DD2277 European Londoners Online Portal and Campaign

There are approximately one million European nationals living in London. To remain in the UK after Brexit, the Government has stated that they will need to apply for ‘settled status’.

There is still significant uncertainty over European Londoners’ future status in the UK which has contributed to some immediate challenges including feeling unwelcome, discrimination, hate crime, problems accessing credit and mortgages, difficulties renting private property, problems gaining employment, discriminatory treatment stemming from confusion about entitlements to services, and resulting mental health problems .

Some European Londoners are expected to face additional barriers to obtaining the proposed ‘settled status’ :

• People with immigration complexities that make their eligibility for settled status uncertain, for example third-country nationals relying on EU law rights based on Court of Justice of the European Union jurisprudence.
• People who might struggle to evidence their eligibility, such as those who have not been given proper records by their employer, have been exploited, or are fleeing domestic violence and therefore do not have access to necessary documentation
• People who are unable to access the system to apply for settled status, for example due to language barriers, disability, or lack of administrative or digital capacity
• People who do not apply, either due to lack of information, lack of support or through lack of trust in the system.

There is also a shortage of quality advice and support given the pressures services are under and the scale of the challenge. The removal of legal aid from immigration and family reunification cases has further stretched what advice and support is freely accessible. This adds to the stress (and potentially to the costs) facing even those European nationals with a straightforward claim for status.

The Mayor has committed to launch a new online portal on London.gov to make it easier for European Londoners to get the information they need to stay in the UK after Brexit. DD2239 confirmed the initial £90k funding and The3Million and Here for Good has now been appointed to deliver to content of the portal, 10 applications (out of 21 received) are currently being processed for the initial phase of the micro-grant scheme, and a revitalised #LondonIsOpen campaign will be launched in October with a focus on European Londoners.

This Director Decision is to spend the remaining budget of £110k. The work proposed has been informed by consultation with the legal sector, local authorities and civil society organisations which all emphasised the need for resources to be available in more languages and available in printed form to aid outreach to digitally-excluded communities.

Further to this, user-research for a linked project on Employment Rights highlighted that video content would improve accessibility for users struggling with reading or comprehending written information. The research highlighted that the videos should be no longer than 2-5 minutes, so the proposed content will be bite-size clips providing accessible, high-level information about Settled Status, referencing the portal and available in community languages.

Objectives:

1. To improve the usability and accessibility of the portal which aims to provide up-to-date information and advice about European Londoners’ rights after the UK leaves the European Union, and to signpost users to appropriate advice and support services. The3million and Here for Good have been contracted to develop the content of the portal, and further translation of the resources will be part of this contract. New video resources will be procured separately.

1. To promote the uptake of Settled Status amongst all European Londoners who wish to stay in the UK after the transition period. Delivering a “settlement ceremony” to celebrate and thank European Londoners who have registered for Settled Status and chosen to stay will create a positive moment amid uncertainty and will be built on our citizenship ceremonies action research.

1. To engage with groups most at risk of marginalisation through community engagement and outreach work in partnership with civil society. This will provide further funding to the existing micro-grant programme, which is run by the Social Integration team and aims to add capacity for community organisations to deliver events for target groups.

1. Specifically, the micro-grants will be of up to £2k each and will:

• Be delivered through an online call-to-action for established community groups with a demonstrable expertise. Bids will be assessed based on the organisation’s ability to deliver a successful event, and ability to reach audiences most at risk of marginalisation post-Brexit.
• Provide resource for community organisations to do outreach with European Londoners at risk of marginalisation. Grant funding could go towards venue hire and interpretation services to ensure events are as accessible as possible for target audiences.
• Connect community organisations to pro bono legal advisers to support the event, through our partnership with the Law Centres Network.
• Enable organisations to disseminate printed materials from the campaign promoting messages of welcome and belonging, and provide a suggested framework for delivery of a successful event that will enable smaller organisations to engage
• Organisations will provide a short pro forma report after the outreach work has been completed which will outline the numbers of residents reached, the support provided, and any outcomes or follow-up work being undertaken. This will inform project monitoring to ensure funds are appropriately spent and will ensure that diverse audiences are reached.
• Organisations will sign a funding agreement outlining the terms of the funding, and agreeing to participate in regular project monitoring.

