Immigration legal advice services

On this page:

Update 7 October 08: outcome of bids
Update 17 Sept 08: outcome of bids
Update 9 Sep 08: outcome of bids
About this tender
About the tender process
List of documents
For more information

Update 7 October 08: outcome of immigration advice bids

All organisations that tendered to provide these services should by now have received letter(s) dated 3 Oct confirming whether they are a preferred bidder to provide immigration advice to individuals detained in an Immigration Removal Centre at a Police Station in England & Wales or whether they were unsuccessful in obtaining a contract.

Those organisations that tendered to provide these services that have not received a letter(s) should email the immigration team to obtain a copy.

The deadline for submission of any appeals is 4pm on Monday 13 Oct 2008, as specified in the revised timetable which was published on our website on 17 Sept and which can be accessed via the Documents section to the right of this page.

The appeals process is set out in the Information for Applicants. Please note that any appeal(s) should be addressed to the following address and not to our previous (Roger Street) address specified in the Information for Applicants:-

Glyn Hardy
Immigration Policy Team
Legal Services Commission
4th Floor, 4 Abbey Orchard Street,
London
SWIP 2BS

DX 328
London

Update 17 September 08: outcome of immigration advice bids

Revised tender timeline published

A revised tender timetable has now been published and can be found in the documents panel on the right hand side of this page.

You will be aware that the LSC has recently invited tender bids for immigration advice in immigration removal centres and in police stations, with the intention of commencing new contracts in October 2008

Regrettably the assessment process has taken longer than we initially anticipated and we were not in a position to update applicants on 5 Sept 08 as planned.

All organisations that tendered to provide these services will now be advised of the outcome of its tender on 6 Oct 2008. The services will commence on 24 Nov 2008.

Update 9 Sep 08: outcome of bids

We apologise for the delay in updating you on this tender.

The assessment process has taken longer than we initially anticipated. We were not in a position to update applicants on 5 Sep 08 as planned.

We will provide a revised timetable as soon as possible - check this page for updates.

About this tender

Following the successful pilot of two schemes for detained asylum seekers and immigrants, the LSC has confirmed that these schemes are to become a permanent part of the legal aid service, by inviting organisations to tender to deliver the work.

The tender closing dates are:

immigration advice in immigration removal centres - 12 noon 19 Aug 08.
immigration advice in police stations - 12 noon 27 Aug 08.

Applications received after these dates will not be considered.

About the process

The invitations to tender are for the delivery of specialist, high quality and easily accessible services for advice and representation at:

police stations
Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs).

We ran a similar tender exercise for these contracts in Nov 07 which terminated without an award in Apr 08. Organisations that submitted bids to provide immigration advice in Nov 07 will need to submit a fresh tender in accordance with the new Information For Applicants.

Two successful pilots

The Police Station Telephone Immigration Advice Pilot and the On-site Immigration Detention Advice Pilot have informed the development of the model we are running tender rounds for.

Police Station Immigration Telephone Advice

The pilot was set up on 12 June 2006 to address an advice gap.

Individuals detained at the police stations often faced difficulty in accessing civil immigration advice, particularly outside office hours and weekends.

The pilot has successfully provided telephone advice to clients 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. Going forward, the service will run from 7am to midnight.

The scheme wiill allow clients to:

clarify their rights and legal position on their immigration status
clarify any actions they may need to take
understand what is likely to happen to them and, in some cases resolve the matter without the need for further representation.

Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) Advice

This scheme will operate as an:

on site advice surgery, which will usually run two days a week in each IRC
fast track duty service to provide advice/representation to clients whose asylum applications are subject to the Home Office Detained Fast Track or Super Fast Track process (also known as Non-Suspensive Appeal (NSA) cases).

The Fast Track service will operate only in Harmondsworth and Yarls Wood IRCs.

List of documents

Please see the Documents panel for:

information for applicants
tender forms
frequently asked questions
notice of changes to the information for applicants.

For more information

We have clarified one point for the delivery of immigration telephone advice to individuals detained at police stations. The closing date for receipt of these tenders is extended to 12 noon 27 Aug 08.

See the 'notice of changes' in Documents for details.

Please email the immigration team if you have any questions relating to the tender process.

Further details will be publicised via the news pages of this website – please check back regularly.

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Last updated: 07 October 2008