tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/home-office-16903/articlesHome office – The Conversation2024-02-09T16:50:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229482024-02-09T16:50:24Z2024-02-09T16:50:24ZModern slavery: how the UK government’s 2023 reforms made it harder for victims to prove they are being exploited<p>As many as <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/modern-slavery-commissioner-home-office-b2491348.html">130,000 people</a> in the UK are trapped in modern slavery, according to the recently appointed independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons. These people are forced to work in a variety of <a href="https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/slavery-uk/#:%7E:text=Criminal%20exploitation%20is%20often%20driven,forced%20labour%20in%20cannabis%20production.">exploitative situations</a>, ranging from cannabis farms to building sites to sex work. </p>
<p>Lyons has been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/modern-slavery-commissioner-home-office-b2491348.html">raising concerns</a> that the government has cut her budget by almost a fifth, but there have also been serious issues with the system for assessing modern-slavery complaints. Known as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-trafficking-victims-referral-and-assessment-forms/guidance-on-the-national-referral-mechanism-for-potential-adult-victims-of-modern-slavery-england-and-wales">national referral mechanism</a>, it was reformed by the government in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-slavery-how-to-identify-and-support-victims/modern-slavery-statutory-guidance-for-england-and-wales-under-s49-of-the-modern-slavery-act-2015-and-non-statutory-guidance-for-scotland-and-northe">January 2023</a> to try and take some administrative pressure away from the Home Office and speed up decision-making. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://business.leeds.ac.uk/research-innovation/dir-record/research-blog/2213/an-update-on-modern-slavery-trends-in-the-uk-analyses-of-uk-national-referral-mechanism-nrm-statistics">our analysis</a> of the data, however, these reforms made the situation for potential victims considerably worse. </p>
<h2>The reforms</h2>
<p>The referral process begins when a potential victim notifies an authority, such as a police force or a charity, that they are in an exploitative work situation. The authority makes an online referral to the Home Office, which then decides whether there are reasonable grounds to believe modern slavery is taking place. </p>
<p>If so, the victim becomes entitled to things like financial assistance and temporary protection from deportation, while the Home Office also instructs the relevant police force to take appropriate action against those being accused of exploitation. </p>
<p>It used to be that the authority, known in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-slavery-how-to-identify-and-support-victims/modern-slavery-statutory-guidance-for-england-and-wales-under-s49-of-the-modern-slavery-act-2015-and-non-statutory-guidance-for-scotland-and-northe">the guidance</a> as the “first responder”, made the referral purely based on a victim’s story. But following the reforms, they additionally had to provide “objective evidence” such as other eyewitness testimonies or findings from a police investigation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://nwgnetwork.org/nrm-newsletter-nationality-and-borders-act-2022/">government’s thinking</a> was that this would mean the Home Office wouldn’t need to keep going back to first responders for more information. However, we see several concerning trends. </p>
<p>Until 2022, the number of “reasonable grounds” decisions by the Home Office was steadily increasing. During 2023, it is on course to have declined, as shown by the the chart below (only the first three quarters are available so far). </p>
<p><strong>‘Reasonable grounds’ decisions per year, 2014-23:</strong></p>
<p>The proportion of positive decisions has fallen after years of holding steady, particularly in relation to adult claims, though children are down too. </p>
<p><strong>Positive ‘reasonable grounds’ decisions by age group (%), 2014-23:</strong></p>
<p>The lead time for positive decisions has greatly increased. Decisions previously took four to six days, roughly in line with a Home Office <a href="https://www.local.gov.uk/publications/council-guide-tackling-modern-slavery">target commitment</a> of five working days. It rose to 21 days in the second quarter of 2023 and then 47 days in the third quarter. </p>
<p>This seriously affects potential victims, because without a positive decision, they can only access limited support like emergency accommodation and emergency medical assistance. Managing these increased emergency requirements has also been an added burden for first responders and councils. </p>
<h2>Final-stage decisions</h2>
<p>Once a positive “reasonable grounds” decision has been made, the Home Office needs to make a final decision on a claim. Over the past decade, these “conclusive grounds” decisions have been far slower than initial decisions. In 2019, for instance, there were 9,290 “reasonable grounds” decisions but only 3,615 final decisions (including pending decisions from previous years). The average decision time increased from 105 days in 2014 to 369 days in 2018, then 539 days in 2022. </p>
<p>To reduce the backlog, the Home Office has hired extra staff. This has led to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-january-to-march-2023/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-1-2023-january-to-march">significant increase</a> in the number of final-stage decisions since 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Final-stage decisions 2014-23:</strong></p>
<p>The Home Office <a href="https://nwgnetwork.org/nrm-newsletter-nationality-and-borders-act-2022/">has also blamed</a> decision speed on “timely sharing of information” by first responders and potential victims. The 2023 reforms sought to address this not only by increasing the initial referral threshold but also by setting a deadline of 14 days for responders and potential victims providing additional information. </p>
<p>It’s unclear whether this has helped. The average decision time was 566 days in the first quarter of 2023, 451 days in the second quarter and 530 days in the third quarter. That looks like a stabilisation, though we’re still far from the Home Office’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-slavery-how-to-identify-and-support-victims/modern-slavery-statutory-guidance-for-england-and-wales-under-s49-of-the-modern-slavery-act-2015-and-non-statutory-guidance-for-scotland-and-northe">30-day target</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the proportion of positive final decisions dropped. It’s unclear whether this is due to the higher referral threshold, the 14-day deadline or because first responders don’t have the capacity to help victims. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, it’s particularly bad news for immigrant victims, since they can only be given temporary leave to remain in the UK if they have a positive final decision.</p>
<p><strong>Positive final decisions 2014-23 (%)</strong></p>
<h2>Reforms to the reforms</h2>
<p>Within months of the reforms, the government faced <a href="https://hopeforjustice.org/news/uk-home-office-withdraws-harmful-reasonable-grounds-rules-after-legal-challenge/">several legal challenges</a> by slavery claimants who had received negative decisions. The claimants argued that this was despite having made credible cases.</p>
<p>The government responded by agreeing with the legal challenge and <a href="https://www.helenbamber.org/resources/latest-news/new-test-reasonable-grounds-decisions-modern-slavery-guidance-withdrawn">clarifying its guidance</a> in July 2023, in what amounted to a partial U-turn. It emphasised that the Home Office could consider all forms of evidence including the victim’s account, and that in some cases there would be no need for additional evidence. It also made clear that it is the Home Office and not the first responder’s responsibility to collect all available information.</p>
<p>The clarifications probably mean that the lead times for initial and final decisions has peaked. However, a major reversal seems unlikely, and time will tell whether the rate of positive final decisions will return to previous levels. </p>
<p>The government also climbed down over an additional rule introduced as part of the reforms that potential victims with convictions for murder, manslaughter or terrorism-related activities couldn’t benefit from a slavery decision. Instead they were to receive a Home Office <a href="https://nwgnetwork.org/nrm-newsletter-nationality-and-borders-act-2022/">public-order disqualification</a>, terminating <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63d7ab6fe90e0773d50c752e/Adults_at_risk_Detention_of_victims_of_modern_slavery.pdf">their needs-assessment process</a>. </p>
<p>Between January and September 2023, 334 disqualifications were issued. Again, the policy became the subject of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/26/home-office-ordered-to-change-rules-that-restrict-help-for-trafficking-victims">judicial review</a>, amid concerns that potential victims <a href="https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/news/high-courts-orders-no-public-order-disqualifications-of-slavery-victims-may-take-place-without-a-risk-assessment-pending-trial/">might have been</a> forced by their exploiter to commit the crimes in question. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-july-to-september-2023/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-3-2023-july-to-september">government duly stopped</a> issuing disqualifications, though it didn’t help the 334 people excluded under the reforms. The government has also <a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/assets/downloads/Modern-Slavery-PEC-Explainer-Illegal-Migration-Act-v.2.pdf">since introduced</a> new grounds for disqualifications for illegal immigrants. </p>
<p>To see how these changes affect modern slavery decisions in the UK, we’ll be watching the new data closely as it becomes available. In the meantime, the 2023 data reveals the price that potential victims of modern slavery paid for the government’s reforms. It was clearly a policy that did much more harm than good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In early 2023 the evidence threshold for making complaints about modern slavery increased. New findings show how it has affected victims’ chances of success.Ying Zhang, Research Assistant in Human Rights, University of LeedsChee Yew Wong, Professor of Supply Chain Management, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2174352023-11-10T16:12:53Z2023-11-10T16:12:53ZSuella Braverman’s comments comparing Gaza protests with Northern Ireland are a grave misunderstanding of the facts<p>The aim of Suella Braverman’s controversial <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pro-palestine-protest-london-met-police-cbqnxbtv3">Times article</a> commenting on the ongoing protests over Gaza seems obvious. As with many of her recent and provocative statements, the assumption is that she is trying to undermine and ultimately replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader by appealing to the party’s right. However, the methods used – and particularly the comparisons she made between marches in Northern Ireland and demonstrations in London – are more confusing. </p>
<p>This confusion is understandable, as Braverman herself seems confused in what she wrote. She linked marches over the Gaza conflict to “the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland”. She drew further comparisons when suggesting that some of those organising the London protests “have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas”.</p>
<p>From the article alone, it was not at all clear which Northern Ireland marches Braverman was referring to. In some ways it read as though she was trying to make a connection between Irish republicanism and support for Hamas. But marching in Northern Ireland is more associated with the unionist community. Even the head of the Orange Order – responsible for the overwhelming majority of marches in the region – was concerned enough to suggest that Braverman <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67366165">should clarify</a> exactly which groups she was referring to. </p>
<p>Braverman later insisted she was indeed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/09/braverman-clarifies-northern-ireland-comments-amid-angry-criticism">referring to dissident republicanism</a>. And republicans do also participate in marches, but historically the most significant of these have been civil rights demonstrations to highlight the discrimination faced by the Catholic community. These marches were largely banned by the then Unionist government – something which Braverman appears to want in the case of the London protests, though she has denied this. Unionists justified their bans by making the same insinuations that Braverman makes in her Times article – that such marches can be a front for violent subversives. However, the violence triggered by civil rights marches in Northern Ireland was mainly enacted by the state – most famously and tragically of all on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, when the British army shot dead protesters, resulting in 14 deaths.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/bloody-sunday-50-years-later-what-it-means-when-we-commemorate-trauma-174559">Bloody Sunday 50 years later: what it means when we commemorate trauma</a>
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<p>The march on Bloody Sunday was a protest against the use of internment without trial in Northern Ireland. Like the freedoms of expression and assembly – both of which are exercised in the Gaza protests – freedom from unlawful imprisonment is a fundamental democratic right. Indeed it is a fundamentally British right, given its place in the Magna Carta. Worryingly, Braverman, the home secretary, and thus a key figure in upholding British law, would seem to be struggling with such concepts. </p>
<p>Drawing an analogy with Northern Ireland in her efforts to defend her position was a poor decision. It showed the superficiality of her understanding of the region’s past conflict – a tendency common to many of the Tory leaders that Brexit has thrust upon us. Recall former prime minister Boris Johnson asserting that the Irish border was <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/boris-johnson-mocked-for-saying-irish-border-like-camden-and-westminster/36648696.html">little different</a> to those dividing London boroughs, his deputy Dominic Raab admitting he had <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/good-friday-agreement-dominic-raab-brexit-secretary-northern-ireland-peace-253106">not read the Belfast/Good Friday agreement</a>, or Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel suggesting that the threat of food shortages in Ireland as a result of a no-deal Brexit should be used to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/brexit-tory-mp-backtracks-over-food-scarcity-in-ireland-1.3725093">pressure Dublin</a> in the ongoing negotiations. Awareness of the British government’s role in the catastrophic Great Irish Famine of the 1800s seemed non-existent. </p>
<h2>Purposeful confusion?</h2>
<p>It is hard to discern ignorance from intent, however. Braverman’s apparent linking of Gaza protesters with republican violence, and the perceived threat to Cenotaph commemorations this weekend, might have been an effort to conjure memories of the IRA bombing of a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35197450">remembrance day event in Enniskillen in 1987</a>. Older readers of her Times article with a military background might make this connection. But it is horribly crude if Braverman meant to imply a common mentality between the Enniskillen bombers and protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. </p>
<p>The reason that Braverman’s Times article is open to multiple interpretations, and creates much confusion, is that it deploys a common tactic of “culture warriors”. The lack of clarity is purposeful. It is enough to insinuate the malign intent of Gaza protesters or other such targets, and let social media do the rest. Even Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/05/dowden-concerns-about-pro-palestine-marches-armistice-day">noted this lack of care</a> in responding to Braverman’s description of the Gaza protests as “hate marches”. He told the News Agents podcast: “She’s picked two words out the English language and strung them together”.</p>
<p>And a lack of understanding of these sensitive subjects is also no barrier to their use and abuse by culture warriors. As long as a given intervention raises their political profile, it has served its purpose. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suella-braverman-why-the-home-secretary-cant-force-the-police-to-cancel-a-pro-palestine-march-217399">Suella Braverman: why the home secretary can't force the police to cancel a pro-Palestine march</a>
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<p>A proper consideration of the Northern Ireland case creates more challenging lessons for figures like Braverman. Firstly, the successful reform of policing in the region ended its pro-unionist bias. And even recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66679018">challenges</a> to policing in Northern Ireland have reminded us of the need to protect law enforcement from political interference. Braverman would do well to note this. </p>
<p>More broadly, and if we are to compare Northern Ireland with the Middle East, there is need to acknowledge that its peace process involved engagement with violent republicanism, successfully steering it towards democracy and political compromise. In Israel-Palestine, similarly, ways must be found to encourage violent actors towards purely peaceful methods. As with the militant republicanism, efforts to simply crush Hamas will likely prove counterproductive. Bloody Sunday was often said to be the single biggest recruiting sergeant for the IRA, and Israel’s current actions in Gaza will likely create a new generation of Hamas fighters. </p>
<p>The long and difficult process of building a peaceful and just Northern Ireland began with ceasefires. That is what most protesters over Gaza are demanding. True democrats owe them every support in their peaceful endeavours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>There are plenty of valuable parallels to be drawn from the Good Friday peace process that might be applied to Braverman’s thinking on protests. But she instead chose to inflame tensions.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966932022-12-16T16:18:51Z2022-12-16T16:18:51ZAsylum claim rejections show the UK government has little understanding of what people are fleeing – and it’s costing lives<p>After yet <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63968941">another tragedy</a> in the Channel, there is no doubt that something needs to be done to improve the processes overseeing asylum seekers coming to the UK, through whatever route. The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has outlined a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/13/rishi-sunak-tells-mps-clear-asylum-backlog-end-of-2023">five-point plan</a> to fix Britain’s broken immigration system.</p>
<p>New laws will criminalise those who enter the country “illegally”, allowing people to be more rapidly deported. Newly arrived migrants will find it more difficult to open bank accounts, and definitions of modern slavery will be changed to make it harder to claim asylum on this basis. More case workers will be drafted in to help remove people more rapidly and deal with the backlog of asylum claims.</p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/government-statistics-show-a-staggering-backlog-of-asylum-claims-a-high-grant-rate-and-a-lack-of-safe-routes/">143,000</a> people are still awaiting a decision on their asylum application, unable to work and living in immigration limbo. Nearly 100,000 of these have been waiting for more than six months. Sunak has promised to get rid of the backlog within a year.</p>
<p>The application process is too long and complex, so promises to increase capacity are welcome and overdue. But the problems go beyond resources to respond to applications. There are real dangers that the current plan could result in thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of people with legitimate claims being sent back to countries in which they face significant threats to their safety.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, I have written more than 50 expert reports for appeals against Home Office decisions to refuse asylum claims. I have witnessed at first hand how the Home Office has failed asylum seekers over Labour, coalition and Conservative governments.</p>
<h2>Poor judgement in rejections</h2>
<p>When an application has been refused, the person receives the decision and reasoning in a Home Office refusal letter. Reading the application and decision documents, it is clear that outcomes are being decided by officials with a very limited understanding of the countries and contexts from which people are fleeing. </p>
<p>It was here that I could see the inconsistencies and poor judgements in decision making. Some applicants were members of opposition parties, targeted by states widely known for using violence and intimidation against political opponents. They would be told by the Home Office that this couldn’t be the case, because their government was a multiparty democracy and had signed up to international human rights laws. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-britains-asylum-appeal-system-what-its-like-to-challenge-the-home-office-88907">Inside Britain's asylum appeal system – what it's like to challenge the Home Office</a>
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<p>Accounts of torture might be dismissed on the basis that a government had signed international laws against the use of torture, and illegal detention couldn’t happen because the judiciary is (formally) independent. Or dissidents could simply move elsewhere in the country to be safe. </p>
<p>Others were claiming asylum on the basis of being gay, coming from countries where “hatred” does not come close to describing the vitriol felt, and potential for violence against people believed to be LGBTQ+ is rampant. They were told that because they did not have a partner, or did not go to the types of places the Home Office believed gay people hung out, their claims were rejected. Others were told they could seek protection and report threats to the police, despite having described in their claim instances of violence and illegal detention by the police.</p>
<p>Those fleeing from families determined they should go through female genital mutilation were told their governments had laws banning the practice, so this should be sufficient protection. The idea that reality might differ from formal laws and commitments appeared non-existent.</p>
<h2>Inconsistencies</h2>
<p>Making these decisions even more infuriating and downright dangerous is the fact that official <a href="https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/uganda/local-laws-and-customs">Foreign Office travel advice</a> points out the exact dangers the Home Office blithely dismissed.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that the government lacked expertise and knowledge as a whole, just that – wilfully or because of ineffective systems – one department saw the world very differently from the other. </p>
<p>These inconsistencies and outright poor decisions led me to suspect that asylum application rejections often had very little to do with the merit of the case itself, but were deliberate. This was reinforced by the large number of cases I was involved with that were <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/a_question_of_credibility_final_0.pdf?VersionId=v7NdxUcRYd3gLn5oOCa0HP6ftAZsy7E6">overturned on appeal</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that governments from the mid-2000s felt the need to look tough on migrants – including asylum seekers – after coming under pressure from a perceived backlash to rising immigration numbers, and facing a constant barrage of misleading and untrue press coverage. Refusing applications allowed the government to appear in control, even if many of the decisions were later overturned on appeal. In this, the lives and wellbeing of people fleeing fear, violence and threats were not just ignored, but used in a political game. </p>
<p>I welcome any decision that will speed up the appallingly labyrinthine, slow and failing asylum application process. But it is not just a faster process that is needed, it is a better one overall. One that uses good understandings of the situations and countries people are fleeing from; one that starts not from a position of distrust but of listening; and a process that focuses on the needs of asylum seekers, not a government seeking to manipulate immigration figures. </p>
<p>I saw very little of that in the latest announcement. The government still appears set on politicising the fear and violence against the most vulnerable for its own ends – and the hostile environment looks set to come back more hostile than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jennings is affiliated with Fabian Society. </span></em></p>Many asylum applications are rejected on grounds that dismiss the dire situations in applicants’ countries of origin.Michael Jennings, Professor in Global Development, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1942292022-11-11T16:42:44Z2022-11-11T16:42:44ZUK immigration: creating a spectacle around people seeking asylum generates fear and chaos, not solutions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494835/original/file-20221111-12-eiov8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C8%2C1075%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Suella Braverman's Chinook flight to an immigration holding facility in Kent is the latest move in a decade of border spectacle.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/home-secretary-suella-braverman-arrives-in-a-chinook-helicopter-for-a-visit-to-the-manston-immigration-short-term-holding-facility-located-at-the-former-defence-fire-training-and-development-centre-in-thanet-kent-picture-date-thursday-november-3-2022-image488757653.html?imageid=B7E6314D-8A9D-451A-8480-5F9D59BB2ACF&p=309277&pn=1&searchId=c66b67e14cc550a1bb3141aca67caf69&searchtype=0">Gareth Fuller / PA images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Home Office left a group of people seeking asylum <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/02/home-office-leaves-asylum-seekers-from-manston-stranded-in-central-london">stranded at London’s Victoria Station</a> last week, the scenes were stark. Hungry, cold and disoriented, they had been transported from Manston immigration centre, where 4,000 people were being crammed into a space built for 1,600.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/violence-erupts-in-squalid-conditions-at-manston-276556/">Outbreaks of illness and reports of abuse</a> are just part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-asylum-system-is-in-crisis-but-the-government-not-refugees-is-to-blame-193670">increasingly dire situation</a> at Manston, and in the UK’s immigration system more generally.</p>