Expected outcomes:

1. A trusted resource for European Londoners with greater accessibility of quality information and guidance. Given the web-traffic to the existing landing page, our target is to reach 100,000 Londoners as unique visitors by 2020.

1. Strong messages of welcome and belonging that mitigate the risks that European Londoners will face discrimination or prolonged uncertainty about their rights post-Brexit.

1. Empowerment of as many European Londoners as possible to secure their status to remain, including groups at risk of marginalisation.

Proposed breakdown of expenditure:

Equality, integration and inclusion are the drivers behind this programme. This work to develop a portal directing European Londoners to information and support aims to reduce uncertainty, feelings of being unwelcome and discrimination facing vulnerable migrant groups. It will also seek to empower European Londoners to access their right to remain after the UK leaves the European Union.

Any commissioning processes will ask potential partners to demonstrate how their projects are inclusive of a diverse group and actively work to eliminate discrimination on the basis of the nine characteristics protected in the Equality Act 2010. In order to ensure the highest standards of equality, diversity and inclusion are upheld, the GLA will use outreach and engagement approaches to target activities at particular groups that are less able to engage or face greater barriers to engagement to enable them to participate, whilst ensuring that activities are open and accessible to all Londoners.

The guidance and resources will be produced in accordance with best practice for accessible communications. This decision will provide additional funding to further improve accessibility into different European languages, for digitally-excluded groups, for users with low reading comprehension, and further direct outreach to vulnerable groups.

1. Key risks and issues

b) Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

This work forms part of the Mayor’s Social Integration Strategy, to remove barriers to integration relating to ability to access legal rights to citizenship and residence.

c) Impact assessments and consultations.

In July 2017 the London Assembly EU Exit Working Group hosted a session entitled ‘European Voices: EU Londoners Speak’ and in November 2017 the Social Integration Team hosted a roundtable with civil society and representatives from the legal sector to explore in more depth the issue of EEA+ and third-country nationals[1] at risk of marginalisation post-Brexit. In March 2018 the London Strategic Migration Partnership invited the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) to discuss the concerns of the legal sector in relation to citizens’ rights post-Brexit. The portal has been designed in consultation with the advice and support sector. This decision requests funding to do further user-testing once the resource is live, and to build on the feedback of partners and research to improve the accessibility and usability of the portal.

Approval is sought for expenditure of £110,000 to support European Londoners to access information, advice and support about their rights post-Brexit. This is in addition to the £90,000 approved by DD2239 to develop an online portal and complementary campaign (and therefore takes total expenditure on this programme of work to £200,000 as approved in the Social Integration 2018-19 Budget MD2311)

The expenditure of up to £110,000, will be funded from the 2018-19 European Londoners budget held within the Social Integration Team of the Communities and Social Policy Unit.

Section 30 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (as amended) (‘GLA Act’) gives the Mayor a general power to do anything which he considers will further one or more of the principal purposes of the GLA. The principal purposes, as set out in section 30(2), of the GLA Act are:

• Promoting economic development and wealth creation in Greater London;
• Promoting social development in Greater London; and
• Promoting the improvement of the environment in Greater London.

Section 34 of the GLA Act, which allows the Mayor to do anything which is calculated to facilitate or is conducive or incidental to the exercise of any of his functions, and the Mayor’s powers under section 38 of the GLA Act to delegate to any member of staff functions of the GLA that are exercisable by him, and the foregoing sections of this form indicate that the decision requested falls within the above statutory powers of the GLA exercisable by the Executive Director – Development, Enterprise & Environment.

The decisions requested of the Director (in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code) concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of economic development and wealth creation, social development or the promotion of the improvement of the environment in Greater London; and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

• Pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
• Consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom;
• And consult with appropriate bodies.

In taking the decisions requested, the Director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Director should have particular regard to section 5 (above) of this report.

Officers should ensure that the any services are procured by Transport for London Procurement who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code. Officers must ensure that appropriate contract documentation is put in place and executed by the successful bidder(s) and the GLA before the commencement of the services.