Ian Cheeseman, Jennifer Segal and Geoff Sharland, New Asylum Model+ Quality and Learning Team, UK Border Agency

The team made a massive effort to deliver huge improvements to the way in which caseowners are prepared to consider applications from applicants seeking asylum on the grounds of their sexual orientation. They needed to develop radically different and new guidance to reflect the Supreme Court decision and also to tackle some of the cultural issues arising from Stonewall’s No Going Back report.

This was then completely supported by the design, testing and rollout of a brand new training module which has been delivered to all caseowners and managers and has received substantial critical acclaim from caseowners and corporate partners alike. This was a significant task requiring commitment and ingenuity to deliver. It was delivered not least by a genuine and open engagement with corporate partners.

The team were faced with a real challenge to implement new policy; address new legal instructions and address some substantial cultural issues raised in a critical external report. They demonstrated real personal commitment to accept some uncomfortable messages and needed to develop their own cultural awareness to ensure they did the best job. They showed real passion and determination to understand how they could best help the needs of those seeking asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation and put that knowledge into practice to develop better systems and processes.

Key to their success was their complete openness and transparency with corporate partners, involving them in workshops and consultation, so as to ensure not just that their views were taken into account but that they were much more proactive in addressing their concerns and encouraging and accepting corporate partners’ ideas on improving. All of the team could have easily become defensive of work that was already taking place but were able to demonstrate a real willingness to learn and push boundaries.

They demonstrated that they had the skills and knowledge to consider equality and could proactively engage and develop understanding of their target audience to produce demonstrable and positive results.