<p>The images brought to mind scenes from 2015-16 when <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/05/529462?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqqKh8uKe-wIV0MLtCh2AKgAgEAAYAiAAEgKFwvD_BwE">unprecedented numbers of people</a> fleeing conflict and poverty arrived by boat at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-italy-idUSKBN14J1GE">Europe’s southern borders</a>. They also echo the lines of refugees, freezing and hungry, who had made their way to eastern European borders, arriving at train stations in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/budapest-s-keleti-train-station-has-become-a-de-facto-refugee-camp#:%7E:text=The%20scene%20at%20the%20Keleti,and%20along%20its%20underground%20passageways.">Hungary</a> and later to the north in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/11/27/from-roma-to-refugees-swedens-impossible-choices">Sweden</a>. </p>
<p>They are an extreme contrast with the images of Home Secretary Suella Braverman arriving at Manston <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/suella-braverman-makes-20-mile-191755635.html">by military helicopter</a> – a patently unnecessary method of transportation for somewhere just a few hours’ drive from London. </p>
<p>But as disturbing as these images are, they come as no surprise. The Conservative government, in power for 12 years, has <a href="https://irr.org.uk/article/deadly-crossings/">progressively militarised</a> its approach to migrants and used spectacle to do so. </p>
<p>What is happening now is fundamentally a problem <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-asylum-system-is-in-crisis-but-the-government-not-refugees-is-to-blame-193670?fbclid=IwAR3YQ0HT3HCgT0J9nJQRxtx1b4tRtP82fmszRYlHVNS3mY6pbzEM-RHxDqk">created by the government itself</a>. As I wrote <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315720975/gendered-harm-structural-violence-british-asylum-system-victoria-canning">five years ago</a>, every policy decision, every legislative shift, could have had other outcomes. Instead, by presenting situations that could have been managed as unmanageable, the government has been able to justify ever harsher border policies.</p>
<h2>Creating a spectacle</h2>
<p>Every aspect of Braverman’s recent visit to the Kent centre was calculated. The military imagery complemented her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/01/bravermans-invasion-claim-not-backed-by-facts-say-experts">own choice of words</a> to convey the message that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/01/an-invasion-suella-braverman-refugee-crisis-governments-own-making">Britain is being “invaded”</a>.</p>
<p>This strategy is best described as “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2013.783710?journalCode=rers20">border spectacularisation</a>”. This is the tactic of making a scene, drawing attention to immigration in a way that encourages the public to equate “migrant” with “illegal”. In Braverman’s approach there is an added aesthetic of military control, a grandiose symbol of invasion and protection when no such situation was present.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suella-bravermans-talk-of-a-refugee-invasion-is-a-dangerous-political-gambit-gone-wrong-193638">Suella Braverman's talk of a refugee 'invasion' is a dangerous political gambit gone wrong</a>
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<p>This strategy was central in a defining and controversial image of the Brexit referendum. The pro-Leave UK Independence Party, helmed by Nigel Farage, brought out a poster featuring <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farage-defends-ukip-breaking-point-poster-queue-of-migrants">queues of refugees</a> and “breaking point” in big red capitals. </p>
<p>Farage might have been politically peripheral (if not publicly) when he stood in front of that image. But his message has nonetheless been adopted into policy. Bolstered by the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/22/contents/enacted">Immigration Acts of 2014</a> <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/19/contents/enacted">and 2016</a>, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 has now made it almost impossible to legitimately seek asylum in the UK. It is a direct undermining of our pledge to uphold the 1951 Refugee Convention.</p>
<p>We should expect to see more of this as the government rallies to reduce the arrivals of people on small boats. Harsh measures need public consensus, and as history has taught us, there is no better way to do so than by creating a mood of risk and fear.</p>
<p>These are familiar strategies in other countries with ever stricter border policies. In 2017, Denmark’s former minister of immigration, integration and housing, Inger Støjberg, had to be evacuated by security guards during a visit she made to the Sjælsmark deportation centre. Tensions rose when some of the detainees, whose claims for asylum had been rejected, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5053737/Minister-flees-mob-asylum-seekers-immigration-centre.html">cornered her in her car</a>. </p>
<p>Støjberg, who was later <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/13/inger-st-jberg-denmark-s-ex-immigration-minister-convicted-of-impeachment-over-asylum-poli">jailed for enacting illegal asylum policies</a>, was instrumental in facilitating unlivable conditions for people seeking asylum. She <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/world/europe/denmark-migrants-island.html">made headlines</a> with her comments that migrants were unwanted in Denmark, and would be made to feel that.</p>
<p>By 2021, Denmark had become the first country in Europe to consider <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/denmark-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-unconscionable-and-potentially-unlawful/">offshoring its asylum process</a>. Controversially, the prime minister and leader of the Social Democrats Mette Frederiksen – otherwise often lauded for progressive policies – has now implemented a <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/29842/denmark-aims-for-zero-asylum-seekers">“net zero” approach</a> to refugees. This is the clear path Britain has also taken, with little regard for our international obligations on refugee rights. </p>
<h2>Missed opportunities</h2>
<p>Politicians have long seized on periods of significant instability to encourage anti-migrant sentiment. When the first British border control laws were formalised in the Aliens Act of 1905, the government’s aim was to reduce “undesirable” migration. The main targets were Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Russia, as well as other eastern European migrants. Xenophobia and antisemitism were effectively enshrined in policy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/timeline-the-criminalisation-asylum#1">Over the last century</a>, war, famine and political instability have been the bedrock of border securitisation globally. This approach to immigration policy – which can be seen <a href="https://www.statewatch.org/news/2019/december/eu-guarding-the-fortress/">across the EU</a> as well as in the UK – treats the movement of people across borders as a security threat rather than an opportunity for humanitarian assistance.</p>
<p>Central to border spectacularisation is that the situation being presented as unmanageable usually isn’t. The UK situation is a case in point. Since the 1980s in particular, successive British governments have sought to restrict immigration by conflating seeking asylum with criminalisation. More restrictive laws were passed by the New Labour government <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2531049">between 1997 and 2010</a> than in the nine preceding decades.</p>
<p>Our politicians speak now of <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-18/home-office-begins-12-month-trial-electronically-tagging-channel-migrants">“alternatives” to detention</a> and addressing the increasing numbers of people arriving at Britain’s southern shores. But this country was already offered an alternative during 2015-16. </p>
<p>The German Chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, and her French counterpart Francois Hollande <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-and-hollande-call-for-refugee-distribution-quotas-in-europe/a-18692857">proposed</a> quotas to ensure that EU states – of which the UK was still one – could equally respond to increased refugee applications. But the UK <a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/border-mismanagement-ignorance-and-denial">deliberately ignored</a> this opportunity for collaboration, and as a result went statistically largely unaffected by the greatest mass movement of people since the second world war.</p>
<p>Had the then-home secretary Theresa May agreed to those Franco-German proposals, the situation in the UK today might look different. Instead, 12 years of Conservative governance has pushed narratives that dehumanise vulnerable people, and turned the border into a spectacle. These tactics have failed for all parties, and the harms are resting firmly on people who have already faced persecution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Canning has previously received funding from ESRC and The British Academy. She is affiliated with Statewatch. </span></em></p>Recent scenes at Victoria Station and Manston immigration centre are one way the government drives anti-migration sentiment.Victoria Canning, Associate Professor of Criminology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936382022-11-02T15:58:45Z2022-11-02T15:58:45ZSuella Braverman’s talk of a refugee ‘invasion’ is a dangerous political gambit gone wrong<p>When someone hears the UK home secretary speaking about “<a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/britain-facing-invasion-south-coast-asylum-broken-suella-braverman/">stopping the invasion</a> on our southern coast”, they might be forgiven for thinking Britain is at war. Suella Braverman’s description of refugees landing at Kent as an “invasion” is an unprecedented comment from a government minister speaking in parliament. </p>
<p>Many in the Conservative party have traditionally distanced themselves from more outspoken right-wingers – <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-kent-beach-invasion-video-anti-migrant-immigration-a9658246.html">Nigel Farage, for example</a> – who have regularly spoken of the “invasion” of asylum seekers. Even the former home secretary, Priti Patel, who promoted a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-chanel-crossing-migrants-b1955024.html">“turn back the boats” strategy</a> and spearheaded <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/oral-statement-on-rwanda">sending migrants to Rwanda</a>, was careful to avoid such dehumanising language.</p>
<p>Invoking invasion metaphors is dangerous precisely because it assumes the motives of a population whose experiences, backgrounds and migration stories are complex and often traumatic. Depicting refugees as an invading army – or <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bbc-under-fire-nigel-farage-194412564.html">a flood that threatens to sweep over the nation</a> – represents them as a marauding force bent on aggression.</p>
<p>This language of invasion is one used often by right-wing extremist groups, who take it upon themselves to patrol the Kent coast and spread disinformation about asylum seekers through social media. In September 2019, the far-right group Britain First started <a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/far-right-group-patrols-beaches-for-migrants-212472/">beach patrols on Samphire Hoe</a>, the country park created from the Channel Tunnel excavations. Tellingly, they dubbed this “Operation White Cliffs”. In 2020, its members <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/05/port-of-dover-is-brought-to-a-standstill-by-far-right-groups">blocked the port of Dover</a>, causing gridlock. Later they launched their own patrol boat Alfred the Great, promising to stand firm “against the <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/far-right-mob-britain-first-launch-migrant-patrol-ship-off-dover">unprecedented invasion by economic migrants”</a>.</p>
<p>With the context of the terrorist attack on the Dover <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-63473640">immigration centre</a>, Braverman’s unapologetic use of such inflammatory language plays into the hands of such groups. So why is she using it now?</p>
<p>In the run-up to Brexit, immigration was at the fore of public attention. Leave campaigners and parts of the press regularly invoked a narrative of territorial encroachment, suggesting that the British way of life was being threatened from the outside. The increasing number of refugees crossing the Channel was often conflated with the threat posed by EU bureaucracy and laws. This was one argument for “seizing back control” of British borders. </p>
<p>But years after the referendum, we are moving to a political era where migration is no longer of particular concern to the British people. In 2013, the British Social Attitudes survey suggested 77% of Brits <a href="https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-31/immigration/introduction.aspx">wanted immigration reduced “a lot”</a>. By 2019 <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/">this was down to 19%</a>, and more recent surveys suggest that most believe immigration has a positive impact on the nation. By 2022, inflation/prices (54%), the economy (34%) and climate change (23%) all far outstripped immigration (11%) in the British public’s <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ipsos-issues-index-august-2022">political priorities</a>.</p>
<p>With this in mind, Braverman’s rhetoric of invasion could be an attempt to reignite debates about the border, to deflect from some of the economic problems that her party has struggled to address. Following the Tories’ disastrous flirtation with Trussonomics, claims about the threat of migration are a convenient smokescreen. They suggest the nation’s current travails are caused by “illegals” who take British jobs and homes. </p>
<p>Propping up her currently-ailing party’s reputation as one tough on immigration, Braverman’s intervention in the debates around the Channel crisis could have been a masterstroke ahead of a general election which looks set to be a disaster for the Conservatives. But given the reaction, even from her <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/uk-news/suella-braverman-asylum-invasion-jenrick-b2215374.html">fellow ministers</a>, it is one that looks to have badly misfired. </p>
<p>In recent days, harrowing images of child refugees held in the overcrowded Manston airfield accommodation in Kent have undermined Braverman’s tough talk. They have instead fostered widespread sympathy towards the plight of those who come to the UK seeking a better life. In this light, talking of refugees as aggressors threatening the island fortress seems badly out of touch with contemporary public opinion. </p>
<h2>Kent as the frontline</h2>
<p>The language of “invasion” being applied to migrants – legal and otherwise – is of course not uncommon. One of the most notable examples was the 2019 photo in The Sun, claiming to depict “<a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9835451/migrants-arrive-kent-beach-crisis/">The Moment Migrants Storm Kent Beaches</a>”.</p>
<p>Militaristic metaphors of national defence being breached, and descriptions of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li_DK-fs_Nw">“deadly cat and mouse game</a>” between border patrol and refugees in dinghies depict Kent as a battleground, rather than a site of reception and hospitality. </p>
<p>This language resonates powerfully because of Kent’s role as the military frontline throughout British history. This is embodied in the memorials, monuments and military structures around Kent’s coastline, from <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1502015582">Dover Castle</a> to the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/1587">Road to Remembrance in Folkestone</a>.</p>
<p>During the run-up and immediate aftermath of Brexit, when so much appeared uncertain, these sites were seized upon as part of the mythology of the “island fortress”. The spirit of 1945 was regularly invoked by those arguing it was time for the British to “take back control”. Boris Johnson argued that Winston Churchill would have joined him on his Brexit “battle bus” and compared the EU “superstate” to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/boris-johnson-the-eu-wants-a-superstate-just-as-hitler-did/">Hitler’s Germany</a>. And Nigel Farage entered a 2019 rally to the sound of <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-nigel-farage-criticised-for-using-air-raid-sirens-for-introduction-51310/">air raid sirens</a>.</p>
<p>Brexit was fuelled by subtle cultural manipulation of ideas of Englishness – embracing both the nostalgia for the British imperial project as well as the class resentments associated with austerity. Brexit was a vote against London, globalisation and multiculturalism as much as it was a vote against Europe. This combination appeared to have particular appeal to many older, mainly white voters living outside the capital. Many would have voted Conservative in 2019, leading to Braverman’s rise to home secretary in the first place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Hubbard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Using military rhetoric like ‘invasion’ plays into the hands of extremist groups.Philip Hubbard, Professor of Urban Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1927402022-10-20T21:38:28Z2022-10-20T21:38:28ZBurnout and isolation: Why employees and managers can’t ignore the social and mental health impact of working from home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490917/original/file-20221020-20-55pft3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=213%2C44%2C4699%2C3226&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pandemic made many people more aware of the impossibility of severing work from life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/burnout-and-isolation--why-employees-and-managers-can-t-ignore-the-social-and-mental-health-impact-of-working-from-home" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred on a variety of workplace maladies, including “<a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/351545/great-resignation-really-great-discontent.aspx">the great resignation</a>,” “<a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx">quiet quitting</a>,” “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/two-jobs-pandemic-1.6577522">overemployment</a>,” <a href="https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/labour_/labour-shortage-trends-canada">labour shortages</a> and conflicts between managers and employees over <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america/">returning to in-person work</a>. </p>
<p>Employee burnout and well-being may be at the heart of several of these issues. </p>
<p>Two new studies highlight the importance of social connection in the workplace and illustrate why working from home may not be the optimal workplace arrangement. Hybrid work-from-home schedules may help prevent burnout and improve mental health.</p>
<h2>So, what is burnout?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/129180281">International Classification of Diseases</a> describes burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2019/05/29/burnout-is-now-an-officially-diagnosable-condition-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-it/?sh=54b94c62b99b">diagnosable condition</a>, burnout consists of three symptoms: </p>
<ol>
<li>physical exhaustion, </li>
<li>disengagement with work and colleagues, and </li>
<li>cynicism for one’s job and career. </li>
</ol>
<p>For many who have experienced burnout, it can feel just like the metaphor that describes it: something akin to a burnt-up shriveled match stick, cold to the touch. </p>
<h2>What causes burnout and how can it be stopped?</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/10/15/surveys-show-burnout-is-an-international-crisis/?sh=7d4422ed7cf7">global research</a>, approximately 50 per cent of employees and 53 per cent of managers are burnt out in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Workplaces are clearly not thriving. </p>
<p>As a social epidemiologist studying contemporary emotional distress within the context of public health crises, I’ve been keen to understand what factors contribute to burnout and how it can be successfully managed — particularly given the ongoing challenges created by COVID-19. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A row of matches with red tips, with one burnt up match" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490930/original/file-20221020-24-zk0f61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burnout can feel just like the euphemism that describes it: something akin to a burnt-up shriveled match stick.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You might think researchers would know everything there is to know about burnout at this point. After all, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.29.4.233">burnout has been studied</a> since at least the late 1970s. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28903843/">Many of the studies conducted since</a> then have focused on workplace conditions, such as pay, hours, management styles and the nebulous “workplace culture.” </p>
<p>As such, management of burnout has often focused on reshaping work environments and reforming bad managers. While these are of course necessary, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12360">it’s not immediately clear that they’re enough</a>. </p>
<p>With the emergence of the pandemic, many people have new levels of awareness of the impossibility of severing work from life. For some, that awareness comes from how tired they are when they get home from a shift. For others working from home, it may come from the disappearing divide between home and office. </p>
<p>In any case, our emotional and psychological well-being is with us whether we’re at work or at home. As such, it makes sense that we take a holistic view of burnout. Social connection is a key driver of burnout.</p>
<h2>The social costs and benefits of working from home</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12360">recent study</a> by my lab at Simon Fraser University, we sought to identify the most important risk factors for burnout. We looked at a range of variables, including the classic factors of workload, satisfaction with pay, dignity in the workplace, control over one’s work, and pay adequacy, as well as more novel variables such as home ownership, an array of demographic factors, social support and loneliness.</p>
<p>In conducting this study, we found that loneliness and lack of social support come out as leading contributors to burnout, perhaps just as important — if not moreso — than physical health and financial security. In summary, the study contributes to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/opinion/burnout-friends-isolation.html">growing understanding</a> of burnout as a social problem driven by isolation. </p>
<p>One potential and evolving source of isolation is the emerging trend of working from home. As many people have had the privilege to learn, there are many benefits of working from home. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/15/pet-time-and-power-naps-working-from-home-during-the-covid-crisis">It enables people to save time on their commutes and have more freedom to get chores done around the house or take a quick nap on their breaks</a>. This means they have more time and energy for friends and family at the end of the day. </p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too">working from home means losing out on those water cooler conversations and casual collisions with coworkers</a> — which have a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120668119#sec-2">surprisingly profound</a> impact on well-being. Furthermore, considering <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/friends-relationships-work-productivity-career/">how important workplaces and schools are for finding and building friendships</a>, a loss of these spaces could have serious long-term consequences for people’s social health — especially if the time spent with others at work is now spent at home alone.</p>
<h2>The importance of social connection to health and happiness</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three people having a discussion while gathered around a laptop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490934/original/file-20221020-13-hip9f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research highlighted the importance of social connection to workplace well-being.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels/Kampus Production)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To understand the impacts of working from home on mental health, my team conducted a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811588">second study</a> to look at differences in self-rated mental health across individuals who work only from home, only in person, or who worked partially in-person and partially at home. We controlled for potentially important factors such as income, hours of work, occupation, age, gender, and ethnicity.</p>
<p>Our results showed that 54 per cent of those who worked only in person and 63 per cent of those who worked only at home reported good or excellent mental health. From these results, you might conclude that working from home is best for mental health — a finding contrary to a <a href="https://www.uprightpose.com/the-health-dilemma-of-the-work-from-home-era/">growing number of studies that highlight the disadvantages and challenges of working from home</a>. </p>
<p>However, there’s a catch: a whopping 87 per cent of those who reported a hybrid work arrangement — meaning they worked partially in-person and partially at home — had good or excellent mental health. </p>
<p>While the type of work done at home and in-person certainly shapes these trends, our findings nevertheless point to the possibility that hybrid work might give employees the best of both worlds — especially within the context of our first study, which highlighted the importance of social connection to workplace well-being. Indeed, hybrid work arrangements may allow employees to maintain those positive connections with colleagues while also providing a better balance between work and life. It really may be the best of both worlds — at least for those who can work this way.</p>
<p>As employees and employers continue to adapt to the new normal in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our research provides a strong reminder for us to all remember the importance of social connection. It’s all too easy to forget that <a href="http://ccare.stanford.edu/press_posts/good-social-relationships-are-the-most-consistent-predictor-of-a-happy-life/">strong social relationships and communities are the foundation of health and happiness</a> within and outside the workplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiffer George Card receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Research Coordinating Committee, Michael Smith Health Research BC, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is affiliated with Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, The Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, The Institute for Social Connection, The Community-based Research Centre, the GenWell Project, The Island Sexual Health Society, and the Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance.
