1 The provision of immigration advice
The provision of advice on immigration matters is heavily regulated: the route to qualify as an immigration adviser is set by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC).
A Level 1-qualified adviser is permitted to provide advice and assistance on immigration and asylum law. Qualified immigration advisers must:
- achieve a sufficient level of skills, knowledge and aptitudes
- demonstrate that they can provide good-quality advice and services.
There is a list of the competencies expected of an immigration adviser at each level; those expected of a Level 1 adviser were outlined in this course’s introduction.
Based on the 2021 competency framework, the work that a suitably qualified Level 1 immigration adviser can undertake is shown in Table 1.
| Area | Work permitted |
|---|---|
Asylum and protection |
Notifying the UKVI of a change of address Straightforward applications to vary the conditions attached to leave already granted, including conditions attached to bail granted by the Secretary of State Straightforward applications for ‘leave in line’ or refugee status for UK-born children of refugees and people with humanitarian protection |
Immigration |
Basic applications for entry clearance, or leave to enter or remain in the UK Applications for Administrative Review, apart from those refused on the basis of credibility or a fundamental issue of the genuineness of documents or relationships Straightforward applications to vary the conditions attached to leave already granted, including conditions attached to bail granted by the Secretary of State |
Of course, there is a wide range of work that a Level 1 adviser is not permitted to do. You will explore this further in Activity 1.
Activity 1: Level 1 advisers
Using information provided by the OISC, go onto an online search engine and identify what a Level 1 adviser is not permitted to do. You can note down what you find in the space below.
(Hint: you may find the statutory guidance on competence helpful.)
Discussion
When the course team used the search term ‘OISC level one’, more than 115,00 results were returned. We refined the search term to ‘OISC levels UK’, which reduced the number of results. From these we identified the OISC information on GOV.UK.
Having found the OISC information, we located the statutory guidance on competence and were able to identify that a Level 1 adviser could not deal with:
- applications related to illegal entrants, overstayers (excluding those applying within 14 days of their leave expiring where there is good reason for the delay and permitted EUSS work), removal or deportation from the UK (applications for an amendment to the conditions of bail are permitted)
- family reunion applications
- Settlement (Protection Route) applications
- complex applications under Appendix EU
- detention and applications for bail.
In addition, the information noted that a Level 1 adviser is not allowed to undertake appeals, tribunals and court work – including Judicial Review Case Management, which is done by immigration advisers with the higher-level qualifications.
This information was obtained from the 2021 statutory guidance for 2021 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] (OISC, 2021b).
Searching online to find correct and up-to-date information is an important skill for any adviser at each OISC level. Here you were asked to access and identify information from OISC, which is hosted on GOV.UK, the official website for all branches of the UK Government.
Finding out the reliability of any information you find is also an important skill. GOV.UK is an official Government website that provided the date of the last update, which at the time of writing was 15 June 2021. A quick further online search revealed that this was the last update to the OISC syllabus and levels.
We will return to online searches for information in later activities.
The next section considers the OISC registration scheme.