Moving Up and Getting On by Rutter Jill

Author:Rutter, Jill [Rutter, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Policy, General, Social Policy, Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Emigration & Immigration
ISBN: 9781447314615
Google: FvRICgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2015-07-15T04:29:30+00:00

Policy and practice responses

The integration needs of Portuguese migrants have been recognised by Peterborough Council. However, little consideration been given to the integration of Sri Lankan Tamils (and other migrant and minority groups) in Lewisham and Southwark. As argued in Chapter Two, migrants in the east of England still have a ‘novelty’ value, whereas in London migration is more normalised and there are fewer problematising discourses attached to communities. London local authorities have, in consequence, largely adopted a laissez faire approach to integration (Gidley and Jayaweera, 2010).

After Peterborough became an area of dispersal for asylum-seekers, the local authority funded New Link, an advice and integration service for migrants. This team was part of the local authority structure and it employed bilingual staff who spoke Polish and Portuguese. New Link worked with colleges and housing providers to ensure that the needs of migrants groups were understood and met. It also tried to set up self-sustaining migrant community organisations – self-help groups – to support different communities. However, attempts to set up a community organisation for the Portuguese failed, in Peterborough and elsewhere in the east of England, mostly because there were insufficient numbers of Portuguese-speakers with the time and skills to volunteer.

New Link won awards for its work and its director sat on the government’s Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2007). But in 2009, its funding was reduced after a group of residents argued that at a time of spending cuts, a service helping migrants should not be funded. In 2011 New Link closed, although some of its work was moved to other parts of the local authority. Its former manager is now employed as a social inclusion manager within the local authority, which also employs a Portuguese-speaking housing worker. In this respect, there is still middle-management expertise in integration within Peterborough Council.

In both Lewisham and Southwark senior local authority managers see migrant integration as largely the responsibility of NGOs. Much of the integration expertise that these local authorities had in the late 1990s – when local authorities were responsible for supporting destitute asylum-seekers – has now been lost. With the implementation of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office took over the responsibility for supporting destitute asylum-seekers, housing most of them outside London. At that point many knowledgeable staff lost their jobs, and the involvement of senior local authority staff in reception and integration policy largely ceased.

Neither London local authority gave much consideration to increased migration from the EU’s newest member states after 2004. Then, in 2008 changes were made to the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant and both Lewisham and Southwark made their advisory teachers redundant, which meant a further loss in local authority expertise. Today, after substantial cuts to local authority budgets, both London local authorities have adopted a non-interventionist approach to integration, save a few small grants to NGOs. In Lewisham, the council funds the Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network, which has its own integration project where adult volunteers are used to provide mentoring to young adults.

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