Grants awarded under ILPA
On this page you will be able to see all the grants that were awarded by the Strategic Legal Fund for Vulnerable Young Migrants from November 2017 until 2021 and all grants awarded under the SLF expanded funding criteria from February 2021.
All current grants are being managed in-house by ILPA. If you have any questions about your grant, please email claire.tindale@ilpa.org.uk.
Materials produced by grantees, which might be helpful to other advocates for migrants' rights are being uploaded on to this website, and the ILPA website. If you require this material before it has been added to the Archive, please contact the email address above.
November 2021
Public Interest Law Centre and Latin American Women's Rights Service - £6,940
PILC and LAWRS have been awarded funding for pre-litigation research into the government's failure to provide migrant survivors of domestic abuse with access to accommodation enabling them to escape their abusers.
September 2021
Child Poverty Action Group - £9,984
CPAG have been awarded funding for pre-litigation research into the exclusion of EU citizens with pre-settled status (PSS) from social security benefits, including universal credit (UC), without consideration for their individual circumstances or fundamental rights.
Southwark Law Centre - £12,530
Southwark Law Centre have been awarded funding for pre-litigation work to address race discrimination in schools. SLC is concerned that the Department for Education is failing to adequately monitor or address systemic racism in school exclusions and 'quasi-exclusions', which include 'managed moves', 'off-rolling' and children being directed off-site for 'improvement of behaviour'.
Doctors of the World - £15,000
Doctors of the World have been awarded funding for an intervene in the judicial review claim of R (OK) v Royal Free NHS Foundation Hospital Trust. The claim concerns an important issue as to the standard of care to which migrants are entitled under the NHS (Overseas Visitors Charging) Regulations 2015 (as amended), specifically Regulation 3 (7) ('urgent care').
July 2021
Bhatt Murphy - £5,600
Bhatt Murphy were awarded funding for pre-litigation research to explore a legal challenge against the SSHD / Home Office arising from the lack of Article 4 ECHR compliant systems within Immigration Removal Centres to identify potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery.
DPG - £8,294.40
DPG were awarded funding for pre-litigation research and development of a judicial review on behalf of an NGO to challenge the continued use of Napier Barracks by the SSHD, including the decision to conduct substantive interviews on site.
May 2021
Migrant Legal Project - £7,996.30
Migrant Legal Project were awarded funding for pre-litigation evidence-gathering and advice from PLP on a potential legal challenge to the outsourced system for providing biometrics as part of refugee settlement applications under which MLP clients have felt compelled to pay unaffordable sums to secure an appointment or to travel to one.
RAMFEL and Bhatt Murphy - £3329
RAMFEL and Bhatt Murphy were awarded a SLF grant in January 2020 to carry out pre-litigation research to explore a legal challenge to systems underpinning the hostile environment policy, directed at those who have applied for an extension of leave in time and whose leave to remain is extend in the interim by operation of Section 3C Immigration Act 1971, but who are nonetheless subject to the hostile environment. That work has now been completed. Funding is awarded as a top up grant to carry out the next steps towards the litigation.
Here for Good - £8,502.23
Funding awarded to Here for Good for pre-litigation research into bring a challenging against the pending prosecutions guidance found in the EU Settlement Scheme: Suitability Requirements guidance document ('the guidance') updated on 6 April 2021.
February 2021 - First Funding Round Of The Expanded Funding Criteria
Migrants' Right Network - £4,744.55
MRN have been awarded funding for pre-litigation research to identify potential Highly Skilled Migrant (HSM) claimants to build a legal strategy for potential further strategic litigation. Numerous cases post-Balajigari have raised various common legal themes which may require litigation to ensure fairness and transparency in how these cases are determined.
ATLEU and Helen Bamber Foundation - £14,795
ATLEU The Helen Bamber Foundation have been awarded funding for a joint intervention between ATLEU and Helen Bamber Foundation in the case challenging the introduction of the 'Rough Sleeping' rule. The intervention will focus on the harm caused to trafficking survivors and those rendered vulnerable to exploitation as a result of fragile mental health and other vulnerabilities.
Women for Refugee Women - £4,494.25
Women for Refugee Women and the Public Law Team at Duncan Lewis Solicitors have been awarded funding to explore the Secretary of State's planned opening of a new detention centre for women in Hassockfield, to assess whether the Secretary of State has complied with all legal requirements in this planning, and to challenge her where this is not the case.
