Bethan Jenkins AC/AM Blog

YESTERDAY I met with Jane Farleigh from the UK Border Agency to discuss the investigation in to the allegations made by whistleblower Louise Perrett who worked as an agency staff member at the UKBA in Cardiff. You can see the article that I wrote about these allegations on the Waleshome blog site at the time they were made.

The professional standards unit of the UK Border Agency has ruled that no disciplinary action would be taken against staff members. I was informed by the UKBA that it was difficult to identify staff because Louise had made her views known six months after she had left the UKBA, that there was little clear evidence, and due to the fact that, as the report by the professional standards unit highlights, their investigation may have been hindered by the actions of the PCS Union. This is what the report says-

‘The UK Border Agency should consider engagement with the PCS concerning advice they gave to their members not to come forward with evidence for the investigation to encourage full cooperation from Union representatives.

I am going to contact the PCS Union following this report to seek its views on this particular matter. Of course the identity and security of staff should be protected, but I am concerned if any potential lack of communication on its behalf meant that this investigation was not as robust as it could have ultimately been.

Another comment by the professional standards unit seems to imply that a staff member who does not raise any concerns in the future which may mirror those that Louise Perrett raised should be disciplined. One must question whether this is an attempt to stop whistle blowing from the UKBA:

‘Consideration should be given to it becoming a disciplinary offence for staff to fail to challenge inappropriate behaviour.’

I was assured that the investigation was thorough, but I find it difficult to understand that if there aren’t problems at the UKBA, why are they putting many changes in place that appear to relate to the culture and staff conduct at the office?  Here is what the UKBA will be doing in light of the report-

- to overhaul the Agency’s approach to credibility issue, starting with a new Asylum

Instruction and new training interventions associated with it;

- an increase from 20% to 50% of decisions being made in Cardiff being assessed against

the UNHCR quality assurance matrix. There is no evidence to date of the quality of

decisions in Cardiff being affected by the issues highlighted. But we need to make doubly

sure that remains the case;

- to invite the Wales Refugee Council, with other key local partners, to help us design

some awareness sessions for staff to deal with some of the concerns the report raises.

- To institute a new arrangement in Wales to ensure staff really can raise concerns outside

their line management line.

Of course I welcome the above and will seek to monitor improvement, especially the work with the Welsh Refugee Council. However, I am  somewhat surprised that staff do not have an opportunity currently to speak to or to meet former refugees who have successfully sought asylum in Wales. This new scheme will give staff the opportunity to speak to people who have gone through the system, and allow for staff making such important decisions to identify with them. At the moment they are given country profiles, and are told where the dangerous parts are, but they do not have a personal view of what it is like to come from such a country, or to suffer persecution.

I am convinced that the UKBA made an effort in to looking in to this issue, yet I do think that there should be a role for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in such instances. The EHRC should, as a body, be able to look at human rights practices in such governmental organisations, and should be the port of call should a future member of staff wish to raise serious concerns about the UKBA if they have exhausted all other internal avenues without success.

I will be writing to the Home Affairs Select Committee, who have also had a copy of the report to ask them how they will be responding, and I will seek Louise Perrett’s views, who has told me via email that she had not heard from the UKBA for some time. I trust that she has had the final report and will be able to assess its outcomes.

What’s important is that the UKBA works effectively and professionally and that any problems brought to light by staff should be dealt with, to ensure that staff feel comfortable enough to raise any concerns they have. After all, they are making life changing decisions on behalf of asylum seekers in Wales, so it is in all our best interests to ensure that nobody has a reason to question their work.

Here are the links to the report  and to the UKBA’s response. I would welcome any feedback as the cross party group on human rights will be discussing this at the next meeting.

I’VE been meaning to blog about this issue since a fascinating meeting of the cross party group on human rights, which I chair. Our guest speaker that night, Tracey Sagar from Swansea University, talked to us about sex workers and the violence inflicted upon them, and gave us an insight into the lives of women who have fallen below the radar of society.

Tracey’s team have been given support by the Big Lottery Fund to map a four-year project into empowering sex workers, and to reduce community disaffection towards them. There is little known in Wales about this subject, according to Tracey, and so the work they are doing may shape a pan Wales strategy for the future.

To enter the sex work industry is often a conscious decision, but we learned that many women feel forced in to it for lack of any other alternatives. While many sex workers have professional qualifications, many of them are addicted to crack or heroin. Some have been victims of sexual abuse in the past, and the majority of the women Tracey works with have children, deciding to work on the streets as a way out of poverty.

However, getting out of poverty doesn’t seem to be achievable for many of these women at present, as they can’t access services that should be there to help them. That’s why the setting up of Cardiff Sex Forum with third sector organisations, the Police and statutory organisations is important in order for people to acknowledge there is a problem, for street workers to be fast tracked on to support programmes, and to be given sustainable alternatives to working on the street.

Street sex workers tend to work in more isolated ways now: outside normal hours and areas, using mobile phones to fix appointments. They are avoiding the police (as are the kerb crawlers), making them harder to track by outreach workers. All this puts them at even more risk. What was interesting about what Tracey said was that street sex workers are mainly local and therefore part of the community. They are entitled to the same protection afforded to everyone else. But quite often they are targeted and abused by the very community that should be there to support them, with neighbours shouting expletives at them, or physically attacking them.

The protection of sex workers had been mainly overlooked by public policy, including the Welsh Assembly Government’s latest strategy on violence against women, The Right to be Safe. Such strategies only tend to consider women who had been trafficked, or focus on ways out of prostitution. This reinforces the distinction between the deserving and undeserving. There is much more work to be done in this area, if only to ensure that women don’t fall in to the trap of thinking that working on the street will help them. We need to empower current street workers to seek support networks and help, and most importantly educate communities, and organisations lining our high streets that street workers need to same services as everyone else in Wales.