Form for practitioners
Complete this form if you are a practitioner delivering legal advice to people detained under immigration powers.
On 1st November 2021 the Legal Aid Agency amended the legal aid contract to provide a legal advice service for all immigration detainees held in prisons, where they can access 30 minutes of advice without reference to their financial eligibility. The scheme was designed to be a functional equivalent to the Detained Duty Advice Scheme for immigration detainees who are held in IRCs, after the High Court in the case of SM v Lord Chancellor found there to be an unlawful and discriminatory difference in treatment between immigration detainees held in prisons and those in IRCs.
In order to understand how this service is functioning and whether it is enabling detainees in prisons to access free legal advice, we want to ask a set of questions to legal aid immigration practitioners.
Your answers to this survey will be anonymous. Any information you provide will be immensely valuable in helping us to better understand the experience of immigration detainees held in prisons and to help the service function as smoothly as possible.