November 2020
Refugees for Justice - £9,940
Refugees for Justice have been awarded funding for pre-litigation research into the use of hotel accommodation in Glasgow and the Park Inn incident.
October 2020
Public Interest Law Centre. - £10,326
PILC has been awarded funding for pre-litigation research into bringing a strategic legal challenge against the SSHD's recently-announced amendment to the Immigration Rules which introduces 'rough sleeping' as a basis to refuse or cancel leave to enter or remain in the UK, due to come into force on 1st December 2020.
Emergency Funding Rounds, April to September 2020
Project 17 - £7,643.64
Project 17 has been awarded funding to intervene in W&J v Secretary of State for the Home Department CO/3036/2019, a judicial review challenging the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) scheme as it relates to the parents of British children granted leave to remain under the ten-year route to settlement.
JCWI - £5,863.60
JCWI have been awarded funding to instruct Public Law Project ('PLP'), to undertake the pre-action stage of a challenge to 'Presidential Guidance Note No. 1/2020: Arrangements during the COVID-19 Pandemic'.
The Helen Bamber Foundation - £5259.40
The Helen Bamber Foundation has been awarded funding for an Intervention in the Supreme Court case TN (Vietnam), concerning the legal consequences of appeals determined under 2005 DFT Rules, found to be structurally unfair and unjust by the High Court. The Helen Bamber Foundation will provide legal submissions and important contextual evidence on the particular impact of such determinations on victims of trafficking and other forms of ill-treatment.
Islington Law Centre - The Migrant Law Project - £6266
MLP, hosted by Islington Law Centre, has been awarded funding for a joint intervention in the Supreme Court Case TN (Vietnam) concerning the legal consequences of appeals determined under 2005 DFT rules, found to be structurally unfair and unjust by the High Court.
March 2020
Coram Children's Legal Centre (CCLC) - £13,865
CCLC has been awarded funds for pre-litigation research in order to bring strategic legal action on EU settlement scheme applications made by children and young people with criminal convictions, including especially looked-after children and care leavers.
Detention Action and Public Law Project £5,682
Detention Action and Public Law Project have been awarded funds to undertake pre-litigation investigations in relation to the LAA's failure to make adequate arrangements for the provision of legal services to detainees in IRCs under the Detained Duty Advice Scheme.
January 2020
Migrants' Law Project - £24,690
MLP, hosted by Islington Law Centre, has been awarded funds to carry out pre-litigation research and evidence-gathering in order to develop strategic litigation to enable young refugees and migrants in the UK to be reunited with young relatives trapped in terrible conditions in Greek camps, due to an apparent breakdown of the Dublin III and asylum systems in that country.
RAMFEL and Bhatt Murphy - £13,683
RAMFEL and Bhatt Murphy have been awarded funds to carry out pre-litigation research to explore a legal challenge to systems underpinning the hostile environment policy. The research will focus on those who have significant vulnerabilities including migrant women who are sole carers and/or those fleeing domestic violence with their children.
Matthew Gold & Co and Project 17 - £2,715
Top-up grant to complete pre-litigation research into the lawfulness of systems and practices employed by local authorities to purportedly assess the credibility of carers of destitute children with no recourse to public funds during section 17 Children Act 1989 assessments.
November 2019
Commons Legal CIC - £7,335
Commons CIC has been awarded further funding following preliminary and secondary research for litigation preparation into the implementation of the requirement for defendants in criminal proceedings to provide their nationality to the courts. Failure to provide this information is a criminal offence, regardless of whether immigration status has any bearing on the substantive offence or issues of bail. It is also retained regardless of whether the defendant is acquitted or the proceedings are discontinued
Child Poverty Action Group - £8,674
CPAG has been awarded funds to develop a challenge to what the Government say is a change in child tax credit eligibility introduced by Universal Credit, leading to refugee families with children being excluded from claiming Tax Credit for the retrospective period prior to when they were recognised as refugees. This affects potentially thousands of families with vulnerable migrant refugee children. Previously, refugees who claimed tax credits within a month of being recognised as a refugee were entitled to an award from when they first claimed asylum which is paid net of any asylum support they received.
September 2019
ECPAT UK - £9,435.78
ECPAT was awarded funding to prepare a dossier with expert evidence on the failures in the current system to protect child victims of trafficking. The dossier will request the Department of Education, the Home Office and other relevant state bodies to conduct an Article 4 inquiry into the failures to protect child victims of trafficking. ECPAT UK's main concerns are the failure to protect children from going missing from care and/or re-trafficked; and the failure to implement measures that identify and secure a durable solution for child victims of trafficking.
