REPORT TO THE HOME SECRETARY BY THE JOINT COMMITTEE FOR REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM
INTRODUCTION
1.
Our previous report described our conduct of the Vietnamese reception and settlement programme and the severe problems facing Vietnamese in this country: "They are one of the most disadvantaged groups ever to come to the UK. Many lack marketable skills or even skills which can easily be adapted to our society. Many lack education and literacy even in their own language. Most, having come from North Vietnam, have had little contact with Western civilisation. For many Britain was a last resort as a settlement country following refusals from the USA and other countries. Unlike other refugee and immigrant groups they had no established community in this country to receive them." (paragraph 47 of published JCRV report). A Home Office research study in 1982 indicated that unemployment among those of working age stood at 83%. With 46% of the community under 20 and, despite intensive language education during reception, some 40% still with no more than 'survival' proficiency, i.e. the ability to understand simple, slowly spoken, questions and statements, it was not surprising that the Vietnamese communities in our midst, often small and divided by race or religion, had not developed to the point where they could stand on their own feet. Families and individuals, often under severe stress, were still substantially dependent on help from statutory services and the 'bridge' over language and cultural barriers provided by the agencies' network of Vietnamese speaking workers.
2. Our report argued and the government accepted the case for continued funding of the efforts of the refugee agencies - the British Refugee Council (BRC), Ockenden Venture (OV) and Refugee Action (RA) - during 1983/84 to provide support during the immediate post-reception phase and allow time to establish the services which the Vietnamese still required on a long-term basis. The Joint Committee for Refugees from Vietnam was asked to continue in being to manage this operation.
It
3. This report describes what has been done so far this year in receiving and settling those refugees from Vietnam who continue to arrive here and the strategy we have pursued in the attempt to help the Vietnamese community, within our own, gain better access to statutory services and overcome its disadvantages. While the business of receiving and settling fresh arrivals has taken up much of the agencies' time we have been able to encourage developments within the community which we describe. The local authorities have done much to help us in our work but our efforts to persuade them to provide the extra help the Vietnamese need have made less progress, they explain, because of pressure on their resources. Our report offers an objective assessment of the present state of the Vietnamese community. supports representations made by local authority associations for amendment of section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 or for relief from financial penalty of local authority expenditure on the Vietnamese. Depending on government's response to these representations we propose that the Home Office should fund a crucial, though in terms of cost much curtailed, programme of work by the refugee agencies over the next 3 years.
A 3 year programme is proposed in order to enable the agencies to recruit and retain suitable staff and thus to make the best use of the limited resources which they hope may be made available.
OUR WORK DURING 1983/84
Appendix D of our previous report set out the programme of work which the agencies set themselves this year, namely settling the refugees who remained
4.
1.