Evaluating the Scottish Refugee Council's Family Rights Service

Client: Scottish Refugee Council

In 2022, the Scottish Refugee Council launched the Family Rights Service, a pilot providing end-to-end case management for families seeking asylum in Scotland. Each family is assigned a dedicated case manager who supports them from arrival through to a final decision on their claim, helping them understand and access their legal rights while addressing urgent welfare needs including housing, health, schooling, and destitution.

Braw Data worked as part of the evaluation team led by the University of Stirling, delivering the quantitative component of a mixed-methods evaluation that also drew on administrative casework data, focus groups, interviews, surveys, and WhatsApp diaries with families and professionals. We linked and analysed the service's case management records on more than 200 families — covering client characteristics, asylum outcomes, legal problems, and applications and referrals for support — and estimated statistical models to examine how legal representation, time in the service, and family circumstances relate to asylum outcomes and the support families receive.

The evaluation found that the case management model gives families a consistent, trusted point of contact in a complex and changing asylum system, and secures high and sustained levels of support: 92% of families were assisted in obtaining monetary or non-monetary support from external agencies. The analysis also underlined the critical role of legal representation in securing refugee status. The final report was published in November 2024 and recommends extending the model to all people seeking asylum in Scotland.

Methods: Statistical analysis of linked case management (administrative) data, regression modelling (logistic and count models), mixed methods evaluation

Output: Navigating the Asylum System: Evaluation of Scottish Refugee Council's Family Rights Service