JCWI - £1,292.40
JCWI has been awarded funds towards their intervention in the Court of Appeal in K (a child) v SSHD. The case concerns children being denied their entitlement to British nationality through their biological father if the mother is married at the time of the child's birth to a man who is not British. For the purposes of British nationality law, her husband will be deemed to be the father, even if there is irrefutable proof that another man is the biological father.
July 2019
Deighton Pierce Glynn - £4,018
Deighton Pierce Glynn has been awarded funds to prepare an intervention for Amnesty International UK in a judicial review by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) and three individual claimants against the £1,012 Home Office fee which deters and prevents some children registering their rights to British citizenship. The immediate purpose of the intervention is to challenge the fee to stateless children.
May 2019
Child Poverty Action Group - £6,237
Under Appendix EU of the Immigration Rules, EU citizens (and their family members) present in UK for less than 5 years can obtain limited leave to remain. The 7th May amendments seek to exclude from entitlement to means-tested benefits (and child benefit) someone whose only right of residence in the UK is limited leave on that basis. CPAG has been awarded funds to develop an argument that this breaches Article 18 TFEU and to find a suitable client to test it.
Detention Action and Public Law Project - £5,000
Detention Action has been awarded funds to investigate, with the Public Law Project, the shortfalls in the provision of advice and representation to people in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) through the Detained Duty Advice (DDA) surgeries as operated under the 2018 Standard Civil Contract.
March 2019
Bail for Immigration Detainees and Bhatt Murphy - £15,738
Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Bhatt Murphy have been awarded a grant for a third party intervention in respect of a judicial review claim to challenge significant deficiencies within the accommodation and support scheme enacted by Paragraph 9, Schedule 10 of the IA 2016
Commons Legal CIC - £7,352
Commons Legal was awarded an additional grant following their preliminary research into the implementation of the requirement for defendants in criminal proceedings to provide their nationality to the courts. Failure to provide this information is a criminal offence, regardless of whether immigration status has any bearing on the substantive offence or issues of bail. It is also retained regardless of whether the defendant is acquitted or the proceedings are discontinued.
The Project for Registering Children as British Children - £16,146
The Project for Registering Children as British Children (PRCBC) was awarded a grant for further pre-litigation research on the good character requirement for children/young people with rights to register as British citizens. This is a significant and growing obstacle to registration for young people aged 10 or over.
The Unity Project and Deighton Pierce Glynn - £2,835
The Unity Project and Deighton Pierce Glynn were awarded an additional £2,835 to complete their research report on the discriminatory impact and systemic failings in the implementation of the Home Office's policy of imposing a 'no recourse to public funds' condition on grants of limited leave to remain in the UK.
January 2019
Maternity Action and Southwark Law Centre - £13,087
Maternity Action and Southwark Law Centre were recently awarded a grant for research and development work to support a judicial review of the regulations governing charging for NHS maternity care (National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015).
The AIRE Centre - £1,978
The AIRE centre was awarded funds for travel and accommodation to Luxembourg to intervene in the CJEU case of Bajratari, which concerns the effect on the rights of Irish citizen Chen children in Northern Ireland of the refusal to recognise the parents' income.
November 2018
Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit - £14,237
Based on a scoping report evidencing the need, Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit has been awarded funding to attempt to resolve the legal situation for young people assessed as over 18 and moved between local authorities. The proposal seeks funding for policy work for improved guidance and for pre-litigation work.
Migrants Organise and Public Law Project - £8,222
Migrants Organise and Public Law Project have been awarded funds to look into bringing a legal challenge to the stringent bail conditions, particularly around reporting, imposed on minors and disabled young adults pursuant the 2016 Immigration Act. These are imposed despite Equality Act and safeguarding issues, including on people who lack mental capacity or are unfit for interview.
Coram Children's Legal Centre - £1,817
Coram CCLC has been awarded additional funding for the travel costs and preparation of their intervention in the case of SM v UK c129/18 at the hearing of the Grand Chamber in CJEU. The case concerns the Kefalah fostering system, the Islamic equivalent to adoption, which currently is not recognised as an adoption under UK law.
