Shelter Scotland launch legal challenge against Serco

Shelter Scotland have started a legal case against Serco who issued lock-change orders against tenants who haven’t been granted asylum.

The charity’s legal team lodged papers at Glasgow Sheriff Court in a bid to have the orders overturned.

Serco have three weeks to respond in writing.

Speaking outside court, Fiona McPhail, principal solicitor at Shelter Scotland said: “This morning ourselves at Shelter Scotland and legal services agency have lodged papers in three cases for three of the six people who were last week given a seven day notice of lock changes.

“We’re challenging the lawfulness in various arguments, there’s a period 21 days of temporary reprieve so to speak for our clients and we’ll be back here to argue that out.

“The nature of the proceedings of this stage, was for interim orders, which are effectively an emergency prohibition or prevention.

“Because there’s an undertaking that no action is going to be taken, which we believe is in part of the legal proceedings raised by us and others over the weekend, those orders weren’t necessary.

“We can’t yet say how long this will take and how the court will view our different arguments but at this stage we’ve got an agreement there will be no action for 21 days, we’ll be back here and we’ll be update further at that stage.”

Miss McPhail said Shelter were instructed on August 3, and the position is that 21 days isn’t going to be enough to have the areas of law clarified.

The legal arguments are complex and Shelter asked for longer, but the court granted 21 days.

She said: “What the court have asked is for the other side to state their defence to the case so the court and us have an understanding of their position in writing.

“It’s a massive temporary victory for these six individuals and we know from the statement issued on Saturday that everyone else will not be served notices while these legal issues are clarified.”

She added: “There’s different arguments, one of the ones we’re keen to put forward is the human rights perspective.

“These individuals are at risk of losing their home, we’re arguing that Compass and Serco are acting on instructions from the Home Office and acting as as a public authority and therefore have obligations under the Human Rights Act.

“That there’s a requirement for there to be due process, there needs to be safeguards in place and it’s not compliant for there to merely be a lock-change at a certain stage.”

The lawyer also confirmed it’s an argument that has not yet been tested.

Serco previously said it welcomed the clarity that anticipated legal challenge would bring.

In the meantime, the Home Office contractor announced it will extend the notice period by 21 days for six people currently subject to lock-change notices, allowing them time to prepare their representations or move out of their properties.

Serco, which provides accommodation and welfare for around 5,000 asylum seekers in Scotland, almost all of them in Glasgow, said on August 4, it had been subjected to "pretty vile abuse" over recent days.

The company said that in Scotland, until now, it had chosen not to evict failed asylum seekers when their Home Office funding stopped, continuing to provide free accommodation for months and sometimes years.

But the number of people over-staying has almost doubled in a year - from 167 in August 2017 to around 330 currently, it said, and "at this level, we simply cannot afford to continue".