Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many immigration advisers were registered with each of the professional bodies approved as registers of immigration advisers in each year since 2009-10; how many complaints the Legal Ombudsman received about immigration advisers registered with each of those bodies in each of those years; in how many of these complaints the Legal Ombudsman found wrongdoing on the part of the adviser; in how many such cases the Legal Ombudsman (i) took action against the adviser and (ii) referred the complaint; and how many immigration advisers were (A) prohibited and (B) suspended as a result of such action.

Dominic Raab

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives Regulation (CILEx Regulation) and the Bar Standards Board (BSB) each regulate practitioners that can provide immigration advice or services in England and Wales.

There is no requirement to separately register as an immigration adviser, and all practising solicitors can deliver immigration services.

Every barrister issued with a practising certificate is authorised to carry out immigration advice and services.

CILEx Regulation closed its immigration register from 30 April 2004 until October 2014 when a new accreditation scheme was implemented. They currently have 8 registered immigration advisers.

The Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales was set up by the Office for Legal Complaints under the Legal Services Act 2007 to deal with complaints about regulated legal service providers in England and Wales.

The number of complaints relating to immigration advice investigated by the Legal Ombudsman since it opened in October 2010 are set out below.

The OLC can make a number of recommendations where they find poor service, and can make multiple recommendations in relation to a single complaint. Within the above cases, the following number of recommendations have been made.

The Legal Ombudsman makes potential misconduct referrals to the regulators if they suspect an issue with conduct has arisen. It is then for the regulator to investigate the potential misconduct and the Legal Ombudsman takes no part in that aspect of the investigation.

For immigration and asylum issues OLC made the following potential misconduct referrals.

The regulators cannot identify where practitioners have been prohibited from practice or suspended as a result of misconduct relating to immigration advice or services without disproportionate cost.