September 2018
Migrant Legal Project - £4,611
Migrant Legal Project has been awarded funds for research and preparation of briefing materials to call for a reversion of the Civil Legal Aid Regulations which came into force 1st September. These act as a barrier to legally aided clients moving their appeals from the First-tier Tribunal to the Upper Tribunal, by removing appeals to the Upper Tribunal within scope of controlled work (OISC regulated firms). The Migrant Legal Project is currently the only provider of such legal aid services for asylum seekers in the entirety of Devon and Cornwall, and as an OISC regulated firm they will no longer be able to represent clients in such cases, many of which are young people under 25.
July 2018
Commons Law CIC - £7,636
Commons, a not-for-profit criminal law firm, has been awarded funds to carry out preliminary research into the expansive reach of the government's immigration control and hostile environment policy into the criminal justice system. Since November 2017, there has been a requirement for defendants in criminal proceedings to provide their nationality to the courts. Failure to provide this information is a criminal offence, regardless of whether immigration status has any bearing on the substantive offence or issues of bail. It is also retained regardless of whether the defendant is acquitted or the proceedings are discontinued.
Migrant and Refugee Children's Legal Unit (Islington Law Centre) - £23,823
MiCLU has been awarded funds to address the unlawfulness in the 10-year route to settlement and to evidence the discriminatory impact of the current regime on specific protected groups. Since 2012, families with children with lengthy residence in the UK must apply for Limited Leave to Remain through four consecutive applications over ten years. The high cost of these applications means the impact on low income families is severe as they risk destitution and indebtedness.
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants - £3,700
JCWI was awarded a grant for further focused mystery shopping research to strengthen findings specifically on ethnicity discrimination made in previous SLF funded research on the Right to Rent scheme.
Read their report Passport Please
Public Law Project - £3,435
PLP was awarded further funding to challenge the 'removal window' policy' in an intervention in the Upper Tribunal.
May 2018
Matthew Gold & Co and Project 17 - £21,644
Matthew Gold & Co together with Project 17 have been awarded funds to look into the lawfulness of systems and practices employed by local authorities during section 17 Children Act assessments of destitute children with NRPF carers. These assessments increasingly focus on the credibility of carers, rather than being social work assessments of children's needs. Practices employed include fraud investigators as part of NRPF teams, credit checks without proper consent and requesting DNA samples.
Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) - £1,500
GMIAU has been awarded funds to undertake initial scoping work to explore routes other than strategic litigation with the aim of developing policy on which local authority bears responsibility when a child has been assessed as 18+, dispersed to a new area, and requests a re-assessment of their age and s20 Children's Act support. Clearer guidance is needed to avoid young people being passed from pillar to post, waiting months or years before they receive advice on how to challenge the determination of their age.
March 2018
Deighton Pierce Glynn and Unity Project - £15,665
Deighton Pierce Glynn and the Unity Project were awarded funds to gather evidence of the discriminatory impact and systemic failings in the implementation of the Home Office's policy of imposing a No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) condition on grants of limited leave to remain in the UK. The policy disproportionately impacts single mothers and leaves many children and young migrants destitute for prolonged periods.
January 2018
Asylum Support Appeals Project - £1,295
ASAP was awarded funding to complete their legal research in respect of the potential unlawfulness of the Home Office's approach to the statutory destitution test when deciding s95 applications.
The AIRE Centre - £7,965
Funds were awarded to intervene in the CJEU case of Bajratari (reference from the Northern Irish Court of Appeal), which concerns the effect on the rights of Irish citizen Chen children in Northern Ireland of the refusal to recognise the parents' income.
Just for Kids Law - £12,947
Funds were awarded for Just for Kids Law to intervene in the case of Against Borders for Children (ABC) v The Secretary of State for Education; a challenge being brought by Liberty to challenge the collection of nationality and country of birth data from children in the school census.
Medact - £13,046
Medact and Maternity Action were awarded funding for research and preparation for an intervention in a judicial review challenging the 2017 amendments to the NHS Overseas Visitors Charging Regulations 2015.
Safe Passage - £18,262
Funds were awarded to carry out pre-litigation research relating to the widespread failure of local authorities to provide adequate support to asylum-seeking children who have been transferred to the UK to be united with their family members under the Dublin III regulation.
November 2017
Deighton Pierce Glynn - £1,687
Funds were awarded for preparing an application to intervene in the Court of Appeal on behalf of Missing Children Europe, concerning whether the State owes a duty to protect potential victims of re-trafficking.