Impact case study database

O’Brien’s research has seen a broad range of impacts concerning the rights and welfare of EU nationals living in the UK. She employed a number of techniques to facilitate this impact: establishing herself as an authoritative voice in legal and policy debates; providing direct support to advisors working with EU nationals in entitlement disputes; sharing expertise and building capacity amongst a nationwide network of advisors; advocating directly with government agencies to change problematic administrative practices.

Shaping Legal & Policy Debates

O’Brien established herself as the leading expert on the meaning of equal treatment under EU Law for EU nationals who were resident in the UK [10e], particularly with regard to welfare benefits. She wrote articles in practitioner journals [5a-5g], gave research briefings to parliamentarians and civil servants [2a], gave presentations to groups of lawyers, judges, civil servants and NGOs, with outstanding feedback [9][10], and made media appearances [7]. Her scholarship won awards and was published in major legal journals (section 3). As a result, she became an authoritative and highly influential voice in legal and policy debates.

O’Brien advised welfare organisations in strategic litigation in the senior courts. For example, her academic output [D] was adopted by counsel in a UK Supreme Court case and cited in the subsequent judgment [1]. Advocate General Szpunar quoted and relied upon her academic output [C] in the Court of Justice of the European Union [3]. Her evidence to the London Assembly was quoted at length in the Assembly’s letter to the Mayor of London [6]. Her evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee for Exiting the EU (2017) was drawn upon heavily in the Committee’s report (eight references; 58 lines of text in total) [2b]. It was also cited by several MPs in the Commons Debate on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill [2c][2d]. Her written evidence to a later Select Committee inquiry (2018) was used explicitly to formulate a specific objection to government proposals regarding the rights of EU nationals post-Brexit. Drawing directly on O’Brien’s argument that vulnerable groups would fall through the gaps left open by government policy proposals, the Committee demanded that:

“the Government must ensure that there are specific provisions and flexibility for such people to ensure eligibility for Settled Status that will cover vulnerable children and adults, particularly women who have had caring responsibilities or have been temporarily unable to work because of domestic abuse.” [2e]

The Home Office reversed its policy ten weeks later. As the Assistant Counsel for the Justice Committee in the House of Commons noted:

“[O’Brien’s] evidence represented a compelling contribution to the arguments for changing government policy on citizens’ rights. I have no doubt that her arguments were extremely influential in setting the agenda for how the Government should approach policy in this area.” [10e]

At the supra-national level too, O’Brien’s work impacted on legal and policy debates. O’Brien was appointed as an analytical expert on the EU Commission’s Free Movement of Workers and Social Security Coordination Network (FreSsco), as a member of its successor expert network (MoveS), and co-authored three research reports [4a-4c]. Her FreSsco report on definitions of a worker under EU Law [4b] was, according to an EU Commission lawyer, considered both ‘influential’ and a ‘game-changer’ [10b], informing the work of the Commission when considering litigation to set standards and precedents that govern rights:

“[It] gave lawyers in the commission evidence and continues to give us a basis for discussion with member states, and amongst ourselves.” [10b]

Direct Assistance in the Resolution of Disputes Over Entitlements

The EU Rights Project, in its advocacy work, directly supported disputes that represented a recurrent problem encountered by legal advisors. From 2014-2017, 42 of the project’s 53 case studies involved direct legal action research work: advice, drafting, representation and advocacy. These featured clients from 15 EU member states. There were immediate benefits for claimants relating both to housing (e.g., preventing evictions; getting housing assistance) and finances (e.g., writing off overpayments; accessing benefits, including back payments). Some outcomes were worth tens of thousands of pounds and feedback was that “we would not have achieved this result without [O’Brien’s] help” [8]. The advisors supported by O’Brien in these disputes attest to the central significance of her input:

“[O’Brien] made a real difference to the outcomes, particularly of those clients with really technical cases.” [10d]

“[O’Brien] had a huge impact on my clients… She had so much expertise and knowledge that these decisions were often positive.” [10a]

“[O’Brien’s] project actually helped people at the same time as studying them – that’s what’s really unique about it.” [10b]

Indirect Assistance in the Resolution of Disputes Over Entitlements

In addition to direct advocacy support, O’Brien’s research also engaged in considerable knowledge exchange in order to build the capacity of others to reproduce her expertise for the benefit of the wider body of EU nationals in the UK. For example, she wrote articles for publications with wide circulation amongst advisor audiences to inform the advisory networks supporting EU nationals (e.g., Advisor; Poverty: Journal of the Child Poverty Action Group). She also contributed to briefing documents for the Public Law Project, subsequently circulated to a broad range of advice organisations, including Citizens Advice Bureaux, housing lawyers’ advisory groups, Greater Manchester Welfare Rights Advisors Groups, the Brexit Civil Society Alliance, and the Birmingham Welfare Rights Advisors [10c]. She convened knowledge exchange events with advice organisations around the country, gathering data on problems they had encountered and offering training at the same time. Feedback from these events was excellent and demonstrates the significance of their impact in terms of knowledge exchange and capacity building:

“I have a much clearer understanding of those rules and can therefore do a better job for my clients, [with] lots of useful stuff I can take away and use.” [9]

“[O’Brien] encouraged me to learn more and to understand the residency rules for EU nationals, allowing me to do more and more on my own… I became the person that people would come to for advice … I was a bit of a champion for challenging negative decisions instead of accepting them.” [10a]

Indirect Assistance in the Prevention of Disputes Over Entitlements

Whereas the support of dispute resolution is essentially backwards-facing – challenging a decision that has already been made – O’Brien’s work also had forwards-facing impact in the prevention of disputes. The capacity-building aspect of her action research project enabled advisors to give advice to clients about how to take steps to avoid negative decisions and disputes in the future. As one advisor noted:

“I also used this knowledge to give preventative advice … I would tell [clients] what documents to keep, just in case they needed to make a claim in the future.” [10a]

Indirect Assistance by Influencing the Decision-Making Practices of Governmental Agencies

A second preventative form of impact relates to O’Brien’s influence over routine decision-making practices within the governmental agencies responsible for determining welfare claims. O’Brien’s advocacy work changed the ways in which entitlement decisions were made in the first place. In relation to a number of her case studies, she reported the problematic nature of decision-making directly to the UK government agencies concerned: the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC. Among the responses received, recorded on the case files, was an undertaking to train all helpline advisors on a specific point about claimants’ rights: specifically, that they were entitled to keep an appeal live whilst making a new claim based on different circumstances [under the terms of the ethical permission to conduct this research, all file note evidence had to be destroyed].