</span></em></p>Two new studies highlight the importance of social connection in the workplace and illustrate why working from home may not be the optimal workplace arrangement.Kiffer George Card, Assistant Professor in Health Sciences, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881222022-08-22T17:16:04Z2022-08-22T17:16:04ZNo longer freezing: Working from home can make workplaces more comfortable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478985/original/file-20220812-16-iws5c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5734%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thermal discomfort is just another reason employees may prefer to continue teleworking.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/no-longer-freezing--working-from-home-can-make-workplaces-more-comfortable" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Working from home during the pandemic presented a wide array of challenges and benefits for those who were able to do so. For some, a benefit was workplace comfort. </p>
<p>While the conversation on gender differences when it comes to thermal comfort in the workplace is not new — men tend to report being more comfortable than women — <a href="https://www.cobee2022.org/assets/doc/COBEE2022_Program_V1.pdf">our research</a> on teleworkers’ behaviours during the pandemic revealed that women were more comfortable in their home offices because they could control the temperature, add or remove layers. </p>
<p>Specifically, our results and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03121-1">previous research</a> suggest that workplaces that do not provide personalized thermostat settings or require any formal attire don’t promote equitable thermal comfort conditions.</p>
<h2>Survey of teleworkers</h2>
<p>Our research team at the <a href="https://carleton.ca/hbilab/">Human Building Interaction Laboratory at Carleton University</a> surveyed teleworkers (many of whom relocated to home offices) during the COVID-19 pandemic by conducting in-depth interviews. </p>
<p>We sought to uncover how teleworking impacted workers’ behaviours at home compared to their behaviours in traditional office spaces. </p>
<p>What we found strongly suggests that teleworkers experienced many benefits, including increased productivity, less mental exhaustion and greater thermal comfort.</p>
<h2>Relaxed formal attire requirements</h2>
<p>Our data indicates that improved thermal comfort at home is because of personal control over the thermostat and greater flexibility over what to wear during the workday. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cobee2022.org/assets/doc/COBEE2022_Program_V1.pdf">our study</a>, most teleworkers’ primary action to stay comfortable was to add or remove clothing layers when they felt too hot or cold, unless they had a child. When teleworkers’ had a child, they kept the thermostat set to a temperature that was comfortable for their children. </p>
<p>“I am more comfortable now [at home] because it’s warmer and the office, it was colder,” said one of our interviewees.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A thermostat on a wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478982/original/file-20220812-1219-d55cq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thermostat settings were originally designed based on men’s formal office attire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Moja Msanii/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In traditional office settings, employees typically cannot control the thermostat or temperature to suit their needs, which can lead to discomfort. </p>
<p>The situation can be even more challenging for women in settings where relatively formal attire is required. This is because office thermostat settings <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2741">were originally designed based on men’s formal office attire</a>. </p>
<p>“I remember feeling cold all the time over there [office] […] definitely, that was something that doesn’t happen anymore because it’s my own home, and I’m comfortable with temperatures here,” said an interviewee.</p>
<p>Teleworking brought more relaxed attire requirements to employees because, well, there often weren’t any. Both men and women during video conferencing said they only wore formal clothes on the portion of their bodies that was visible to others via the camera.</p>
<h2>Equity in the workplace</h2>
<p>While equity in the workplace has many different facets, such as salaries, <a href="https://www.sageglass.com/en/visionary-insights/comfort-workplace-equity-issue">providing comfortable working conditions for all is one of the primary subcategories of workplace equity</a>. </p>
<p>Our results, along with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03121-1">many others</a>, show that this basic tenet of workplace <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03121-1">equity is not achieved in many workplaces when it comes to thermal comfort</a>. </p>
<p>There remains a need to take action and improve conditions in traditional workspaces by giving employees more ways to control the temperature and their comfort. Some solutions may be providing them with flexible or less formal clothing options, or coming up with <a href="https://v2.wellcertified.com/en/v/thermal%20comfort">other ways of improving thermal comfort like desk fans, openable windows and chairs with built-in heaters</a>. Perhaps it’s also time to revisit the ideal office thermostat settings. </p>
<p>Thermal discomfort is just another reason employees may prefer to continue teleworking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man buttons his suit in front of a staircase" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478987/original/file-20220812-18-ehc0cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Employers should revisit formal dress codes and consider personalized thermostat settings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hunters Race/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Workplace attire</h2>
<p>Business researchers Katherine Karl and Joy Peluchette <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1208">found that workplace attire was linked to</a> productivity, as well as perceived authoritativeness, trustworthiness, friendliness, creativity and competency of employees. In other words, a company’s goals are directly linked to how employees will be required to dress. </p>
<p>For instance, banks might need their employees to convey a sense of trustworthiness and so require their customer-facing employees to wear more formal clothes, whereas organizations in creative fields might allow their employees to choose their attire more freely. </p>
<p>Our research suggests that employers should revisit formal dress codes and consider personalized thermostat settings. By applying such strategies, organizations can move toward improved workplace equity and benefit from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/health/women-temperature-tests.html">increased productivity and performance</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Employers can foster equity in the workplace by relaxing current dress codes or providing employees with individual thermostat control and other means to improve their comfort.Farzam Sepanta, PhD Candidate, Building Engineering, Carleton UniversityLaura Arpan, Theodore Clevenger Professor of Communication, FAMU-FSU College of EngineeringLiam O'Brien, Professor in Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering, Carleton UniversityMarianne Touchie, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1883302022-08-18T15:50:10Z2022-08-18T15:50:10ZFacial recognition: UK plans to monitor migrant offenders are unethical – and they won’t work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478550/original/file-20220810-12-7rlycq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3822%2C2132&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Facial recognition technology struggles to recognise darker skin tones</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/future-face-detection-technological-3d-scanning-1628451346">Nazar Kantora/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One afternoon in our lab, my colleague and I were testing our new prototype for a facial recognition software on a laptop. The software used a video camera to scan our faces and guess our age and gender. It correctly guessed my age but when my colleague, who was from Africa, tried it out, the camera didn’t detect a face at all. We tried turning on lights in the room, adjusted her seating and background, but the system still struggled to detect her face. </p>
<p>After many failed attempts, the software finally detected her face – but got her age wrong and gave the wrong gender. </p>
<p>Our software was only a prototype, but the difficulty working with darker skin tones reflects the experiences of people of colour who try to use facial recognition technology. In recent years, researchers have <a href="http://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/buolamwini18a.html?mod=article_inline">demonstrated the unfairness in facial recognition systems</a>, finding that the software and algorithms developed by big technology companies are more accurate at recognising lighter skin tones than darker ones. </p>
<p>Yet recently, the Guardian reported that the UK Home Office <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/05/facial-recognition-smartwatches-to-be-used-to-monitor-foreign-offenders-in-uk">plans</a> to make migrants convicted of criminal offences scan their faces five times a day using a smart watch equipped with facial recognition technology. A spokesperson for the Home Office said facial recognition technology would not be used on asylum seekers arriving in the UK illegally, and that the report on its use on migrant offenders was “purely speculative”.</p>
<h2>Get the balance right</h2>
<p>There will always be a tension between <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-016-3233-4">national security and individual rights</a>. Security for the many can take priority over privacy for a few. For example, in November 2015 when the terrorist group ISIS attacked Paris, killing 130 people, the Paris police <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20151118-text-found-binned-mobile-phone-bataclan-encryption-paris-attacks">found a phone</a> that one of the terrorists had abandoned at the scene, and read messages stored on it. </p>
<p>There is a lot of nuance to this issue. We must ask ourselves, whose rights are curbed by a breach of privacy, <a href="https://people.cs.umass.edu/%7Eelm/papers/FRTintheWild.pdf">to what degree</a>, and who judges if a breach of privacy is in balance with the severity of a criminal offence? </p>
<p>In the case of offenders taking photographs of their faces several times a day, we could argue the breach of privacy is in the national security interest for most people, if the crime is serious. The government is entitled to make such a decision as it is responsible for the safety of its citizens. For minor offences, however, face recognition may be too strong a measure. </p>
<p>In its plan, the Home Office has not differentiated between minor and serious offenders; nor has it provided convincing evidence that facial recognition improves people’s compliance with immigration law. </p>
<p>Worldwide, we know facial recognition is <a href="https://core.ac.uk/works/54207934">more likely to be used to police people of colour</a> by monitoring their movements more often than those of white people. This is despite the fact that facial recognition systems are <a href="https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Face-Off-final-digital-1.pdf">more accurate</a> with lighter than darker skin tones. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478551/original/file-20220810-20-ifsy3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Home Office reportedly wants migrant offenders to scan their faces five times a day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/biometric-identification-africanamerican-woman-scanning-face-1314016142">Prostock-studio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taking a picture of your face and uploading it five times a day could feel demeaning. Glitches with darker skin tones could make checking into the system more than just a frustrating experience. There could be serious consequences for offenders if the technology fails.</p>
<p>The flaws in facial recognition might also create national security issues for the government. For example, it might misidentify the face of one person as another. Facial recognition technology is not ready for something as important as national security.</p>
<h2>The alternative</h2>
<p>Another option the government is considering for migrant offenders is location tracking. Electronic monitoring <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tens-of-thousands-more-criminals-to-be-tagged-to-cut-crime-and-protect-victims">already keeps track of people with criminal records in the UK</a> using ankle tags, and it would make sense to apply the same technology to migrant and non-migrant offenders equally.</p>
<p>Location tracking comes with its own <a href="https://core.ac.uk/works/68321747">ethical issues for personal privacy</a> and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/works/8113207?source=1&algorithmId=15&similarToDoc=8565700&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=fa863cbe-c736-4eda-9069-9ddd18e7d1f2&position=1&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=8113207,8512890,18775066,4206661,8542302">racial surveillance</a>. Due to the intrusive nature of electronic monitoring, some people who wear these devices can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/05/facial-recognition-smartwatches-to-be-used-to-monitor-foreign-offenders-in-uk">suffer from depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts</a>.</p>
<p>But location tracking technology <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03568">gives options</a>, at least. For example, data can be handled sensitively by following <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-013-9462-3">data privacy guidelines</a> such as the UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/data-protection">Data Protection Act 2018</a>. We can minimise the amount of location data we collect by only tracking someone’s location once or twice a day. We can anonymize the data, only making people’s names visible when and where necessary.</p>
<p>The UK Home Office could use location data to flag up suspicious activity, such as if an offender enters an area from which they have been barred. For minor offenders, we need not track the person’s exact location but only the general area, such as a postcode or town. </p>
<p>As a society, we should strive to maintain the dignity and privacy of people, except in the most serious cases. More importantly, we should ensure technology does not have the potential to discriminate against a group of people based on their ethnicity. The law and regulation should apply equally to all people.</p>
<p>The Home Office spokesperson added: “The public expects us to monitor convicted foreign national offenders … Foreign criminals should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them, and the government is doing everything possible to increase the number of foreign national offenders being deported.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Namrata Primlani has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie-Sklodowska Curie grant agreement No 813508.
Namrata has been a Mozilla Fellow with the Mozilla Foundation until July 2022.
Namrata is a member of A+ Alliance Feminist AI Research Network f<A+i>r. </span></em></p>Our research shows the technology simply isn’t ready yet.Namrata Primlani, Doctoral Researcher, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820992022-04-29T11:50:46Z2022-04-29T11:50:46ZNationality and Borders Act becomes law: five key changes explained<p>At almost the last minute before the parliamentary session ended, after months of pushback from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/priti-patels-immigration-bill-suffers-at-least-10-defeats-in-lords">House of Lords</a> and despite vehement protests from those supporting refugees and migrants, the UK government has succeed in introducing the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3023/publications">Nationality and Borders Act</a>.</p>
<p>These are the five significant changes that will dramatically alter asylum and citizenship rules under the new UK law:</p>
<h2>1. Asylum seekers can be sent to Rwanda</h2>
<p>The plan to process asylum claims in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-is-21st-century-imperialism-writ-large-181501">Rwanda</a> is undoubtedly the biggest headline change brought in by the Nationality and Borders Act. It has been widely condemned by human rights experts.</p>
<p>This route will be used to deal with what the government considers “inadmissable” asylum claims – including people who can no longer be returned to European transit countries following the UK’s exit from the European Union. This is an intensification of the longstanding trend of countries like the UK preferring ever more restrictive, “remote-control” approaches to reduce access to their territory, thereby avoiding asylum claims. Judging by the results of <a href="https://theconversation.com/multibillion-dollar-strategy-with-no-end-in-sight-australias-enduring-offshore-processing-deal-with-nauru-168941">Australia’s similar scheme</a>, this will lead to tragic and harmful consequences for asylum seekers and will also be extremely costly for the UK.</p>
<p>There are doubts about how the Rwanda plan will actually work (legal challenges have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/27/priti-patel-faces-legal-challenge-over-rwanda-asylum-seeker-plan">already been mounted</a>) but the effects are already being felt as fear spreads among asylum seekers awaiting a ruling on their status.</p>
<h2>2. Home secretary can strip your citizenship without warning</h2>
<p>There are many new or enhanced powers for the home secretary included in the new legislation. Perhaps the most notable is the ability to deprive British people of their citizenship without notice. This has not garnered as much attention as the offshoring plans, but could potentially affect <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/the-explainer/2021/12/what-does-the-nationality-and-borders-bill-mean-for-you">millions of people</a>. </p>
<p>The law does not allow the government to leave anyone stateless so the people most at risk from being stripped of their citizenship without notice are those born in other countries or who, for whatever reason, hold dual citizenship.</p>
<p>There is scant protection for these people. Simply being eligible for citizenship of another country may be considered sufficient to safeguard against statelessness – even if, in practice, the state in question is unlikely to cooperate and grant such citizenship.</p>
<h2>3. Asylum seekers can be criminalised</h2>
<p>The new law creates two classes of asylum seeker based on how they arrived in the UK. “Group 1” consists of those who meet new entry requirements; “group 2” is made up of those who do not.</p>
<p>Most people attempting to claim asylum in the UK if they are not able to get a visa (nearly impossible from most countries where asylum seekers come from) will now be designated as “group 2”.</p>
<p>If they arrive in the UK without valid entry clearance they will be committing an offence and will be liable to prosecution. The idea that a person’s right to claim asylum is based on how they reach the UK is significant – and as with nearly all the new law, targets those crossing the English Channel on small boats.</p>
<p>As with much of the political rhetoric around immigration and asylum, the increased use of criminal justice measures is couched in the language of anti-trafficking. By criminalising those who facilitate irregular migration, or the irregular migrants themselves, it is argued that the “evil business of people smuggling” will be disrupted. But evidence suggests that increased enforcement and security tends to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5049707/">backfire</a>. Experts repeatedly point to the more <a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/briefing-safe-routes-to-the-uk">obvious solution</a> of providing safe routes. The Nationality and Borders Act serves to make journeys more dangerous rather than doing anything effective to stop them. </p>
<h2>4. People who arrive over the Channel can be treated more harshly</h2>
<p>Under the new law, people designated “group 2” will be treated more harshly. The home secretary can now even provide different types of accommodation to the different groups, depending on how they arrived in the UK or whether they previously broke immigration rules.</p>
<p>The effects of this innovation may end up being more significant than the plan to send people to Rwanda because it is likely to apply to many more people – not only those who can be deported. </p>
<p>The decision-making system in the Home Office is already complicated. Adding another two-tier element to the asylum process will make things even worse. This looks a lot like a deliberate move to further degrade the already low level of support provided. It’s likely to increase the harmful consequences of Home Office decision-making for those caught up in the system. </p>
<h2>5. Protections against modern slavery are being undermined</h2>
<p>The parts of the law which criminalise individuals involved in irregular migration connect with another important element – the assumed nexus between asylum and modern slavery. This matter takes up a significant amount of real estate in the new law.</p>
<p>One might assume provisions here would be aimed at better protecting people who are being exploited, but that would miss the mark. There is a remarkable consistency across the new law in terms of its main goal to stop people crossing the Channel in small boats and to make it easier to remove them if they make it over.</p>
<p>Accordingly, the main thrust of the modern slavery provisions in this new law is to reduce the possibility for people whose asylum claims are considered “inadmissable” to avoid removal by falsely claiming they have been exploited. This, it is claimed, will solve the problem of people using (“abusing”) the system designed to address modern slavery to frustrate attempts at removal.</p>
<p>Again, the impacts of these changes are difficult to gauge, but the shift towards making it harder for people to seek protection from exploitation as a means to reduce asylum claims can hardly be seen as a move to tackle traffickers and protect their victims, however the home secretary wishes to spin it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Balch receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>From sending arrivals to Rwanda to stripping citizenship without notice – it’s little wonder the government has had to fight to get this legislation passed.Alex Balch, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1779552022-03-17T14:32:49Z2022-03-17T14:32:49ZThe Home Office is now publishing stats on irregular migration - here’s what they do (and don’t) tell us<p>The Home Office has long collected statistics on irregular migration to the UK, but it has never published them officially until now. The statistics, first <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021">published</a> in February 2022, are on detected instances of people entering the UK without immigration permission, such as on small boats, stowing away in vehicles or containers, or using false documents. </p>
<p>The decision to start regularly publishing this data as part of quarterly immigration statistics is welcome. The issue is of strong public interest, yet previously, data on irregular entries appeared in the public domain mainly via freedom of information requests.</p>
<p>After the home secretary declared the rise in channel crossings a “<a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-01-07/debates/FD3F5D45-F095-4ED7-A089-C347E93DD7B2/MigrantCrossings">major incident</a>” in 2018, the Home Office gave some news outlets daily counts of small boat arrivals, until January 2022. But these updates lacked information about the quality of the data and its limitations, such as what counts as a “small boat” and when there may be risks of double counting. The new quarterly figures change that, and what they lack in timeliness, they make up for in clarity and accessibility.</p>
<p>The main finding is that the small-boat route appears to be the most common irregular route to the UK. From 2018-21, around 39,000 people arrived by crossing the channel in inflatable boats, dinghies and kayaks.</p>
<p>The statistics show that in 2021 substantially more people were detected travelling to the UK on small boats than by all other irregular means, including by air on false documents, and by stowing away in lorries or containers. Out of around 37,000 detected irregular entries, 78% were by small boat. </p>
<p>Small-boat arrivals also increased substantially in 2020 – to 8,500 from around 1,800 in 2019 – while detection on other routes fell. It is not clear why this is, but the government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021#about-the-statistics">stated</a> that COVID restrictions made other routes, such as lorry or train, less viable. And the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/933953/An_inspection_of_the_Home_Office_s_response_to_in-country_clandestine_arrivals___lorry_drops___and_to_irregular_migrants_arriving_via__small_boats_.pdf">reported</a> that Home Office officials believe enhanced security at French ports and the channel tunnel – to prevent stowaways on lorries and trains bound for the UK – made the small-boat route more viable. </p>
<h2>Interpret with caution</h2>
<p>As welcome as the new statistics are, they tell only a partial picture. </p>
<p>The Home Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2021">cautions</a> that the data is “not designed for statistical purposes and therefore should be interpreted with caution”. Notably, the Home Office says that the figures cannot be used to infer total levels of irregular migration.</p>
<p>This is because many irregular entries are not detected. And detection rates differ according to the method of entry. Very few people travelling in small boats will evade detection, but those entering the UK by hiding in lorries or containers could. The apparent dominance of the small-boat route in the data could result partly from undercounting of other modes of irregular entry. Another factor is the level of enforcement activity, such as how often lorries are checked, or the number of tip-offs the Home office receives.</p>
