About ILPA
Our vision:
- A fair and effective immigration system that respects human rights and the rule of law.
Our mission:
- Empowering members to provide the best possible advice and support for migrants, and
- Collaboratively working to improve law, policy and practice.
Our values:
- Collaborative: We recognise that we have the greatest impact when we respectfully share, support, and collaborate with one another. We believe we are stronger together.
- Excellence: We aim for the highest standards in everything we do, taking pride in the quality of our work and the services we provide.
- Empowering: We strive to equip all those navigating the UK’s immigration, asylum and nationality system with the knowledge, resources, and support they need.
- Transformative: We seek to improve and reform law, policy, and practice to create a fair and just legal system for all.
The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) is a professional association and registered charity, the majority of whose members are barristers, solicitors, advocates and OISC regulated advisers practising in all aspects of immigration, asylum and nationality law. Academics, non-governmental organisations and individuals with a substantial interest in the law are also members.
Founded in 1984 by leading practitioners in the field, ILPA exists to promote and improve advice and representation in immigration, asylum and nationality law, through an extensive programme of training and disseminating information and by providing research and opinion that draw on the experiences of members. ILPA is represented on numerous Government, official and non-Governmental advisory groups and regularly provides evidence to parliamentary and official enquiries.
ILPA is a registered charity (No. 1155286) and a company limited by guarantee (No. 2350422). The Committee of Trustees is elected annually by the membership. The work of members is supported by a Secretariat of paid staff.
The charitable objectives of ILPA are:
- to promote the advising and representation of immigrants,
- to provide information to members and others on domestic and European immigration, asylum and nationality law,
- to secure a non-racist, non-sexist, just and equitable system of immigration, asylum and nationality law practice.
These are set out in full in ILPA’s Memorandum and Articles of Association
Our role and its context
ILPA is not a regulatory body. It requires all members giving immigration advice to be regulated by the Bar Standards Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) or the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), or the equivalent professional bodies in the countries in which they work. It is a requirement of membership of ILPA that a member adheres to ILPA’s Guidelines for its members.
The Secretariat does not give advice to members of the public on individual cases but works closely with members to ensure that they are enabled to do their best for their clients. It runs ILPA’s busy training programme and produces a wide range of information for members and non-members.
To view the members’ only pages and resources you must be logged in as a member. Get in touch at any point at membership@ilpa.org.uk to find out why membership is for you.
Information about our governance:
ILPA’s memorandum and articles of association
We are a Living Wage Employer:
ILPA is an accredited Living Wage Employer.
This means that every member of staff working for ILPA earns a real Living Wage. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living. Nearly 7000 organisations, including ILPA, voluntarily choose to pay the real Living Wage because we believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. You can find other organisations who pay the Living Wage here This commitment applies to not only directly employed staff but also to our third party contracted staff. ILPA has ensured that we have a plan in place to ensure that all our third party contracted staff, such as our cleaners, are paid the real Living Wage.
We are proud of this commitment. The Living Wage movement has benefited hundreds of thousands of families by enabling them to earn a wage they can live on. You can hear some of their stories here. You can find out more about the Living Wage by visiting www.livingwage.org.uk.
