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I am aware, from discussions on the internet and questions at meetings, that some EU citizens have wondered whether they could travel to the UK before the end of 2020 and stay in the UK temporarily, perhaps for a very short period, with the idea of acquiring status under the Settlement Scheme as a type of ‘insurance policy’. The intention is not to live in the UK at that stage, but to be able to use that status to secure a right to reside in the UK at some future date if they wished or needed to do so.

The Citizens Rights Project has organised a further free webinar about the EU Settlement Scheme aimed at professionals working with vulnerable EU citizens in local authorities and third sector organisations, in collaboration with their partner Drummond Miller LLP.

At the end of August, the Home Office has published new quarterly statistics of the EU Settlement Scheme. We had a closer look at these statistics wondering what nationalities have submitted the most EUSS applications in Scotland and which local authorities have the largest number of applications. Then, we looked at the top 10 of these local authorities and checked which nationalities submitted the most applications in each of them.

The pandemic has made it difficult for some EU nationals to fulfil the requirements of the EU Settlement Scheme. Some cannot obtain the documents they need or may fall foul of the continuous residency rules. Mark Lazarowicz (Terra Firma Chambers) and Dorota Peszkowska (Feniks) warn they are at risk of losing their right to stay in the UK and claim benefits, and suggest how the Home Office could alter its guidance.

With less than six months remaining in the EU Exit Transition period, EU Citizens in Scotland are to get increased support from the Scottish Government funded Citizens Rights Project. Part of the government’s Stay in Scotland package, this funding will support the project’s continuing work on two programmes:

Become part of our family of volunteers. Citizens Rights Project is focused on providing information about the EU Settlement Scheme, which involves the application process for the settled or pre-settled status for Eu/EEA/Swiss nationals, and their family members, living in the UK.

s a small third-sector organisation, with a mission to help vulnerable EEA nationals, we count on other NGOs, local governments, community groups, employers and others to help us reaching them. We have designed an especific call for action that will help us diseminating information about the scheme and our free help widely.

We’re joining together with Northern Ireland’s ‘Committee on the Administration of Justice’ to organise (from Northern Ireland) a free webinar on new changes to the UK’s rules on settled status for EU citizens.

The lockdown because of Covid-19 has obviously meant that we have had to change the way that we operate. This has had particular impact on our plans for our ‘Settled Scotland’ project, to provide advice and support to EU citizens in Scotland who want to apply for settled status.

Settled Scotland focuses on providing information on, and assistance with, the application process for the settled or pre-settled status for EU and EEA nationals living in the UK. The aim of the programme is recruiting local volunteers and trained them to become registered under the OISC Level 1 special scheme for community groups, charities and other not-for-profit organisations providing advice on EU Settled Status scheme applications.