<p>The figures also do not include the other main way people add to the UK’s irregular migrant population: by entering lawfully on a valid visa and staying longer than the permitted period. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People approaching electronic gates at an airport, under a blue sign reading UK Border" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452806/original/file-20220317-13-n7o38w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The apparent increase in small-boat crossings could have partly been influenced by undercounting other methods of irregular migration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-nov-18-2015-air-372644803">1000 Words / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The statistics also do not explain why people attempt to enter the UK irregularly. Home Office <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/793/default/">testimony</a> suggests that almost all Channel crossers claim asylum on reaching the UK – 98% did from January to September 2020. This supports an <a href="https://media.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/12123010/Safe-Legal-Routes-Briefing-March-2021.pdf">oft-cited</a> explanation for the phenomenon: a lack of safe and legal routes to claim asylum in the UK compels refugees to take dangerous, irregular journeys. </p>
<p>Nor has the government published data on the outcomes of Channel migrants’ asylum applications (<a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/channel-boat-people-are-refugees-home-office-officials-confirm/">which we know it holds</a>). <a href="https://media.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/16095953/Channel-crossings-and-asylum-outcomes-November-2021.pdf">Research</a> suggests that a large share of these applications are likely to be successful.</p>
<p>The data does not explain changes in irregular migration, including the rise of the small-boat route. Some have <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1082/html/">speculated</a> that the pandemic and more stringent controls on road travel, have had the effect of closing off lorry and air routes to the UK. </p>
<p>There is nothing in the data on the number of smugglers apprehended or smuggling operations disrupted, nor on the number of people prevented from departing France to reach the UK irregularly. Finally, the data does not share Channel migrants’ explanations of why they decided to cross the Channel, or why they chose to come to the UK when they could have claimed asylum in other European countries they transited through.</p>
<h2>Why now?</h2>
<p>It has not been explicitly made clear why the government has published these statistics now, but the announcement comes against the backdrop of the nationality and borders bill currently before parliament. A principal <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-statement-on-the-new-plan-for-immigration">aim</a> of the bill is to deter small-boat arrivals through tougher criminal sanctions on irregular entry, and giving refugees fewer rights if they entered the UK irregularly. The huge rise in the number of people detected crossing the channel in small boats lends support to the government’s argument that there is a big problem to be solved. </p>
<p>The bill is part of a longer-term effort to decrease the size of the UK’s irregular migrant population. The government’s “hostile environment” policy, first announced in 2012, aimed to make life for people without immigration status so difficult that they would leave the UK of their own accord. There is little evidence that the policy has worked – removals and voluntary departures of irregular migrants have fallen to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2021/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned">record lows</a>. </p>
<p>It is not clear whether penalising refugees for irregular entry will reduce their arrivals. Evidence <a href="https://personal.lse.ac.uk/thielema/Papers-PDF/CUP-LSE.pdf">suggests</a> that restrictive policies have little effect on the number of asylum claims – conflict and poverty in origin countries are much bigger drivers. Also, the UN has <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2021/5/6097bce14/unhcr-deeply-concerned-at-discriminatory-two-tier-uk-asylum-plans-urges.html">expressed concerns</a> that proposals in the bill violate the refugee convention. Still, it is against this backdrop of legislative restrictions that new statistics help illustrate the size of the issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Migration Observatory receives funding from Trust for London and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.</span></em></p>Publicly available data on irregular migration is a welcome development, but it doesn’t tell the full story.Peter William Walsh, Researcher, The Migration Observatory, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1756972022-01-28T13:13:05Z2022-01-28T13:13:05ZLack of data on citizenship-stripping goes against the Home Office’s duty of transparency<p>A group of lawyers found that <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/how-many-people-have-been-stripped-of-their-british-citizenship-home-office-deprivation/">at least 464 people</a> have had their citizenship removed by the government over the last 15 years. They pieced together the data using freedom of information requests and other publications – a challenge, because the Home Office does not publish the information regularly.</p>
<p>Citizenship-stripping for conduct – when a person’s citizenship is removed because of their behaviour – has been a government power <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/61/section/40">for decades</a>. Previously, citizenship could only be removed if the individual had done something “seriously prejudicial to the vital interests” of the UK. But the power was expanded in 2006, allowing the government to remove citizenship if the secretary of state believes the deprivation is “conducive to the public good”. </p>
<p>The nationality and borders bill, which is currently going through parliament, expands this further. It would allow the government to strip people of their British citizenship <a href="https://theconversation.com/stripping-british-citizenship-the-governments-new-bill-explained-173547">without notice</a>.</p>
<p>Knowing how often, and in what manner, these decisions are made is important because citizenship-stripping affects the lives of individuals, their families and their communities. The decision to strip people of British citizenship is based wholly on <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/61/section/40">ministerial discretion</a> – the satisfaction of the minister. Like decisions by all public bodies, ministerial decisions cannot be arbitrary, must operate within reasoned parameters and be just and fair in application.</p>
<p>Citizenship deprivation is ordinarily done for national security or counter-terrorism reasons, so it is possible that lack of transparency is due to a need to protect sources and details of operations. However, operational details are different from providing bare statistics on the use of power. </p>
<p>While it is true that the law recognises the need for some use of exceptional state powers in the area of counter-terrorism, it still requires fairness. For example, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which hears appeals from citizenship cancellation orders, has provision for extraordinary <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/1034/contents/made">closed court sessions</a> which are not open to the public. Yet there is still a process in place for sharing information and providing legal representation to those who appeal, for the sake of fairness. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/21/hundreds-stripped-british-citizenship-last-15-years-study-finds">In response</a> to this article, a Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office is committed to publishing its transparency report into the use of disruptive powers and will do so in due course. Removing British citizenship has been possible for over a century, and is used against those who have acquired citizenship by fraud, and against the most dangerous people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals.”</p>
<p>Without more information from the government, it is impossible to evaluate whether the citizenship-stripping decisions have been objectively reasonable and based on evidence. This is also rarely scrutinised in appeals cases, as most citizenship deprivations occur when someone is outside the country. As has been seen in the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2020-0157.html">Shamima Begum case,</a> it is nearly impossible for people to adequately represent their situation in court from conflict areas.</p>
<p>There is legal precedent for government transparency in immigration cases. Courts <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1996/946.html">have directed</a> that people should be told the reason why their naturalisation applications were denied. And more generally, courts have <a href="https://vlex.co.uk/vid/r-v-secretary-of-806937757">directed</a> that Home Office decision-makers must record their reasoning at the time decisions are made.</p>
<p>Secrecy can also prevent courts from clarifying less clear aspects of the law. Well-reasoned decisions help public bodies withstand legal challenge if they are robust and easily explained.</p>
<h2>Duty of care</h2>
<p>Public authorities generally owe the public a <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/lexispsl/publiclaw/document/393870/55KG-FP91-F18H-K2Y7-00000-00/Claims_against_public_authorities_overview">duty of care</a> to protect individuals from harm.</p>
<p>The government owes a heightened duty of care towards children who are in conflict areas such as Syria and unable to leave because their British parents have had their citizenship cancelled. The <a href="https://globalcit.eu/repatriating-the-forgotten-children-of-isis-fighters-a-matter-of-urgency/">duty towards children</a> is based on their welfare in national laws, as well as best interests in international human rights conventions. Yet, the lack of transparency on citizenship-stripping means not much is known about how many children are affected or what, if anything, is being done to bring them to safety.</p>
<p>Ministerial power should only be exercised for the public good, and negligence can put lives at risk. Public officers acting in bad faith, knowing it would probably cause harm, could be committing <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/guidance/misfeasance-in-public-office">misfeasance in public office</a>. Actions for misfeasance require proving intentional misbehaviour and would be difficult to establish for cancellation of citizenship. Nevertheless, it shows that there are limits to ministerial power and discretion. </p>
<p>Given these serious consequences, ministerial discretion must be exercised objectively and with transparency. Oversight bodies, parliament and the public must be able to scrutinise their actions.</p>
<p>It is possible that the lack of available data is just poor recordkeeping or delay on the part of the government. But this secrecy hampers wider public responses to human rights abuses which may take place during counter-terrorism operations. NGOs and investigative journalists can only go so far to bring about accountability while relying on freedom of information requests, personal contacts and anecdotal evidence for data.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devyani Prabhat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Knowing the number of people who have had their citizenship removed is crucial to holding a powerful government to account.Devyani Prabhat, Professor in Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744872022-01-25T15:30:21Z2022-01-25T15:30:21ZThe policing bill will criminalise Gypsy and Traveller families – there is a better approach<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442208/original/file-20220124-13-yh058u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C37%2C3470%2C2295&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leeds GATE</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The policing bill making its way through UK parliament has sparked controversy over its draconian proposals to expand police powers and <a href="https://theconversation.com/priti-patels-activist-travel-bans-are-another-blow-to-human-rights-in-the-uk-169386">curb protests</a>. The bill will also have a detrimental impact on Gypsy and Traveller families with the criminalisation of trespass.</p>
<p>In its current form, part four of <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2839">the bill</a> changes the act of trespassing from a civil to a criminal offence and introduces additional powers for police to deal with roadside camps. This means that people who live on roadside camps could face time in prison, a fine of £2,500 or have their home taken away from them. This will have profound consequences for Gypsy and Traveller groups, already some of the most marginalised communities in England and Wales. </p>
<p>Advocates and campaign groups have <a href="https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/law/fft-calls-for-part-4-of-police-bill-to-be-scrapped/">called for part four to be scrapped</a>. The Council of Europe <a href="https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/news/council-of-europe-calls-on-mps-to-reject-criminalisation-of-trespass/">commissioner for human rights</a> wrote to MPs and members of the House of Lords opposing the measures. Even the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/police-oppose-traveller-and-gypsy-camp-crackdown-foi-shows">police are opposed</a>. All argue that the main driver of unauthorised encampments is a lack of sites – people simply have no other options.</p>
<p>Since the 1960s, Gypsies and Travellers have been subjected to legislation aimed at controlling or eradicating nomadism and pushing the community into bricks-and-mortar housing. Yet no government has ever gone as far as the policing bill in so explicitly seeking to make nomadic practices illegal. It marks a pivotal moment in the longer-term erosion of the <a href="https://www.theplanner.co.uk/opinion/nomadism-in-the-uk-you-can%E2%80%99t-travel-if-you%E2%80%99re-never-allowed-to-stop">Gypsy-Traveller right to nomadism</a>.</p>
<p>The criminalisation of trespass will affect several “unfixed” groups, such as squatters, activists and rough sleepers. However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544211067381">our research</a> shows that this bill explicitly targets Gypsies and Travellers using racist stereotypes. We analysed the government’s consultation process, which has been used as evidence in parliamentary debates to support the criminalisation of trespass.</p>
<p>The consultation frames Gypsies and Travellers themselves as the problem from the outset. Encampments are equated with stereotypes of crime and antisocial behaviour. As well as leading respondents through assumption loaded questions, the consultation selectively prioritises racist responses from anonymous individuals. More informed submissions from the police, charities and those engaged daily with Gypsies and Travellers are largely ignored. </p>
<p>Gypsies and Travellers are presented primarily as a threat to property that trumps any right to travel. There is no consideration of the reality of decades of underprovision of sites driving unauthorised encampments, nor of anti-Gypsy and Traveller racism as a key barrier to new site development. Tellingly, the consultation response states that criminalisation could be “positive in the long term” by <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/917668/Unauthorised_development_and_encampments_response.pdf">dissuading people</a> from “choosing a travelling lifestyle, to the benefit of children”.</p>
<h2>A better solution</h2>
<p>Criminalisation makes little sense. It will invariably lead to increased conflict, vilification, homelessness and costly eviction procedures. But there is a proven and cost-effective alternative that can foster a better relationship between nomadic Gypsies and Travellers and their temporary neighbours. </p>
<p>“Negotiated stopping” involves an <a href="https://www.negotiatedstopping.co.uk/ns-explained">agreement between</a> roadside families, neighbours and the local authority around acceptable use of a space and length of stay (usually around 28 days). In return, the local authority provides the same infrastructure they would for any citizens, such as sewerage (portaloos), wheelie bins and water access where possible.</p>
<p>The approach was pioneered in Leeds by Gypsy and Traveller organisation <a href="https://www.leedsgate.co.uk/">Leeds Gate</a>. It is producing <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61389384969cff6899502b7d/t/61967563e13bcf5c62c8fb15/1637250408498/Evidence+of+Success.pdf">estimated savings</a> of around £200,000 per year for the local authority and police force combined. <a href="http://www.londongypsiesandtravellers.org.uk/news/2019/12/04/new-lgt-report-on-negotiated-stopping-in-london/">Similar initiatives</a> are being developed by Gypsy and Traveller groups and local authorities in London and other parts of the UK.</p>
<p>In avoiding costly and confrontational evictions, this approach has seen relations with police, local authorities and neighbours improve. Providing basic amenities eases tension around encampments related to rubbish and waste, which make up the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61389384969cff6899502b7d/t/61967563e13bcf5c62c8fb15/1637250408498/Evidence+of+Success.pdf">vast majority</a> of complaints. Meanwhile, families can stay put for long enough to access education, healthcare and work, directly improving their quality of life. These are not radical suggestions, nor are they costly to implement. </p>
<p>Criminalising trespass will only reinforce longstanding stereotypes of Gypsies and Travellers as threatening “outsiders”. Negotiated stopping offers a far more effective, inclusive and less burdensome response than costly eviction-first approaches. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/17/travellers-challenge-to-ban-on-camping-on-public-land-upheld-bromley-london">A 2019 high court ruling</a> against eviction injunctions stated, “simply pushing families out of one area into another is not a solution”. As Leeds Gate argues, the government needs to acknowledge that families have the right to travel, evictions are harmful and far better solutions are already delivering results.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Whilst completing this research, Sam received funding from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Communities in Leeds have eased tensions and saved local authorities money with a new approach to roadside families.Samuel Burgum, Lecturer in Sociology, Birmingham City UniversityRyan Powell, Reader in Urban Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745552022-01-13T16:00:50Z2022-01-13T16:00:50ZAsylum seekers: why UK needs to change how it assesses the age of new arrivals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440468/original/file-20220112-13-tljvuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C41%2C5455%2C3953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/photo-xray-film-human-shoulder-1709523028">Lena Si / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first week of January, the Home Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-office-to-introduce-scientific-methods-for-assessing-the-age-of-asylum-seekers">announced that</a> it would set up a committee to advise on the use of scientific methods – such as x-rays and MRI imaging – to determine the age of asylum seekers. </p>
<p>Age assessment is part of the asylum application process when it is unclear whether the person seeking asylum is over 18. It’s vital to get this right from various perspectives. Children who are mistakenly aged as adults will be placed in adult housing, endangering them and denying them support they are entitled to. Conversely, when adults are wrongly aged as minors, they may be claiming support they are not entitled to. </p>
<p>Methods like medical imaging techniques may provide better age estimates than the UK’s current system, which is based on an assessment by social workers in situations where the person’s age is in question. </p>
<p>And as a diagnostic radiographer, I am familiar with the methods involving medical imaging. As an osteoarchaeologist, I use dating methods like dental development to assess the age of skeletal remains. While assessing the age of living individuals is a slightly different scientific process, these methods provide more accurate results than the UK’s current system.</p>
<h2>Current methods</h2>
<p>There are two main reasons why age assessment may be needed in asylum cases. Either the applicant is obviously a child but lacks documentation to prove it. Or the applicant claims to be a minor (without documentation or with documentation that is suspected to be falsified), which is disputed by those handling the case. </p>
<p>Currently, an initial age validity assessment on arrival <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/assessing-age-instruction">is conducted</a> by Border Agency staff based on a person’s appearance and demeanour. If their age is disputed, social workers conduct an assessment to determine the applicant’s level of maturity. There are several problems with this process, which <a href="https://www.basw.co.uk/system/files/resources/basw_124137-4_0.pdf">has been criticised</a> as too inaccurate, unscientific and biased.</p>
<p>Firstly, these assessments take place without the support of family or anybody known to the potential child. The setting may be unfamiliar and upsetting. Secondly, how someone expresses themselves may not be a good guide to their age, but may be influenced by the experience, past responsibilities (or lack thereof), coping behaviours and past traumas. Children may appear more demure (hence younger) or more resilient (hence older) than their actual age. </p>
<p>Lastly, officials may be assessing the age of children from a variety of foreign countries, with limited understanding of the cultural diversity and responsibilities posed on children, and what it means to grow up in a country of conflict. They may also be using translators for communication. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An x-ray of a hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">X-rays of hands and wrists can be used to show skeletal development and determine age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/xrayed-human-hand-xray-bones-1257889891">LuYago / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Scientific alternatives</h2>
<p>Most other European countries already use scientific methods to determine the age of asylum seekers. These include analysis of a combination of dental development, skeletal maturity and pubertal changes.</p>
<p>Dental development is done by using a dental x-ray of the person and then comparing the development of the teeth to images of dental development from children of similar age and same sex. This can then provide what is called a “dental age”. Skeletal maturity is assessed using imaging techniques such as x-rays or computer tomography, a combination of several x-ray images of the body part. </p>
<p>Commonly used is a hand and wrist x-ray, which is compared to a series of developmental charts, again from children of known ages and same sex. This method is already used in the UK for clinical purposes as a reliable method for assessing issues such as growth hormone deficiency, or early or delayed puberty. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/6379.pdf">have criticised</a> these methods for exposing children to unnecessary radiation that does not have a medical therapeutic purpose, although MRI imaging can be used instead of methods involving radiation. However, the radiation dose from a dental x-ray or a hand and wrist x-ray is very small. A small dental x-ray will yield the same radiation as we get in a day from our environment. </p>
<p>The last method used in some European countries for child age assessment is pubertal changes. This involves a visual inspection of the sexual maturity of breast development in females or genital development in males and pubic and armpit hair development in both sexes. This method has been criticised for being inappropriate and intrusive as it requires the nudity of the asylum seeker, which may cause psychological distress for a young person in an already vulnerable situation. </p>
<p>For all the scientific methods, there are some disagreements on exactly how accurate these methods are for assessing age. Results have differed depending on which method is tested and who they are tested on. Hopefully, the committee appointed by the Home Office will be able to determine which methods would be most appropriate for those arriving in the UK. </p>
<p>In 2018, the European Asylum Support Office published <a href="https://www.easo.europa.eu/sites/default/files/easo-practical-guide-on-age-assesment-v3-2018.pdf">updated guidelines</a> for member countries. They recommended using the least intrusive and most accurate methods of age assessment, which can vary between cases – for example, you may have better data on dental records for making comparisons with children from a particular age and country or better data for hand and wrist x-rays for others. The guidance also recommends using a combination of methods, and not just an assessment of psychological or developmental maturity.</p>
<p>Establishing an advisory committee for age assessment of asylum seekers in the UK will begin to bring the UK in line with procedures followed by European countries. Incorporating more methods and having the flexibility to choose between methods most applicable to the person being assessed can only be an improvement to current methods.</p>
<p>The committee set up by the Home Office will be led by Professor Dame Sue Black, who I trained under for my degree in forensic anthropology at the University of Dundee. Her experience as a forensic anthropologist is second to none in the UK – her appointment should ensure a confidence in the scientific advice and recommendations deriving from this committee.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Primeau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of scientific processes would be a huge improvement on the UK’s current methods for assessing the age of asylum seekers.Charlotte Primeau, Postdoctoral research associate in osteoarchaeology, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1663852021-10-07T11:07:42Z2021-10-07T11:07:42ZHybrid working is fuelling demand for more tech and bigger homes – both are bad news for the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419598/original/file-20210906-27-oolorb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Working from home or the office? Hybrid working means splitting your time between both.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/hybrid-workplace-employees-working-both-office-1952399338">Piscine26/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just 5% of employed people in the UK worked from home <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuklabourmarket/2019#:%7E:text=Download%20this%20chart&text=For%20the%2012%2Dmonth%20period,week%20prior%20to%20the%20interview">in 2019</a>. The onset of the pandemic and the overnight shuttering of offices during the first lockdown meant <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuk/april2020">47% of employees</a> were doing the same in April 2020. </p>
