find employment for refugees (e.g. Scottish Refugee Council and New Roots Scotland). This will help to identify barriers and look for ways to overcome them.

Fresh Talent have also established a research project into the Experience of People who Relocate to Scotland. The primary purpose of the research is to inform specific policy initiatives and campaigns, e.g. "Fresh Talent" and "One Scotland. Many Cultures" as well as benefit wider policy interests by providing an insight into "how others see us". This will include a look at the experience of people in/trying to enter the workplace in Scotland. This will help us to identify any barriers to overseas workers gaining employment. Fresh Talent are very aware of the need to educate employers about the benefits of "Fresh Talent" and a business expert will be recruited to the Relocation Advisory Service whose primary focus will be 'selling' overseas talent to employers.

Anxieties

The Forum recognised that there is a currently a degree of uncertainty and anxiety among refugee and asylum seeker communities and those working with them. The Home Office's recently published five-year migration strategy (published February 2005: http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/en/home/news/press_releases/controllingour_borders/five_year_strategy.html ) introduces a new temporary status for all new refugees instead of the indefinite leave to remain they receive under the current system. The Scottish Executive recognises that this may have an impact on integration and will look into this issue.

The Forum also identified a possible trend of people coming from England to Scotland due to the recent change in legislation relating to homelessness. Section 11 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 introduces a clause whereby people can only establish local connection in relation to their homelessness application in the area to which they were dispersed. However, the Homelessness (Scotland) Act 2003, Section 7 makes it clear that, in Scotland, local connection is not established by being dispersed to an area. This means that someone leaving Glasgow and presenting themselves as homeless in Manchester could be returned to Glasgow as that is where the local connection is under the 2004 legislation. But, someone coming from Manchester to Glasgow would be assessed under homeless legislation and accommodated because under the 2003 legislation they have no local connection in the area to which they were dispersed.

Conclusion

As stated in the introduction to this report, refugee integration is by no means complete in Scotland, this document only provides a snapshot of progress and areas requiring more work at this point in time. In a fast changing environment it is important that service providers are flexible and responsive to the changing needs of the refugee community. So far it is clear that the grass roots organisations and partnership agencies working together have risen to this challenge successfully and hopefully this good work continues to be responsive in the future.

The Scottish Executive is committed to promoting and implementing the Action Plan under the Partnership Agreement (see bibliography) and will continue to support the integration of refugees.