The councils surveyed to inform this guidance reported the benefits of introducing certain specialised roles, both where the volume of certain tasks related to supporting households with no recourse to public funds warrants a specialised role and where other services or areas of the council find that having a designated lead enables them to provide a better services to residents with no recourse to public funds and to support the council’s overarching aims of reducing inequalities in service delivery.
Most of these roles have already been referenced previous chapters.
4.1 Rough sleepers NRPF Lead
When people subject to the NRPF condition are unable to avoid destitution, many will become homeless or be forced into rough sleeping. Adults without eligible care and support needs will have no route to government support and council rough sleeper teams can find it particularly challenging to find routes to accommodation.
In addition to wider schemes to support certain vulnerable groups using discretionary support, some local authorities have begun to employ NRPF leads in their rough sleeping and homelessness teams. These leads will specialise in helping people who cannot access mainstream benefits to resolve their immigration issues, finding routes to mainstream support, and building relationships with voluntary organisations who can provide accommodation and support.
4.2 NRPF social work champion
Where local authorities use a dispersed model of service delivery and all social work teams may be required to support households with no recourse to public funds, NRPF Champions can be designated in each social work team. These champions will be trained to a higher level than other social workers, provide advice to others, and take part in service-wide knowledge sharing activities.
NRPF champions could also be used in teams outside of social work, such as benefits, employment, or housing services.
4.3 Political champion
Increasingly, local authorities will have an elected member with a remit for championing migrants, as seen in the growing Migrant Champions network. Services which meet the needs of people with no recourse to public funds are vital essential services for supporting the migrant community and migrant champions or members responsible for those services should be encouraged to engage with how services for people with no recourse to public funds are run.
Engaged elected members can help to forge stronger relationships with VCS and other partner organisations, improve internal awareness and co-operation with social services, and help to achieve the required buy-in for investment in services for people with no recourse to public funds.
4.4 Hospital-based NRPF discharge officer
In areas with a large volume of hospitals and other NHS in-patient facilities, the requirement for expertise in immigration-based exclusions and for joint working between the NHS and social services may be high enough to justify specialist hospital-based discharge officers or social workers with a specialism for working with people with no recourse to public funds. These workers will be responsible for liaising with the local authority and helping to identify discharge routes or aftercare placements for patients in their care.
4.5 NRPF administrator
Almost every service in the UK will be supported by administrative officers who administer care for people with no recourse to public funds, and all dedicated NRPF teams will have either a part-time or full-time dedicated officer. NRPF administrators will typically be responsible for administering substance payments (both regular and emergency), paying certain bills, updating and checking NRPF Connect, tracking budgets and more.
NRPF support is vital to every supported adult or family at risk of destitution and high quality, consistent administration of that support is the core of any good service.
4.6 NRPF housing team
If named contacts or NRPF champions in housing teams are not sufficient to meet housing need, councils may fund several housing officers within the housing department to form a bespoke team which specialise in housing for people with no recourse to public funds. This team can benefit from the housing contacts and knowledge within the directorate whilst specialising in finding, inspecting and maintaining housing for supported households.