<p>Although returning to work in offices full time <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-covid-19/offices-factories-and-labs">is now possible</a>, the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/businessandindividualattitudestowardsthefutureofhomeworkinguk/apriltomay2021">latest figures</a> from May show 26% are still working from home while a further 11% are hybrid working: splitting their work time between the office and home. </p>
<p>With fewer people <a href="https://www.prca.org.uk/SustainableCommsIndustry">commuting</a> and less food wasted as previously <a href="https://www.britsafe.org/publications/safety-management-magazine/safety-management-magazine/2020/home-working-measuring-the-sustainability-benefits/">catered work events</a> were held online instead, many hoped that a shift to remote working would benefit workers and the environment.</p>
<p>But that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/02/is-remote-working-better-for-the-environment-not-necessarily">may not</a> be the case. Not everyone can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/06/working-from-home-uk-inequality-housing-income">afford</a> a home office, nor the additional heating or internet bills. And <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200218-why-working-from-home-might-be-less-sustainable">the loss of scale</a> involved in heating and cooling individual homes during the day compared to offices may mean remote working is less energy efficient. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14695405211039616">research</a> into the adaptations office workers made to work from home during 2020’s first lockdown revealed two troubling trends: the duplication of office equipment and demand for more space and larger homes. </p>
<h2>The duplication of stuff</h2>
<p>Interviews with 17 UK households, selected for their diverse professional backgrounds, ages and sizes, uncovered how and why some people went from working at kitchen tables and on sofas, expecting lockdown to last a few weeks, to creating more permanent and higher quality set-ups.</p>
<p>To accommodate this and recreate offices at home, workers bought tech and furnishings which were often transported across the globe. Worldwide sales of laptops and desktops increased by <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS46691020">11.2%</a> between April and June 2020, with 72.3 million units shipping. Monitor sales also spiked and webcams were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53506401">temporarily sold out</a> across the UK. <a href="https://www.lovethesales.com/press/articles/growth-for-home-office-equipment-has-skyrocketed-during-covid-19-lockdown">Online searches</a> for office desks and chairs increased by 438% and 300% respectively on the previous year. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A modern home office with desk, monitor, chair and shelves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419612/original/file-20210906-13-1pb2qdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A good home office isn’t cheap.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/interior-room-comfortable-designer-workplace-1505521289">Shadow Inspiration/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Office equipment and furniture purchases peaked during the first lockdown, but demand is likely to remain high. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/20/wfh-not-office-working-from-home-2020-radical-change-effects-lockdown">Five times more people</a> now want to work from home compared to 2019.</p>
<p>And making offices at home with new chairs, computers, monitors, desks and stands has also driven desire for bigger houses.</p>
<h2>The demand for bigger homes</h2>
<p>Our research revealed how working from home meant more people wanting homes with bigger kitchens, spare rooms, offices, garages and gardens. Whether it was the embarrassment of your partner’s colleagues spotting you in your yoga shorts or the horror of dashing offscreen to chase after your naked son, lockdown led to a collective reassessment of what one needs from a home. A sense of quiet and privacy tends to be lost when multiple people share a room. And although many offices are in essence co-working spaces, it has proved difficult to work in the same room as another doing different work – especially when making audio or video calls. </p>
<p>Since the first lockdown house sales have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/24/uk-house-sales-stamp-duty-holiday-deadline-tax-break">shot up</a>, with June seeing the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/uk-record-houses-sold-in-a-month-stamp-duty">most sales since records began</a>.</p>
<p>Much of these sales have involved people moving out of cities and into suburbs and the countryside, where homes tend to offer <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56359865">more space</a>. This, sadly, is bad news for sustainability. More domestic space per person can <a href="https://theconversation.com/average-home-is-more-spacious-now-than-ever-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-the-environment-131582">increase energy consumption</a> and suburban households typically have <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19122">higher carbon footprints</a>. Even people who might have moved to the countryside to work from home more often may ultimately emit more carbon per commute due to less frequent, but <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8a84/meta">longer distance travel</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A residential street in England." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419602/original/file-20210906-15-2wzird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suburban homes tend to use more energy and are more likely to have more than one car.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-houses-on-street-typical-english-1942618342">1000 Words/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/average-home-is-more-spacious-now-than-ever-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-the-environment-131582">Average home is more spacious now than ever – here's why that's a problem for the environment</a>
</strong>
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<h2>Possible responses</h2>
<p>The duplication of equipment and the simultaneous need for heating and lighting in offices and homes that arises from workers splitting time across both is a particularly unsustainable arrangement. </p>
<p>While some workplaces allowed employees to take their office set-ups home during the first lockdown, the difficulty in acquiring a webcam and long wait times for office equipment showed how most failed to adequately redistribute resources or support workers. Businesses that are currently <a href="https://www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/68173-a-quarter-of-uk-businesses-looking-to-downsize-or-close-offices">downsizing their offices</a> could offer discounts on spare items <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/hidden-costs-downsizing-office-space/">like Hootsuite did</a>. Or, they could reject the hybrid model and encourage home or office working only.</p>
<p>The movement out of cities and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56359865">smaller accommodation</a> was arguably bolstered by the UK government’s stamp duty holiday, too. The decision to temporarily raise the threshold at which this property tax kicked in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/24/uk-house-sales-stamp-duty-holiday-deadline-tax-break">is credited</a> with sparking a frenzy of buying. Housing policies are also <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518305810?casa_token=t_8FLpDyz1YAAAAA:KkYZp6F8HlgBuMtD7W8mCM4mo-XFXfM3zeZ3evEBWt1hi8-9jZbAdpubZ-oMMfez2xtWP375isw">climate policies</a>, and the UK government, as a self-proclaimed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-at-the-leaders-summit-on-climate-22-april-2021">climate leader</a> and host of the 2021 UN climate talks, should be more sensitive to the implications of all policies for climate change.</p>
<p>The hybrid model of working is still emerging, and so it can be made more sustainable. That means appropriate policies to support people moving out of cities and navigating flexible working arrangements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs receives funding from Research England Expanding Excellence in England (E3). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Torik Holmes received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of a Postdoctoral Fellowship (award number: ES/V009419/1). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolynne Lord does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The environmental benefits of less commuting and fewer in-person events could be lost.Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs, Senior Research Associate in Sustainability, Lancaster UniversityCarolynne Lord, Senior Researcher, Sociology; Research Associate, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster UniversityTorik Holmes, Research Associate, Sustainable Consumption Institute and Sustainable Innovation Hub., University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1586922021-05-19T12:27:16Z2021-05-19T12:27:16ZEmployees are feeling burned over broken work-from-home promises and corporate culture ‘BS’ as employers try to bring them back to the office<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401449/original/file-20210518-17-1d2m338.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=485%2C323%2C5505%2C3664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some workers aren’t that excited about a return to the office.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/high-angle-view-of-businessman-using-laptop-while-royalty-free-image/1248148364?adppopup=true">Antonio Sanchez Albacete/EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home">vaccinations</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html">relaxed health guidelines</a> make returning to the office a reality for more companies, there seems to be a disconnect between managers and their workers over remote work.</p>
<p>A good example of this is a recent op-ed written by the CEO of a Washington, D.C., magazine that suggested workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/06/ceo-i-want-my-employees-understand-risks-not-returning-work-office/">could lose benefits</a> like health care if they insist on continuing to work remotely as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/07/washingtonian-staffers-work-stoppage-ceo-op-ed/">staff reacted by refusing to publish</a> for a day. </p>
<p>While the CEO <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/washingtonian-ceo-catherine-merrill-sorry-for-op-ed-threatening-jobs-if-they-dont-return-to-office">later apologized</a>, she isn’t alone in appearing to bungle the transition back to the office after over a year in which tens of millions of employees were forced to work from home. A recent survey of full-time corporate or government employees found that two-thirds say their employers either <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/what-employees-are-saying-about-the-future-of-remote-work#">have not communicated a post-pandemic office strategy</a> or have only vaguely done so. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0NMqlxAAAAAJ&hl=en">workforce</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eO0QxFoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tOZet8kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">we</a> are interested in teasing out how workers are dealing with this situation. Our recent research found that this failure to communicate clearly is hurting morale, culture and retention. </p>
<h2>Workers relocating</h2>
<p>We first began investigating workers’ pandemic experiences in July 2020 as <a href="https://www.nashp.org/2020-state-reopening-chart/">shelter-in-place orders</a> shuttered offices and remote work was widespread. At the time, we wanted to know how workers were using their newfound freedom to potentially work virtually from anywhere. </p>
<p>We analyzed a dataset that a business and technology newsletter attained from surveying its 585,000 active readers. It asked them whether they planned to relocate during the next six months and to share their story about why and where from and to. </p>
<p>After a review, we had just under 3,000 responses, including 1,361 people who were planning to relocate or had recently done so. We systematically coded these responses to understand their motives and, based on distances moved, the degree of ongoing remote-work policy they would likely need. </p>
<p>We found that a segment of these employees would require a full remote-work arrangement based on the distance moved from their office, and another portion would face a longer commute. Woven throughout this was the explicit or implicit expectation of some degree of ongoing remote work among many of the workers who moved during the pandemic. </p>
<p>In other words, many of these workers were moving on the assumption – or promise – that they’d be able to keep working remotely at least some of the time after the pandemic ended. Or they seemed willing to quit if their employer didn’t oblige.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cPl2d7N4NIE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of authors explains the research.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We wanted to see how these expectations were being met as the pandemic started to wind down in March 2021. So we searched online communities in Reddit to see what workers were saying. One forum proved particularly useful. A member asked, “Has your employer made remote work permanent yet or is it still in the air?” and went on to share his own experience. This post generated 101 responses with a good amount of detail on what their respective individual companies were doing. </p>
<p>While this qualitative data is only a small sample that is not necessarily representative of the U.S. population at large, these posts allowed us to delve into a richer understanding of how workers feel, which a simple stat can’t provide. </p>
<p>We found a disconnect between workers and management that starts with but goes beyond the issue of the remote-work policy itself. Broadly speaking, we found three recurring themes in these anonymous posts. </p>
<h2>1. Broken remote-work promises</h2>
<p>Others have also found that people are taking advantage of pandemic-related remote work to relocate to a city at a distance large enough that it would require partial or full-time remote work after people return to the office.</p>
<p>A recent survey by consulting firm PwC found that <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/workforce-of-the-future/library/workforce-pulse-survey.html">almost a quarter of workers</a> were considering or planning to move more than 50 miles from one of their employer’s main offices. The survey also found 12% have already made such a move during the pandemic without getting a new job. </p>
<p>Our early findings suggested some workers would quit their current job rather than give up their new location if required by their employer, and we saw this actually start to occur in March.</p>
<p>One worker planned a move from Phoenix to Tulsa with her fiancé to get a bigger place with cheaper rent after her company went remote. She later had to leave her job for the move, even though “they told me they would allow me to work from home, then said never mind about it.”</p>
<p>Another worker indicated the promise to work remotely was only implicit, but he still had his hopes up when leaders “gassed us up for months saying we’d likely be able to keep working from home and come in occasionally” and then changed their minds and demanded employees return to the office once vaccinated.</p>
<h2>2. Confused remote-work policies</h2>
<p>Another constant refrain we read in the worker comments was disappointment in their company’s remote-work policy – or lack thereof. </p>
<p>Whether workers said they were staying remote for now, returning to the office or still unsure, we found that nearly a quarter of the people in our sample said their leaders were not giving them meaningful explanations of what was driving the policy. Even worse, the explanations sometimes felt confusing or insulting. </p>
<p>One worker complained that the manager “wanted butts in seats because we couldn’t be trusted to [work from home] even though we’d been doing it since last March,” adding: “I’m giving my notice on Monday.” </p>
<p>Another, whose company issued a two-week timeline for all to return to the office, griped: “Our leadership felt people weren’t as productive at home. While as a company we’ve hit most of our goals for the year. … Makes no sense.”</p>
<p>After a long period of office shutterings, it stands to reason workers would need time to readjust to office life, a point expressed in <a href="https://news.prudential.com/press_file.cfm?content_id=125026">recent survey results</a>. Employers that quickly flip the switch in calling workers back and do so with poor clarifying rationale risk appearing tone-deaf. </p>
<p>It suggests a lack of trust in productivity at a time when <a href="https://news.prudential.com/press_file.cfm?content_id=125026">many workers report putting in more effort than ever</a> and being <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work">strained by the increased digital intensity of their job</a> – that is, the growing number of online meetings and chats.</p>
<p>And even when companies said they wouldn’t require a return to the office, workers still faulted them for their motives, which many employees described as financially motivated. </p>
<p>“We are going hybrid,” one worker wrote. “I personally don’t think the company is doing it for us. … I think they realized how efficient and how much money they are saving.”</p>
<p>Only a small minority of workers in our sample said their company asked for input on what employees actually want from a future remote work policy. Given that leaders are rightly concerned about <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/chro.html">company culture</a>, we believe they are missing a key opportunity to engage with workers on the issue and show their policy rationales aren’t only about dollars and cents. </p>
<h2>3. Corporate culture ‘BS’</h2>
<p>Management gurus such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4165974?seq=1">Peter Drucker</a> and other scholars have found that corporate culture is very important to binding together workers in an organization, especially in <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2006.21794663">times of stress</a>. </p>
<p>A company’s culture <a href="http://dspace.vnbrims.org:13000/jspui/bitstream/123456789/2373/1/ORGANIZATIONAL%20CULTURE%20Organizational%20Culture%20and%20Leadership%2C%203rd%20Edition.pdf">is essentially its values and beliefs</a> shared among its members. That’s harder to foster when everyone is working remotely. </p>
<p>That’s likely why corporate human resource executives rank <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/chro.html">maintaining organizational culture as their top workforce priority for 2021</a>. </p>
<p>But many of the forum posts we reviewed suggested that employer efforts to do that during the pandemic by orchestrating team outings and other get-togethers were actually pushing workers away, and that this type of “culture building” was not welcome.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>One worker’s company “had everyone come into the office for an outdoor luncheon a week ago,” according to a post, adding: “Idiots.” </p>
<p>Surveys have found that <a href="https://news.prudential.com/press_file.cfm?content_id=125026">what workers want most from management</a>, on the issue of corporate culture, are more remote-work resources, updated policies on flexibility and more communication from leadership.</p>
<p>As another worker put it, “I can tell you, most people really don’t give 2 flips about ‘company culture’ and think it’s BS.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A divide is growing between workers and management over the return to the office and other issues.Kimberly Merriman, Professor of Management, Manning School of Business, UMass LowellDavid Greenway, Doctoral Candidate in Leadership/Organization Studies, UMass LowellTamara Montag-Smit, Assistant Professor of Business, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1578152021-03-25T17:21:47Z2021-03-25T17:21:47ZWhy Priti Patel’s plans to overhaul the asylum system make no legal sense<p>In what’s been called the most significant overhaul to the asylum system in decades, Home Secretary Priti Patel <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-statement-on-the-new-plan-for-immigration">has announced</a> a number of controversial plans to deny refugees who use illegal routes to the UK universal rights to asylum. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972472/CCS207_CCS0820091708-001_Sovereign_Borders_FULL_v13__1_.pdf">new plans</a>, the home office has said it will “stop illegal arrivals gaining immediate entry into the asylum system if they have travelled through a safe country – like France”. Other measures include introducing “life sentences for people smugglers” and increasing “the maximum sentence for illegally entering the UK”. </p>
<p>These proposals to reform the asylum system with a focus on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56500680">“fairness”</a> are legally incoherent. As far back as 1999, former supreme court justice Simon Brown recognised that it was “<a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldhansrd/vo991018/text/91018-26.htm">well nigh impossible</a>” for asylum seekers to enter the UK lawfully. Under the current rules, it’s not possible to apply for asylum until you arrive at the borders of the state you’re entering. </p>
<p>At that point the international obligation of non-refoulement operates, which means asylum seekers can’t be returned to their country of origin until their claim has been fully assessed and there’s deemed to be no risk of harm. The <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/4ca34be29.pdf">Refugee Convention</a>, ratified by 145 countries, also prohibits turning away refugees who enter illegally, providing they can show they’ve come directly from a place of persecution and there’s good cause for their actions. </p>
<p>It’s very important to understand how “entering illegally” arises. Asylum seekers often struggle to obtain official identity documents from the state they’re being persecuted by, and can’t travel legitimately without such documents. <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1987/24/enacted">Carriers’ liability legislation</a> also penalises airlines, train operators and lorry drivers who assist unauthorised entrants, including asylum seekers. </p>
<p>So because it’s not possible to obtain an asylum visa to enter the UK or any other country, the only option for someone wishing to claim asylum is to engage in deception. Even those who intend to seek asylum after arriving through other legal migration channels (as students or visitors, for example) are defined as “illegal entrants” who have “exercised deception”. This “deceptive” entry then works to damage credibility, undermining asylum claims.</p>
<p>Under the UK’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents">Human Rights Act 1998</a>, the state is obliged to prevent people from being returned to places of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or cruel and unusual punishment. This obligation is absolute and applies without exception, which means the return of an asylum seeker whose case hasn’t been fully determined would be a clear violation of the Human Rights Act. This is <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22fulltext%22:%5B%22Soering%22%5D,%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-57619%22%5D%7D">well established</a> by the <a href="https://www.asylumlawdatabase.eu/en/content/ecthr-chahal-v-united-kingdom-application-no-2241493-15-november-1996">case law</a> of the European Convention on Human Rights. </p>
<p>The home secretary’s move to disregard that seems to suggest ignorance of the law. Her position also undermines the principle of hospitality that traditionally made the UK appear tolerant and welcoming for people who fear persecution. It’s this same perception that is one of the <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Chance-or-choice-2010.pdf">most common pull factors</a> cited by asylum seekers who arrive in the UK. </p>
<h2>Asylum applications in the UK</h2>
<p>The rationale for the proposals is also questionable. There <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html">hasn’t been</a> a significant increase in asylum applications over the last decade. And the UK receives less applicants than other European states of comparable size, with France and Germany receiving over four times the number of applications according to 2020 statistics compiled by the UNHCR. The number of arrivals in the UK in 2020 was actually <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2020/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to">down 18%</a> on the previous year. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2019/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to">Around half</a> of all asylum applications lead to protection in the UK. Before this right is recognised, however, many have to appeal, highlighting <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Asylum-Statistics-Feb-2020.pdf">significant problems</a> with first-instance decisions succeeding. </p>
<p>For nationals of some countries, including Iran, Syria, Vietnam and Eritrea, the refugee recognition rate is <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/">well over 70%</a>. There’s a real risk of serious harm if people from these countries are returned (even in the event that return is considered a practical option), which suggests a genuine need for protection.</p>
<h2>A broken system</h2>
<p>The bigger problem is the asylum system itself. Since the Home Office <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/07/home-office-abandons-six-month-target-for-asylum-claim-decisions">abandoned its</a> decision-making target of six months for straightforward applications, delays have increased significantly. Many people now wait over a year for their first substantive interview. </p>
