Our response to The Observer's "Secret plan to use charities to help deport rough sleepers"

This statement responds to The Observer article detailing the Home Office's plans to gather information on non-UK rough sleepers through homelessness charities through an initiative known as the Rough Sleeper Support Service (RSSS).

In our work with St Mungo's to provide immigration advice and casework to non-UK rough sleepers, our primary concern is always the best interest of our service users. Given the Home Office culture of enforcement and removal of migrant rough sleepers, Praxis expressed scepticism about the purpose and use of the scheme when we were approached by the Home Office with regard to this initiative.

As long as projects like RSSS will lack the necessary clarity about the processes involved, and about how client data would be used by the Home Office, we will not refer our service users into any such initiative, and we will strongly encourage our partners not to do so either.

We take client confidentiality very seriously and do not share information with third parties without explicit client informed consent.