<p>I recently <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40406/">spoke to a man</a> who had been waiting for a full interview for 18 months and two claimants with fresh asylum claims who had been waiting for over two years for a decision. In those cases, it may be years before a final decision is reached, leaving people unable to work while those with a current asylum claim are expected to survive on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">£5 a day</a>. </p>
<p>Due to the pandemic, many asylum seekers are also now confined in windowless hotel rooms without any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/03/after-the-glasgow-hotel-attack-a-week-of-shock-anger-and-compassion">cooking facilities</a>, while others are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/former-military-barracks-used-to-house-asylum-seekers-to-shut">detained in army barracks</a>. But despite announcements to close the Penally Barracks in Kent after inspectors declared it “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-56418361">run-down and unsuitable</a>” for accommodation, its sister site, which is also in Kent, has been revealed to have packed asylum seekers into dormitories. This has resulted in <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-03-04/revealed-home-office-knew-housing-refugees-at-run-down-barracks-risked-mass-covid-infection">197 cases of COVID-19</a> as well as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_lVAL-VO8">protests in response</a> to the inhumane conditions.</p>
<p>Last year’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review">independent review</a> into the Windrush affair, in which large numbers of Commonwealth citizens were revealed to have been wrongly deported, denied rights or detained by the UK, explains a lot about existing shortfalls in the system. Authored by Wendy Williams, Inspector for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the review shed a great deal of light on the hostile environment and its impact on the asylum and immigration system. </p>
<p>In fact, this environment in which settling and remaining in the UK has been madde as difficult as possible for immigrants was identified as the source of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/home-office-windrush-scandal-wendy-williams-lessons-learned-review-a9578201.html">many flawed</a>) asylum and immigration policies, ranging from deportation of British citizens to refusal of life-saving medical medical treatment. Williams <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/14/windrush-report-author-attacks-home-office-response">observed</a> that there had been <a href="https://workpermit.com/news/wendy-williams-blasts-home-office-windrush-report-response-20201018">no significant change</a> despite the home secretary’s paper commitment to address the damning findings.</p>
<p>This is the reality of the UK’s asylum system that the home secretary is refusing to acknowledge. Although strong reminders of the need to recognise these issues have come from far and wide, including the UNHCR and refugee charities (most of which have expressed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56500680">complete dismay</a> at Patel’s announcement), it seems the home secretary is adamant about pushing forward. Where evidence of fairness is in all of this remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen O'Nions does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The human rights act dictates that the UK is obliged to protect asylum seekers. So why is the home secretary ignoring it?Helen O'Nions, Associate Professor, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1463902020-10-15T12:34:46Z2020-10-15T12:34:46ZHow the needs of monks and empire builders helped mold the modern-day office<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362735/original/file-20201009-23-1ca2ae6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C0%2C4137%2C2885&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The East India House, 1928. From 'A History of Lloyd's,' by Charles Wright and C. Ernest Fayle. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-east-india-house-from-the-east-1928-from-a-history-of-news-photo/1003476124?adppopup=true">Macmillan and Company Limited, London, 1928. Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The coronavirus pandemic forced many people to create an office space of their own – whether by devoting a room in our homes for work, sitting socially distanced in common areas or just creating a “Zoom worthy” corner in a bedroom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.design.iastate.edu/interior-design/faculty/nicolep/">As a scholar</a> who researches and designs learning and workspaces, I’m aware how the modern-day workplace was shaped over several centuries. But few people may know that the origins of the office can be found in the monasteries of medieval Europe.</p>
<h2>Early origin in monasteries</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362737/original/file-20201009-23-17gazxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monk at work on a manuscript in the corner of a scriptorium, 15th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/monk-at-work-on-a-manuscript-in-the-corner-of-a-scriptorium-news-photo/463920165?adppopup=true">Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beginning around the fifth century, monks that lived and worked in <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Medieval_Monastery/">monasteries</a> preserved ancient culture by copying and translating religious books, including the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Jerome">Bible, which was translated from Hebrew and Greek to Latin</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/construction-and-design-manual-offices/oclc/969094081&referer=brief_results">workspaces</a> during this time consisted mainly of a table, covered with cloth to protect the books, and a writing room, or “<a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/scriptorium/">scriptorium</a>” in Latin. It was common for monks to stand before their writing desks in the scriptorium – a practice that has come back into fashion with the advent of the standing desk in recent years.</p>
<p>Only during the Renaissance did the chair-and-table combination start to be seen in workspaces.</p>
<p>In 1560, <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/bust-cosimoI-bronze">Cosimo I de’ Medici</a>, who later became the grand duke of Tuscany, wanted a building in which both the administrative and judiciary offices of Florence could be under one roof. So he commissioned the building of <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/the-uffizi/history">the Uffizi</a>, which in Italian means “offices.” </p>
<p>The lower two floors of the Uffizi were designed as offices for the Florentine magistrates that were in charge of overseeing production and trade, as well as the administrative offices. The top floor was a <a href="https://www.westburygardenrooms.com/blog/what-is-a-loggia/">loggia</a> – an area open on one or more sides.</p>
<p>The Medici family grew an art collection on the top floor of the Uffizi. The loggia underwent various renovations to house statues and paintings, until it grew into a vast art collection and <a href="https://www.visituffizi.org/museum/history/">gallery</a>. Today the entire building is an art <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en">museum</a>. </p>
<h2>Government, merchants and commerce</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=321%2C246%2C2917%2C2387&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362545/original/file-20201008-14-1h1n2wz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Board Room of the Admiralty,
Jan. 1, 1808.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP873986.jpg">Designed and etched by Thomas Rowlandson/Metropolitan Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t until the 18th century that buildings with dedicated office spaces were constructed. </p>
<p>The process started in London when the growth of the British empire required office administration. Two buildings were designed to handle paperwork and records related to office administration, the navy and the increased commerce. These included the Admiralty Office, a building for the Royal Navy and a building for the East India Company.</p>
<p><a href="https://britainexplorer.com/listing/old-admiralty-buildings/">The Old Admiralty Office</a>, built in 1726, housed government offices and meeting rooms, including the Admiralty Board Room. Today it is known as the Ripley Building, named after the architect who designed it.</p>
<p>Rebuilt in 1729, the <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.177522/page/n163/mode/2up?q=headquarters">headquarters for the East India Company</a> is an early example of a multipurpose building with offices. An expansion of the East India House in London, the reconstruction was designed so the company could conduct public business and manage the trade of spices and other goods from Eastern trade. </p>
<p>The public areas within the building included a spacious hall and courtyard used as a reception for sales and meetings, with large rooms for the directors and offices for the clerks. An <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2599322">elite group of established clerks</a> at the East India Company administered the growth of company commerce in London and thousands of miles away in East Asia.</p>
<h2>New York and the modern office</h2>
<p>It was in the United States that the modern offices that most people are familiar with today were developed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362742/original/file-20201009-23-gq6p2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York Stock Exchange and surrounding skyscrapers, early 20th century. Etching by Joseph Pennell, American artist: 1857-1926.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-stock-exchange-and-surrounding-skyscrapers-early-news-photo/171076568?adppopup=true">Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2120893?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">number of clerks in North America</a> increased tenfold between 1870 and 1930. At first, insurance, banking and finance sectors led the need for skilled clerks with good penmanship. Later, clerks performed specialized, though routine, tasks such as <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/how-typewriters-changed-everything/">typewriting</a> while sitting next to each other in an open office floor plan. At that point, offices grew larger and began to resemble factories.</p>
<p>Women’s share of clerical employment increased from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2120893?seq=1">2.5% to 52.5%</a> due to the emergence of the typewriter, drastically altering the work environment. Women entered the workforce as typists, which introduced an opportunity for independence and a break away from solely domestic responsibilities.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://flwright.org/researchexplore/wrightbuildings/larkincompanyadministrationbuilding">Larkin Company Administration Building</a>, a soap manufacturing facility designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, was one of the first modern office buildings to follow the open office floor plan.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p>
<p>The <a href="https://comparativemedia.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/ZCAlexander_Larkin%27s%20Technologies%20of%20Trust.pdf">soap company</a> used this floor plan in New York to ensure efficiency and productivity among employees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/how-skyscrapers-became-possible-1991649">Skyscrapers</a> were designed during this same period, using iron or steel frame structures borrowed from factory buildings. The advances in building technology and the open office workspaces paved the way for architects and designers in the 1950s and 1960s to develop the offices and office furniture we recognize today.</p>
<p>While we don’t know what the office of the future holds, we can look back at how necessity molded office space. Today the same necessity is helping us carve out workspaces in small nooks and makeshift offices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Kay Peterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The coronavirus epidemic has made us all rethink our workspaces. But the needs of the times have always influenced the office space – whether for the colonial empire or a growing commerce.Nicole Kay Peterson, Assistant Professor, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1438792020-08-17T12:24:27Z2020-08-17T12:24:27ZIn the work-from-home battle for space, women are the reluctant nomads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352985/original/file-20200814-16-pdao5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C1398%2C1021&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ward Cleaver of the popular sitcom 'Leave It to Beaver' in his study.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/d5/4e/72d54e1687267db51b65becc2caa3dc8.jpg">Universal Pictures</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s just past 10 a.m. and my partner, on his third virtual meeting today, is working non-stop in our home office. Since late August, my son has taken over the family room to attend distance learning classes, play video games, and socialize with friends online. I am teaching online this fall and do not have daily access to my campus office, which closed in March. </p>
<p>For these reasons, each morning, I find myself carrying my laptop and tea around my house trying to find a quiet place to work. Before the pandemic, unlike my spouse who already telecommuted one to two days per week, I never needed a dedicated space at home for work. </p>
<p>With Google announcing that its <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-keep-employees-home-until-summer-2021-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-11595854201">200,000 employees can work from home</a> until June 2021 – and Twitter, Square and Slack <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/tech/work-from-home-companies/index.html">announcing</a> that employees could still continue working remotely after the pandemic ends – I’m sure others find themselves in the same boat of not having their own dedicated professional workspace. </p>
<p>And as I explain in <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/easy-living/9781978802223">my recent book on the social history of the home office</a>, historically, it’s been women who have been the ones left searching for space.</p>
<h2>The emergence of the ‘chamber room’</h2>
<p>To better understand the makeshift nature of workspaces in the home – and why the spaces are often gendered – it’s important to look at how the home office first emerged as a distinct space.</p>
<p>In the 18th century, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/H2h6zK4PvpsC?hl=en&gbpv=0">three separate spheres of domestic activity</a> started to appear in middle-class and wealthy single-family homes. There was a social area for hosting guests, such as dining and living rooms; a service zone, which included the kitchen, cellar and laundry areas; and a sleeping area, which was the most private part of the house.</p>
<p>What we now call the home office emerged from generically named “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chamber">chamber</a>” rooms used by both men and women prior to the 19th century. The majority of the chamber rooms were later simply labeled “bedrooms” on builders’ floor plans. However, beginning in the 19th century, some of these spaces depicted on floor plans were interchangeably referred to as the library, den or study. </p>
<p>By the late 19th century, the study became primarily a space reserved for male professionals to conduct business at home, indulge in scholarly pursuits and entertain friends. For example, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/202373">clergy, merchants and doctors needed a study or “interview room”</a> because their work was more likely to be conducted at home. </p>
<p>The study was often separated from the private zones of the house and placed as close to the front door as possible – in the home’s social zone – to maintain family privacy. </p>
<p>But then, in the early 20th century, the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2019.0034">study largely disappeared</a> from standard, middle-class homes, which were getting smaller, remaining only in houses built for upper-middle-class professionals, creative professionals and the wealthy. </p>
<h2>Selling the idea of working from home</h2>
<p>Even though the study was a male space for leisure and occasional work, the home was largely seen – <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Home_and_Work.html?id=NGrRD9hBs8wC">and championed</a> – as a place that fostered family life. </p>
<p>Yet companies that sold office supplies <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/easy-living/9781978802223">saw the home as an untapped market</a>. All they needed to do was convince Americans that being able to work from home was a form of convenience. Through advertisements, these companies encouraged Americans to create distinct spaces for work that needed to be properly outfitted with office equipment.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An advertisement for a portable typerwriter depicts women huddling around a man typing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352995/original/file-20200814-16-wt859z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early ad for the portable typewriter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Remington Rand Papers: Advertising and Sales Promotion Department—Typewriter Division; Hagley Museum, Wilmington, Del.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, in 1921, <a href="https://digital.hagley.org/I_PAM_20091218">Remington Rand began marketing portable typewriters</a>, with advertisements that tried to sell consumers on the idea of flexibility and the ability to work in the comfort of one’s home. And in the 1950s, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2019.0034">Bell Telephone teamed up with the builders of middle-class homes</a> to market the installation of additional telephone lines as a way to combine work and leisure under one roof.</p>
<p>When PCs replaced typewriters, computer companies such as Apple and IBM <a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/40-lessons-from-40-years-of-apple-ads-7a653e2738ab">geared their ads towards professionals</a>, depicting their products as tools that would allow them to telecommute, run a business out of the home or make it easier for their kids to complete homework. </p>
<h2>Separate but unequal spaces</h2>
<p>As these technologies started appearing in more and more homes, families started to wonder where to put them. </p>
<p>Popular culture offered some models. In the sitcom “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050032/">Leave It to Beaver</a>,” the study of the father, Ward Cleaver, is equipped with bookshelves, a globe, two leather chairs, a desk and a telephone. It’s a place where Ward occasionally works from home in the evening and relaxes during the weekend.</p>
<p>By then, however, most middle-class homes lacked studies.</p>
<p>Furthermore, during the postwar period, typewriter and telephone companies didn’t just advertise their products to men. They also sought to entice middle-class women into using their products to better manage tasks like corresponding with schools, insurance brokers and doctors, as well as keeping family records and paying bills. However, unlike men, women’s workspaces in advertisements, newspapers and on television were often depicted as a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XNwDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false">planning desk in the kitchen</a> or as a little desk in the master bedroom. Rarely, if ever, did they have their own space.</p>
<p>Where to put office equipment was another issue. Placing it in the master bedroom interfered with the perceived functions of the bedroom: intimacy and relaxation. A PC in the living room competed with the television, while office equipment in the kitchen or dining room impeded the ability to work uninterrupted by other family members. For these reasons, advertisements and computing magazines in the 1980s began to recommend new spaces dedicated exclusively to PCs, such as the <a href="https://archive.org/details/family-computing-50/mode/2up?q=home+office">home office</a> or a “<a href="https://www.timberhomeliving.com/articles/article/how-to-create-a-hobby-room">hobby room</a>.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The home office works well as a quiet room to concentrate and work, but in homes that do have one – and when both partners are at home, as is increasingly the case – <a href="https://www.hfndigital.com/covid-19-and-home-furnishings-industry/survey-reveals-how-people-are-working-from-home/">that space often defaults to the man</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, all those companies’ advertising dollars <a href="https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/coronavirus-spending-at-office-depot-staples/">paid off</a>. We were working from home <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-creating-huge-stressful-experiment-working-home/607945/">in greater numbers</a> before the pandemic, and <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2020/06/29/snapshot-new-working-home-economy/">the number has since risen</a> as offices around the country shuttered. But we’re still stuck with the same issues of too much work and not enough space to do it – with women often getting the short end of the stick.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Patton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For decades, home workspaces were portrayed as the domain of men. Now, with many families all working under one roof, women are paying the price.Elizabeth Patton, Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1357992020-04-10T12:17:15Z2020-04-10T12:17:15ZVideoconferencing keeps people connected while the coronavirus keeps them inside – but privacy and security are far from perfect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326675/original/file-20200408-150164-wo6t5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Face to face, virtually.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/asian-woman-working-with-laptop-on-the-bed-royalty-free-image/1204226034?adppopup=true">SammyVision/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If, before COVID-19, you were concerned about all the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy">data that technology companies had about you</a>, just wait. As stay-at-home orders push more professional and social activities online, it’s becoming harder to remain in control.</p>
<p>Look no further than Zoom, which suffered <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/31/21201019/zoom-coronavirus-privacy-hacks">dual security and privacy crises</a> in the past few weeks. Lawsuits alleging data sharing violations and hackers have descended on the software, which has led <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-every-security-issue-uncovered-in-the-video-chat-app/">Google and school districts to ban Zoom</a> for professional use.</p>
<p>I’m a researcher who investigates <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444818801317">how these concerns affect the use of online platforms</a>. The first thing to understand is that privacy and security are two different things, and they have different consequences for using videoconferencing platforms.</p>
<h2>Privacy versus security</h2>
<p>Privacy refers to individuals’ <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">universal rights</a> to control their data. Security is how that data is protected. One or both can be compromised when using popular videoconferencing tools, leaving personal information vulnerable.</p>
<p>For example, say someone signs up for a new videoconferencing platform using full name, email address and phone number. Ideally, the platform company would maintain both privacy and security, meaning the company wouldn’t share that person’s information outside the company, and would keep their system protected from hackers and viruses. The most private platforms, like <a href="https://signal.org/">Signal</a> and <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/facetime/id1110145091">FaceTime</a>, use end-to-end encryption to ensure that even the companies themselves do not have access to the contents of anyone’s communication. When such systems are kept secure, they are the best communication tools to use.</p>
<p>Alternatively, a company could compromise privacy but maintain security, meaning it would collect information about video calls and sell that data to a third party for marketing purposes. Many companies will include such conditions in their terms of service, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1486870">which users rarely read</a>. However, companies have incentive to maintain security; they don’t want to be overrun with criminals or pranksters, which could damage their reputations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327021/original/file-20200409-122223-6hh2v4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Videoconferencing software mapped in terms of security and privacy protections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elizabeth Stoycheff</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Worst case is when a company surrenders both privacy and security, meaning they share personal information with third parties, and they <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/2019-data-breach-hall-of-shame-these-were-the-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-year/">fail to prevent data breaches</a>. Offerings from these companies are the riskiest of all digital tools, and unfortunately, they’re all too common.</p>
<p>Here’s how some of the most popular video conferencing services stack up.</p>
<h2>Videoconferencing options</h2>
<p>Zoom’s most updated <a href="https://zoom.us/privacy">privacy policy</a> states that the company “do[es] not allow third parties to use any personal data obtained from users for their own purposes, unless you consent.” However, Zoom is currently facing a lawsuit alleging that it violated this agreement and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zoom-app-personal-data-selling-facebook-lawsuit-alleges/">shared user data with Facebook</a>. The company claims that this was a security, not a privacy, breach and that it was not compensated for data sharing. </p>
<p>Zoom has also come under fire for security flaws that have allowed “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zoom-video-conferencing-feature-freeze-security-flaws/">Zoom-bombers</a>” to intrude on personal calls, often using profane or obnoxious content. The company admitted that it has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zoom-video-conferencing-feature-freeze-security-flaws/">fallen short on protecting users’ privacy and security</a> and is working to fix the problems.</p>
<p>Microsoft Teams’ <a href="https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement">privacy policy</a> leaves no questions. It explicitly states that it “collects data from you, through our interactions with you and through our products.” It is upfront about using this information to market to users, personalize their experiences and even participate in legal investigations. In other words, make no presumptions of privacy here – all personal data on the platform is fair game.</p>
<p>To differentiate its security from Zoom, Microsoft’s Teams has implemented <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/sign-in-teams">dual-factor authentication</a>, meaning passwords are not enough. Users need to also enter email or text codes to log in. The Microsoft family of software – though not Teams specifically – confronted a number of security problems this year, including a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/01/22/microsoft-security-shocker-as-250-million-customer-records-exposed-online/#6b52e7eb4d1b">breach of its customer service center</a> that exposed 14 years of information. The jury is still out on whether it’s a more secure alternative to Zoom. </p>
<p>Unlike Zoom and Teams, Webex offers hosts the option of <a href="https://help.webex.com/en-us/WBX44739/What-Does-End-to-End-Encryption-Do">end-to-end encryption</a>, meaning only the sender of a message and its recipient have access to the data within. This is a strong privacy feature, but it’s elective and tends to limit the usefulness of the tool. </p>
<p>Webex is not immune to security breaches, but the difference between this company and their competitors is their transparency and quick patches. The platform actively maintains a <a href="https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/publicationListing.x?product=Cisco&keyword=webex&sort=-day_sir#%7EVulnerabilities">public list of vulnerabilities</a>, which documents how the company has resolved them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327034/original/file-20200409-165427-jnt7sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zoom’s virtual waiting room, which prevents participants from joining a meeting without the host’s permission, is now on by default.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/pswansen/3063800085/in/photolist-5EJM2p-JPi3FZ-7t2yqf-8ZXGeW-2g3JYxh-eiVy7g-e4aj2K-myiYTZ-CmrmN-LavrPD-4SeE5A-9Fa1B7-CGE2MP-2hik4n2-28xqcvB-27ay7yw-zZVya-59uCCp-KUGD7U-5SS6g4-2biAdP8-ssKBF-25gDuEE-gqR2w-yJvxX-jP4Bw-8GtNWR-8ET3eb-8ESVQE-53xshM-7yuQFL-n79k9-8ET6e1-MaG4Q-GUP3p-GPp44-tLRgh-24GP516-EsqKvb-ps2H3X-Nfx8dX-nLDitH-b4PyCK-bgHNJT-dFrFn5-noXW3G-MBipMs-FfZEbr-4Y5poN-2gP6pLo">Paul Swansen/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Skype has a privacy problem. It <a href="https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/is-skype-safe-and-secure-what-are-the-alternatives/">shares user data</a> with third parties, across the entire Microsoft family, and even with law enforcement when asked. In a benign effort to improve customer service, it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/10/skype-audio-graded-by-workers-in-china-with-no-security-measures">allowed employees to access recordings of Skype conversations</a> from their personal computers over a period of several years. Such tasks have since been transferred to a secure facility, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you’ve used Skype lately, your privacy has been compromised. </p>
<p>Like Teams, Skype uses dual-factor authentication but it was also likely compromised in the <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/sign-in-teams">massive Microsoft customer service breach</a> earlier this year. </p>
<p>Long before Facebook acquired WhatsApp, the video chat service provided <a href="https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/android/28030015/">end-to-end encryption</a> on calls and messages. The privacy of chats here are, and always have been, protected. </p>
<p>However, WhatsApp suffered a very public security breach when Jeff Bezos’ personal messages were compromised by spyware and leaked. That was one of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-hack-whatsapp-disclosed-security-flaws-last-year-ft-2020-1">12 vulnerabilities</a> the platform faced last year. </p>
<p>Apple’s FaceTime also boasts <a href="https://www.apple.com/privacy/features/">end-to-end protections</a>, and the company has upheld its commitment to privacy by <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/25/468158520/why-apple-says-it-wont-help-unlock-that-iphone-in-5-key-quotes">refusing requests from the FBI</a> to access user devices. It’s positioning itself as a steward of user privacy.</p>
<p>Like other services, FaceTime has been susceptible to occasional security hacks. In early 2019, users reported a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/29/689581417/apple-disables-group-facetime-after-security-flaw-let-callers-secretly-eavesdrop">security glitch in its group calls</a> where recipients could hear and see callers before answering. The feature was disabled and patched, and the service has been without a major incident since. </p>
<h2>Settings and choices</h2>
<p>Across all these platforms, people should use complex passwords, turn on enhanced security features, like the use of <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115000332726-Waiting-Room">waiting rooms</a> and <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/manage-channel-moderation-in-teams">channel moderation</a>, and make sure conferences are restricted to intended guests. It’s also important to consider what can be seen on camera, like a loan statement pinned to a bulletin board or an envelope with a home address visible. Try videoconferencing in front of a neutral wall or using <a href="https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34896/what-is-background-blur-in-skype">blurred</a> or <a href="https://office365itpros.com/2020/04/06/teams-meeting-background-image/">customized</a> backdrops to keep the home environment off camera. </p>
<p>There’s still room in the market for more reliably secure, private videoconferencing systems. But in the meantime, not all communication requires the same levels of privacy and security. People might not care much if marketers or even pranksters crash their G-rated happy hours. But confidential client meetings and remote health care consultations are another matter. The companies’ offerings and track records, outlined here, should help people choose the videoconferencing tool that best balances usefulness with privacy and security.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Stoycheff has received grant funding from WhatsApp, but it has not influenced the information in this article.</span></em></p>Zoom’s privacy and security shortcomings are just the latest videoconferencing vulnerabilities. Knowing each platform’s risks can help people avoid many of the downsides of virtual gatherings.Elizabeth Stoycheff, Associate Professor of Communication, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1339222020-03-24T04:31:21Z2020-03-24T04:31:21ZWorking from home: what are your employer’s responsibilities, and what are yours?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322462/original/file-20200324-45708-m6ajbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So you’ve been asked to work from home. </p>
<p>Doing so usually requires changing aspects of your relationship with your employer. What it doesn’t change is that your relationship is based on mutual obligations. These remain exactly the same even though you work at home.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-could-spark-a-revolution-in-working-from-home-are-we-ready-133070">Coronavirus could spark a revolution in working from home. Are we ready?</a>
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<p>Your employer’s duties, under both industrial relations and work health and safety laws, are to ensure you are able to work safely at home, and to cover reasonable expenses. Your obligation is to work if you want to be paid. </p>
<h2>A safe workspace</h2>
<p>In Australia, an employer has <a href="https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/laws-and-compliance/workplace-health-and-safety-laws/duties">a legal duty of care</a> for the health and safety of workers “so far as is reasonably practicable”. This duty is contained under the uniform work health and safety legislation of states and territories – see, for example, the <a href="https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/laws-and-compliance/workplace-health-and-safety-laws/laws-and-legislation/work-health-and-safety-act-2011">Queensland legislation</a>. </p>
<p>That duty of care extends to anywhere work is performed. If you are asked to work from home, your employer is responsible to ensure this does not pose a risk to your health and safety.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-the-isolation-working-from-home-has-surprising-downsides-107140">It's not just the isolation. Working from home has surprising downsides</a>
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<p>Some organisations conduct formal inspections of homes before approving working-from-home arrangements. That may not be practical in current circumstances. </p>
<p>The next best option might be a virtual tour using virtual meeting software such as Google hangouts or Zoom. At a minimum, your employer should provide you with a health and safety checklist, specifying considerations such as: </p>
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<li>a safe work space free from trip hazards (such as rugs and cables)</li>
<li>a broadly safe environment including an exit, smoke alarms and a first aid kit</li>
<li>appropriate lighting and ventilation</li>
<li>ergonomic requirements such as a desk large enough for tasks, phone and mouse within reach</li>
<li>a chair that adjusts to ensure your feet are flat on the floor</li>
<li>a computer screen positioned for your eyes to meet the top of the screen</li>
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<h2>Reimbursing expenses</h2>
<p>Your employer’s primary responsibility under industrial relations law is to pay you for the work you do under applicable awards, enterprise agreements and contracts. </p>
<p>Your employer is also responsible for providing you with the appropriate resources for work to be carried out. These might include a computer with systems to access and protect work files, a headset, a webcam and virtual meeting software.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/working-at-home-to-avoid-coronavirus-this-tech-lets-you-almost-replicate-the-office-133350">Working at home to avoid coronavirus? This tech lets you (almost) replicate the office</a>
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<p>There is an implied obligation also to reimburse you for expenses incurred while working at home, such as extra electricity or internet access.</p>
<p>This obligation may be spelled out in an enterprise agreement or a working-from-home policy, but not all organisations have codified entitlements. You may need to establish with your employer what costs will be reimbursed, what limits apply, and what approvals are required. </p>
<p>If your employer does not reimburse you for running costs – because the paperwork is arduous and the amount usually small – remember you can also claim work-related expenses, including the cost of a dedicated work area, as tax deductions. Claimable expenses are set out on the Australian Taxation Office’s <a href="https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Income-and-deductions/Deductions-you-can-claim/Home-office-expenses/">website</a>. </p>
<h2>Employee responsibilities</h2>
<p>In allowing you to work from home, your employer is demonstrating a degree of trust that past generations of managers would have found unacceptable. Your obligation is to do the right thing even without direct supervision, observing the same practices as normally expected by your employer. </p>
<p>All your usual employee responsibilities from the workplace continue to apply, such as obeying lawful directions and working to the best of your ability. </p>
<p>Much has been written on <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/how-to-work-from-home-effectively-and-without-harming-your-health-20200316-p54akc.html">how best to work at home</a>. There are some common themes. Get dressed for work, so that you feel “at work” and behave accordingly. Maintain a separate work space, so there is a clear delineation between work and leisure. Ensure you take breaks to maintain your health and well-being.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/get-dressed-and-set-goals-some-routines-not-to-break-if-coronavirus-means-you-have-to-work-from-home-133775">Get dressed and set goals: some routines not to break if coronavirus means you have to work from home</a>
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<p>Another aspect of well-being you will need to pay conscious attention to is minimising <a href="https://insidesmallbusiness.com.au/planning-management/seven-tips-for-avoiding-isolation-when-working-from-home">the psychological stress</a> of isolation. </p>
<p>Working from home can be isolating in the best of times, and in the current situation this is arguably also an aspect of your employer’s duty of care. But this is something that cannot be easily codified and will require goodwill and negotiation. You and your employer may need to consider new routines for communication to ensure working at home is about physical distancing and social solidarity, not social isolation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Colley is affiliated with TJ Ryan Foundation, McKell Institute Queensland, and the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robin Price does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Working from home changes your relationship with your workplace, but not the obligations you and your employer owe each other.Robin Price, Lecturer in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, CQUniversity AustraliaLinda Colley, Associate Professor HRM/IR, CQUniversity AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1208582019-07-25T10:22:36Z2019-07-25T10:22:36ZWhat does extremism mean? The British public aren’t sure<p>Only a quarter of the British public feel able to define what extremism is, according to <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/819185/Call_For_Evidence_Summary.pdf">a survey</a> by the Commission for Countering Extremism. The findings, released in mid July, suggest that the Home Office needs to do more to get across its message on extremism and how it might be tackled.</p>
<p>More than 2,500 members of the public responded to a call for evidence from the commission as part of an effort to measure the public’s understanding of extremism and their experiences of it. Led by human rights activist Sara Khan, the commission was established in March 2018 to understand and help tackle extremism in England and Wales.</p>
<p>While those who put themselves forward to answer surveys are rarely considered to be a representative sample of the public at large, the data provide strong clues about the nation’s attitudes.</p>
<p>The government currently <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counter-extremism-strategy">defines extremism</a> as:</p>
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<p>The vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.</p>
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<p>But only a quarter of the respondents said they found this definition helpful, raising questions as to whether it remains fit for purpose.</p>
<p>Despite these uncertainties around what extremism means, around half of the respondents appear to know it when they see it, whether in their local area, further afield or online. And 52% said they had witnessed something they would regard as extremism.</p>
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<p>The data also shed light on public sensitivity towards “Muslim or Islamist extremism”. Nearly 60% had witnessed it in some form, nearly twice as many as had experienced far-right extremism. This presents a challenge for the Home Office. How does it address public concerns around Islamist extremism without limiting the democratic rights and freedoms of a sizeable minority of the population? </p>
<p>One answer might be to focus on victims and concrete examples of victimisation rather than on the more common abstract notions of a general threat to everyone. In late July, the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/stop-spread-of-hatred-javid-appeals-as-he-warns-of-worstever-extremism-threat-a4193841.html">said reports of extremism</a> were rising in the UK, a threat “now worse than ever”.</p>
<p>But statements such as these leave important questions unanswered. Where is the threat of extremism rising? By how much? And for whom? Are there particular people and groups who are more vulnerable to beliefs and actions that seek to harm, coerce or exclude than others? And are there factors that increase vulnerability? </p>
<h2>What it is and how to tackle it</h2>
<p>While a third of respondents agreed that everyone is at risk from extremism, religious and ethnic communities were identified as the most vulnerable social groups. These are important insights that could provide the basis for an approach that puts victims at the centre of counter-extremism policy. </p>
<p>The survey also revealed that the public is ready to identify a wider range of extremism than some might have supposed. Nearly a third of respondents had witnessed “far-left extremism” and one in five had witnessed “anti-government or anarchist extremism”. </p>
<p>The data also shed light on the attitudes, activities and behaviours witnessed by those who responded. Respondents were asked: “What attitudes, activities or behaviours have you witnessed that you regard as extremism?” In terms of “Muslim or Islamist extremism”, criminal offending, terrorism links and segregation were the most frequently selected responses. In terms of “far-right extremism”, extremist events, criminal offending and propaganda were the most frequently selected. </p>
<p>These findings show that respondents linked criminality to extremism but also that they were sensitive to the differences between its two most frequently recognised forms – far-right and Islamist. </p>
<p>While 71% were unsure about whether more should be done to tackle extremism, 38% placed emphasis on faith groups and leaders having a role in improving counter-extremism. Only half as many respondents said social media and tech companies and national government should improve counter-extremism, 21% for each. These findings suggest a public appetite for a more focused and bottom-up approach to tackling religious extremism.</p>
<h2>A conversation worth having</h2>
<p>The appointment of Khan and the ongoing work of the commission have been criticised by people and groups who represent, or claim to represent, the interests of British Muslim communities, including the Conservative peer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/24/leading-muslim-campaigner-sara-khan-head-anti-extremism-drive">Sayeeda Warsi</a> and the campaigning organisations <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42807560">MEND</a> and <a href="https://www.cage.ngo/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/2019/01/CAGE-CCE-Exposed-report.pdf">Cage</a>. Initial criticisms focused on Khan’s suitability as a leader given her previous government ties as a member of a Home Office extremism and radicalisation working group, and included allegations that the commission seeks to unfairly target British Muslim communities.</p>
<p>We should expect differences of opinion given that there an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/">estimated 4m</a> British Muslims. But more recent criticisms from <a href="https://www.cage.ngo/sajid-javid-lectures-cage-on-british-values-to-divert-attention-from-another-hollow-cce-report-and-mask-the-uk-governments-complicity-in-torture">Cage</a> about the commission’s “abject failure” are unhelpful for two reasons. First, the commission is collecting valuable information on far-right groups that are seeking to stir up and legitimise anti-Muslim hatred. Second, its data could lead to far more meaningful debates around what the British public considers to be extreme. </p>
<p>As a plural and diverse nation, the UK may never agree on where the mainstream ends and extremism begins. But a better-informed public debate, the kind the commission is seeking to encourage, may help us forge a broader consensus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Hargreaves is a member of the Expert Group of the Commission for Countering Extremism - a role performed on a voluntary basis. He is employed by the Woolf Institute and in that capacity has provided paid consultation services to the Commission.</span></em></p>A survey by the Commission for Countering Extremism revealed many don’t feel able to define extremism – or found the government’s definition helpful.Julian Hargreaves, Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Islamic Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1087792018-12-18T11:09:26Z2018-12-18T11:09:26ZPrevent counter-terrorism strategy remains unfair on British Muslims, despite Home Office efforts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250956/original/file-20181217-185234-1kokniw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/londonenglandunited-kingdom-09152017-diverse-group-visitors-1148795042?src=2o5HqK8a7qDRSKJwmHlf4w-1-19">Sharkshock/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Home Office responded to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/anti-terror-prevent-programme-controversial/">concerns</a> over the effectiveness, legitimacy and transparency of its controversial counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent, by making fresh data available for public scrutiny in mid December. The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/763254/individuals-referred-supported-prevent-programme-apr2017-mar2018-hosb3118.pdf">figures</a> reveal 7,318 people were referred to Prevent in the year to April 2018, compared to 6,093 the previous year. </p>
<p>Amid allegations that the counter-terrorism strategy discriminates against British Muslim communities, the Home Office data highlight a more balanced approach to Islamist and right-wing extremism, although evidence of disproportionate targeting remains.</p>
<p>The Prevent programme aims to safeguard people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Many workers in the public sector are under <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance">a legal duty</a> to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. Concerns can be reported to a local authority or the police. Some of those <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-happens-to-people-who-are-suspected-of-being-radicalised-53652">perceived as being at risk are offered</a> mentoring, life skills training, or anger management sessions delivered through the Home Office’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/channel-guidance">Channel programme</a>, after discussion by what’s called a Channel panel. Some vulnerable individuals are sent to non-Prevent services, such as in education or health, or are referred back to the police. Others – the vast majority of referrals – face no further action.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/by-casting-teachers-as-informants-british-counter-extremism-policy-is-promoting-violence-85474">By casting teachers as informants, British counter-extremism policy is promoting violence</a>
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<h2>New ‘mixed or unstable ideology’ category</h2>
<p>The Home Office links the 20% increase in Prevent referrals between the years to April 2017 and April 2018 to the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester. Against this backdrop, and ongoing criticisms, it offers evidence that Prevent is improving, in particular achieving a better balance between Islamist extremism and far-right cases. </p>
<p>While such assertions are unlikely to persuade ardent anti-Prevent campaigners, the Home Office deserves some cautious praise. The publication of detailed information about Prevent referrals going back to 2015 is an admirable step forward. It repairs a sizeable gap in public evidence and is capable of allaying public misgivings.</p>
<p>The published figures also suggest the Home Office has developed more sophisticated methods of categorising risk. This has implications for improving relations with British Muslim communities. Previously, the Home Office relied on four categories of concern: “Islamist extremism”, “right-wing extremism”, “other extremism” and “unspecified”. Now a new category has been created: “mixed, unstable, or unclear ideology”. This increased willingness to consider disparate or uncertain motivations coincides with a reduction in the proportion of Islamic extremism referrals – down from 61% in 2016-17 to 44% in 2017-18 – and offers the grounds for tentative optimism.</p>
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<p>The Home Office is also keen to point out that, for the first time, a similar number of people received Channel support for concerns relating to Islamist and right wing extremism – 179 and 174 respectively. It reports that those referrals discussed by a Channel panel relating to right-wing extremism “were proportionately more likely” to receive Channel support than those relating to Islamist extremism – 41% compared to 27%. </p>
<p>But this isn’t quite enough evidence to quash allegations made about the unfair targeting of British Muslim communities. In 2017-18, 3,197 referrals for concerns related to Islamist extremism resulted in 179 individuals receiving Channel support, but only 1,312 right-wing extremism referrals were needed to identify 174 individuals.</p>
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<p>Thinking about the communities at risk from Islamic and right-wing extremism, the figures reveal that many more Muslims are engaged by the Home Office than non-Muslims, despite the fact that only a small number from each group require counter-terrorism support. This difference suggests the excessive targeting of Muslims. The Home Office should be congratulated for moving in the right direction, but further work is required to flatten discrepancies and help alleviate grievances.</p>
<h2>A stubbornly blunt instrument</h2>
<p>Another area of concern is the low proportion of overall Prevent referrals that result in the provision of Channel support. Of the 7,318 people referred in 2017-18, only 394 received support from the Channel programme. This means a whopping 95% of individuals referred to Prevent required no further action, were signposted to non-Prevent services, or were referred to Channel but not placed on a programme of support.</p>
<p>Figures from the two previous years demonstrate the stubborn persistence of this 95% statistic and raise serious questions about the precision of Prevent as a tool to measure terrorism risk. </p>
<p>Terrorism policies are often highly contentious and fragile community relations are damaged easily by perceptions of state discrimination. So it’s imperative to design Prevent interventions that have high rates of sensitivity and specificity, such as the ability to correctly identify who does and who doesn’t need support. </p>
<p>The extremely low number of people engaged in Islamist terrorism, particularly when compared to the overall size of the British Muslim population, will always produce systematic detection errors. That said, the Home Office would be well-advised to address the messy nature of the Prevent referrals process so that it identifies more people who need Channel support and fewer who don’t.</p>
<p>While a full-scale review of Prevent is now well overdue, the Home Office has demonstrated a commendable willingness to engage with criticism. Any increases in transparency and accountability should be welcomed, but the Home Office should continue to refine and improve its counter-terrorism strategies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Hargreaves does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the publication of promising new statistics on referrals to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, the strategy remains a blunt instrument.Julian Hargreaves, Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute and Research Associate at St Edmund's College, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1070662018-11-20T14:29:30Z2018-11-20T14:29:30Z‘Compliant environment’: turning ordinary people into border guards should concern everyone in the UK<p>In a small victory for those fighting against the creeping demands of the UK government’s immigration system, an NHS data service has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/12/home-office-scraps-scheme-that-used-nhs-data-to-track-migrants">withdrawn from an agreement</a> in which it provided information on suspected irregular immigrants to the Home Office. The agreement was part of what was the government’s “hostile environment” strategy for suspected irregular immigrants, publicly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/sajid-javid-immigration-hostile-compliant-environment-marr-a8381711.html0">rebranded</a> as a “compliant environment” by Home Secretary Sajid Javid in June 2018. </p>
<p>In recent years, landlords, employers, education staff and health professionals have <a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-britain-where-everybody-is-expected-to-be-a-border-guard-75148">become increasingly responsible</a> for checking the immigration status of their tenants, employees, students and patients. The hostile environment became more palpable to those it targeted and those compelled to administer it through two consecutive immigration acts in 2014 and 2016. </p>
<p>The latest change in language from “hostile” to “compliant” aimed to detoxify policies that are reaching deeper and deeper into everyday life, drawing ordinary people into the roles of border guards. And against which different civil society groups continue to fight. </p>
<p>One such policy was a memorandum of understanding (MoU), drawn up in November 2016 between the Department of Health, NHS Digital and the Home Office, that allowed the Home Office to request access to non-clinical information of patients. <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/">NHS Digital</a> provides national information, data and IT systems for health and care services. Under the agreement, the Home Office could request the name, date of birth, gender, last known address, and contact details of people using NHS primary care services who it suspected were in the UK without permission and who immigration officials had failed to find through other means. </p>
<p>Many medical organisations <a href="https://www.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/news/doctors-of-the-worlds-statement-on-legal-victory-to-stopsharing-patient-information">oppose</a> the sharing of patient information because it is deemed dangerous to individuals and public health. </p>
<p>On November 12 2018, NHS Digital <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/news/press-releases-and-statements/legal-victory-protects-patients-pulling-doctors-out-government%E2%80%99s">confirmed</a> that the data–sharing agreement – which had already been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/09/government-to-stop-forcing-nhs-to-share-patients-data-with-home-office">suspended in May</a> – would be withdrawn. This followed legal proceedings by organisations who argued that it violated patients’ right to privacy under the Human Rights Act. They also argued that it didn’t pass the considerable public interest test required to breach the doctor-patient relationship, left migrants too scared to access healthcare services they were entitled to and discriminated against non-British patients. </p>
<p>A joint legal effort of Liberty, <a href="https://migrantsrights.org.uk/">Migrant Rights Network</a>, <a href="https://www.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/">Doctors of the World</a> and the <a href="https://www.nat.org.uk/">National Aids Trust</a> demonstrated how crucial it is for diverse organisations to campaign together against the use of data collected for other purposes by UK border staff. </p>
<h2>Data-sharing in other forms</h2>
<p>But the Home Office hasn’t given up. A spokesperson told the Guardian that it would continue to work on a new MoU with NHS Digital to enable it to: “Make requests for non-medical information about those facing deportation action because they have committed serious crimes.” Nor has NHS Digital <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nhs-data-sharing-home-office_uk_5be97198e4b0e843889a1b5d?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter%20%22%22">ruled out</a> signing another data-sharing agreement with the Home Office if, after a consultation, its assessment is that it would be in the public interest to share the data requested from them.</p>
<p>As well as legal challenges, the compliant environment is being challenged through Freedom of Information requests. One request <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/15/pupil-data-shared-with-home-office-to-identify-illegal-migrants">uncovered that an agreement</a> had been in place since 2015 between the Home Office and Department for Education to share the details, including addresses, of up to 1,500 schoolchildren a month. The aim was specifically to “create a hostile environment” in schools in order to locate and deport individuals and families. After widespread protest and campaigning by organisations including <a href="https://www.schoolsabc.net/">Against Borders for Children</a>, in April 2018, the government <a href="https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-ends-divisive-pupil-nationality-data-collection/">agreed to end</a> the practice.</p>
<p>Other Freedom of Information requests have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/13/nhs-denied-treatment-for-migrants-who-cant-afford-upfront-charges?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">revealed the numbers of migrant</a> patients denied treatment because they cannot afford to pay upfront. Since October 2017, all NHS trusts in England must seek <a href="https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/overseas-patient-upfront-tariff/">payment in advance</a> before they provide non-emergency treatment to failed asylum seekers and those who have overstayed their visa. Meanwhile, politicians are scapegoating migrants again <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/increase-to-immigration-health-surcharge-gives-nhs-extra-funding">by increasing</a> the Immigration Health Surcharge required of all non-EU citizens who require a visa to live in the UK, from £200 a year to £400 a year from December 2018. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246428/original/file-20181120-161644-105owc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Campaigners argue immigration checks and extra fees are preventing people seeking medical help.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/155825075?src=C6ITKzUrquz-ocU6YNErcw-1-98&size=medium_jpg">Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyday borders</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://vimeo.com/126315982">research</a> on the impact of what my colleagues and I call “everyday bordering”, where people are turned into border guards, we heard that if migrants are pushed underground they end up in crisis mode. This can mean that their physical and mental health is threatened and the chances of them being involved in crime increase. </p>
<p>Health campaigners <a href="http://raceequalityfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/REF-Better-Health-443.pdf">argue</a> that extra charges for migrants – even the perception that people will be charged for free services such as tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment – prove ineffective for the NHS budget. This is because delays in diagnosis threaten the health of those with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and increase the risk of others being exposed to and contracting them. A maternity advice service also <a href="https://www.maternityaction.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WhatPriceSafeMotherhoodFINAL.pdf">found evidence</a> that NHS charging deters migrant women from accessing maternity care due to fears of being charged and of the Home Office being notified. </p>
<p>These demands of the compliant environment are of concern to all of those living in the UK – not just migrant communities and ethnic minorities. Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038517702599">research</a> in London and the south-east shows how the outsourcing of border controls to the public and private sectors creates wider hostility. It brings immigration status into multiple everyday encounters, where it would never have been before, and has drawn health workers and schools into administering the government’s damaging immigration regime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgie Wemyss received funding from FP7 EUBORDERSCAPES Research project 2013-2016. </span></em></p>Civil society groups continue to fight against the creeping demands of the UK’s immigration system.Georgie Wemyss, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/958132018-05-26T06:38:15Z2018-05-26T06:38:15ZNew poll shows British people have become more positive about immigration<p>Michael Gove, the British environment secretary, sparked a heated debate when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43821484">he said recently</a>: “Britain has the most liberal attitude towards migration of any European country. And that followed the Brexit vote.”</p>
<p>His implication that the Brexit vote was a force for a more positive view of immigration in Britain has been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/michael-gove-brexit-uk-immigration-union-customs-union-eu-a8361731.html">vigorously challenged</a> by some.</p>
<p>And you can see why it might grate: analysis by King’s College London shows that media coverage of immigration tripled in the campaign, and was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/10/brexit-eu-referendum-campaign-media-coverage-immigration">overwhelmingly negative”</a>.</p>
<p>But Gove is right to say that people in Britain are now more positive about immigration, as shown by new <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">polling released</a> by Ipsos MORI, tracking attitudes towards immigration after the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-generation-latest-to-be-stripped-of-their-rights-in-the-name-of-migration-control-95158">Windrush scandal</a>. </p>
<p>Gove cited an <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-views-immigration-and-refugee-crisis">Ipsos survey</a> from the end of 2017, which does indeed show that from the ten European countries included, Britain is most likely to think immigration has had a positive effect on the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What people across Europe think about immigration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more recent European Commission <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/survey/getsurveydetail/instruments/special/surveyky/2169">survey</a> across all 28 EU countries shows that, while the UK is not quite top, it is the third most likely to say that immigration is an opportunity rather than a problem, behind only Sweden and Ireland.</p>
<p>And this is a shift that can’t be explained purely by the weight of negative media coverage of immigration dying down after the referendum. I’ve been reviewing immigration attitudes for nearly 20 years, and I’m really not used to seeing Britain at the top of any league table of immigration positivity: this is something new. </p>
<p>As the chart below shows, positive attitudes have doubled in Britain since 2011, while they’ve flatlined at a low level in most other countries, or fallen in the case of Sweden.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An upward trend for Great Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And as our <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">new survey</a> published by Ipsos MORI shows, this trend remains stable. The switch from a negative balance of opinion to a positive one started before the 2016 referendum on EU membership, in the middle of 2015 – but it did gain pace after. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Brexit vote has changed little.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reassurance and regret</h2>
<p>There are two broad explanations for why this is happening – that the change is being driven by “reassurance”, or “regret”. </p>
<p>The first is the idea that people feel they can now say that immigration has positive aspects, because numbers are coming down, or they believe numbers will be lower in the future, as a result of Brexit. </p>
<p>Regret, on the other hand, could be driven by a realisation of what we’re losing from lower immigration: as numbers fall and warnings of skills shortages and economic impacts increase, the extent to which the country benefits from immigration becomes more obvious. </p>
<p>Clearly these are simplifications – there are other explanations and these are not mutually exclusive views. But in our latest survey, we tried to assess the balance between these two explanations for the first time, by simply asking people why they are more positive. </p>
<p>And as the chart below shows, there is an almost perfect balance between the two explanations: around four in ten say they’re more aware of the contribution that immigrants make, and the same proportion say they’re reassured numbers are falling or will fall. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why have British people become more positive about immigration?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An emotive debate</h2>
<p>As with so much about immigration attitudes, there is no one clear answer or view, and therefore no clear indication for future policy and political direction. The very real trends of increased positivity actually give the government little clue as to whether they should loosen their drive to control numbers, or stick to their guns on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment” immigration policy</a> that has come in for so much criticism in recent months.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-immigration-policy-has-made-britain-a-precarious-place-to-call-home-95546">'Hostile environment' immigration policy has made Britain a precarious place to call home</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Immigration is well recognised as a polarising issue, and one of <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/shifting-ground-attitudes-towards-immigration-and-brexit">the key topics</a> in a referendum vote that split the country down the middle.</p>
<p>But what’s more often missed is that our views are also full of nuance and contradiction. There are not just two immovable and monolithic pro- and anti-immigration blocs, as shown by our <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/IpsosMORI/shifting-ground-changing-attitudes-to-immigration">previous research</a>, and another of our <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/half-public-favour-relaxing-visa-cap-non-eu-skilled-workers">just released polls</a> for the Evening Standard. For example, the majority of the public would like to see the government’s cap on the number of doctors coming to the UK from outside the EU lifted entirely or increased – but the majority support the cap, or even greater restrictions, on computer scientists.</p>
<p>One thing seems clear – British people’s more positive outlook seems to be little to do with the Brexit debate leading people to be better informed on immigration facts, at least on key aspects like the scale of immigration. <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">When we asked</a> what percentage of the population immigrants make up, which we’ve done regularly over many years, the average guess was 28%, compared with a reality of around 13%: we are just as wrong as we’ve always been. </p>
<p>Of course, this is because our emotions colour our views of scale as much as the other way round. The immigration debate remains an emotive one, caught up in our identity, culture and values more than cold calculations.</p>
<p>But all these challenges don’t mean that attitudes to immigration should be ignored in setting immigration policy. There is a case that Brexit was partly a result of ignoring immigration concerns, rather than either acting to reassure people, or challenging their views.</p>
<p>With a white paper on the post-Brexit immigration system <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-immigration-brexit-sajid-javid-intervenes-to-speed-up-new-uk-immigration-plan/">now expected by July</a>, the risk for the government comes not from listening to apparently fickle and contradictory public opinion, it comes from mishearing or caricaturing it – again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bobby Duffy is the Chairman of the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute. He receives funding from Unbound Philanthropy. </span></em></p>A new poll suggests there has been a shift in positive opinion towards immigration, which started in 2015.Bobby Duffy, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/958842018-05-01T13:16:47Z2018-05-01T13:16:47ZSajid Javid: the son of a Pakistani bus driver who became Britain’s home secretary<p>What links Sajid Javid (Britain’s first Muslim-heritage home secretary), Sadiq Khan (London’s first Muslim mayor), and Sayeeda Warsi (the first Muslim to sit in the British cabinet)? They’re all the children of post-war Pakistani immigrants who came to the UK in the 1960s in search of a better life. And all three had fathers who were bus drivers. Javid, Khan and Warsi, the bus-driver-kid crew, have driven hard and fast to achieve high political office.</p>
<p>Javid’s is a story of rags to riches to political power. With a “£1 note in his pocket”, his father, Abdul Ghani, settled in Rochdale, working in a cotton mill and then on the buses – and nicknamed <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43947008">“Mr Night and Day because he used to work every hour God sent his way”</a>. Eventually the family moved to Bristol, and Javid, like his heroine Margaret Thatcher (he once revealed he had a poster of her on his <a href="https://www.whatsonstage.com/bristol-theatre/news/sajid-javid-arts-funding-speech-bristol-thatcher_34677.html">office wall</a>), lived in a flat above a shop. And though his school career adviser told him <a href="https://www.whatsonstage.com/bristol-theatre/news/sajid-javid-arts-funding-speech-bristol-thatcher_34677.html">“Stapleton Road kids don’t go to university”</a>, Javid went on to read economics and politics at Exeter. He was the first in his family to graduate.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/15/sajid-javid-what-thatcherite-union-buster-learned-from-wall-street">At 25</a>, Javid became the youngest vice-president at Chase Manhattan Bank. His reputation for success led him to be headhunted by Deutsche Bank where, as the head of credit trading, he earned £3m.</p>
<h2>Political life</h2>
<p>Javid entered politics as MP for Bromsgrove (Worcestershire) in 2010 – a move which reportedly saw him take a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/30/for-sajid-javid-the-hostile-environment-is-political-and-personal">98% pay cut</a>.</p>
<p>He enjoyed a close relationship with George Osborne and worked under the then chancellor as treasury minister in 2012. He got his first cabinet post in 2014 as the secretary of state for culture, media and sport. He has also held the office of secretary of state for business, innovation and skills and secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.</p>
<p>Now Javid has taken one of the very top jobs, following the resignation of Amber Rudd as home secretary. Her departure was, on the surface, tied to her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43944710">“inadvertently” misleading</a> MPs over the use of deportation targets in her department. But her downfall came after weeks of pressure over the way the government has treated the Windrush generation, who came to the UK in 1948 aboard the Empire Windrush, and now face having their rights curtailed because they cannot formally prove their right to stay. </p>
<p>Identity once didn’t seem to matter much to Javid (when asked about his background he used to state <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10757640/Sajid-Javid-the-man-who-thinks-big.html">“I don’t think about it”</a> but that seems to have changed recently. His immigrant background has coloured his <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/windrush-latest-sajid-javid-personhttps:/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/windrush-latest-sajid-javid-personal-amber-rudd-deportation-local-elections-2018-a8327921.htmlal-amber-rudd-deportation-local-elections-2018-a8327921.html">response</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/windrush-52562">Windrush</a> crisis. Asked about the situation before joining the Home Office, he said: “I’m a second-generation migrant, my parents came to this country from Pakistan, just like the Windrush generation, obviously a different part of the world, from South Asia not the Caribbean, but other than that, similar in almost every way.”</p>
<p>Javid and Theresa May are known to have their <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/why-sajid-javids-appointment-as-home-secretary-is-striking/">differences</a>. He was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/sajid-javid-may-windrush-crisis-home-secretary">highly critical</a> of the prime minister’s ill-fated 2017 election campaign. Although, had that all turned out differently, with May being resoundingly re-elected, it could have finished off Javid’s political rise and led him to backbench oblivion. </p>
<p>He is ambitious. In the aftermath of David Cameron’s post-Brexit resignation, he paired up with Stephen Crabb in a joint leadership bid (he as chancellor, Crabb as PM). They may not have got very far but Javid’s leadership hopes will surely only be boosted by this latest <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/sajid-javid-is-back-in-the-frame-to-replace-theresa-may-11353738">promotion</a>. He is now touted as a possible contender for the [premiership] – this time, all by himself. </p>
<p>May and the Conservatives will be hoping that Javid’s personal background will go some way to limit the damage caused by the Windrush scandal. Part of that hope will be that the new home secretary can help hold onto the ethnic minority vote, a tall order given that support for the Tories among non-white voters <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-support-ethnic-minority-voters-lowest-level-years-internal-poll-conservatives-government-a8090566.html">has plummeted</a> in recent years. That’s at least in part due to the party’s stance on immigration.</p>
<p>But while the party may use Javid as a poster boy for the “ethnic Tory”, his significance is much wider than that. At a time when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/germany-elections-afd-europe-immigration-merkel-radical-right">right-wing populism</a> has made headway across Western and Central Europe on the back of anti-immigration sentiment, Javid’s success is textbook “immigrant dream” success. </p>
<h2>Immigration stance</h2>
<p>While criticising the phrase “hostile environment” in relation to illegal immigration, Javid is a supporter of tighter controls on immigration. He has argued there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/30/for-sajid-javid-the-hostile-environment-is-political-and-personal">“nothing racist about managed migration”</a>.</p>
<p>As home secretary, Javid’s remit will include immigration (Windrush scandal, top of the pile) and he has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2018/apr/30/theresa-may-new-home-secretary-amber-rudd-quits-politics-live?page=with:block-5ae6f507e4b05b151652c5bb">said</a> “the most urgent tasks I have is to help those British citizens that came from the Caribbean, the so-called Windrush generation. And, make sure that that they are all treated with the decency and the fairness that they deserve”. The Tories will be hoping that this is more believable from Javid than it was from Rudd.</p>
<p>He will also have to deal with policing (at a time when knife crime is rarely out the news) and security and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sajid-javid-appointed-new-home-secretary-after-amber-rudds-resignation_uk_5ae6bca2e4b02baed1bb84bc">counter-terrorism</a>: “My first priority is to make sure the Home Office always does all it can to keep British people safe. That is a huge responsibility, something I take very very seriously.”</p>
<p>Javid, the son of a Muslim immigrant bus driver, has one of the most coveted jobs in British politics. But he starts at a difficult moment for the department. Let’s see how the Stapleton road kid performs in the front seat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parveen Akhtar has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy.</span></em></p>The son of Pakistani immigrants was told at school he’d never even make it to university.Parveen Akhtar, Lecturer in Political Science, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.