The Home Office commissioned Ipsos to conduct a 3-year qualitative evaluation of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and the Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS) to provide evidence of good practice to inform further development and improvement of the schemes.

In this document, Home Office officials have summarised what research participants told Ipsos constitutes good practice in supporting the integration of resettled refugees. The Home Office is sharing this summary, hoping it will inform the work of people supporting the integration of refugees in the UK.

In each of the 3 years of fieldwork Ipsos collected data from:

• interviews with key national and regional stakeholders from central and local government and the third sector
• in-depth qualitative case study research in 5 local authority areas across the UK and with 2 community sponsor groups in England (increased to 4 groups in the final year)

To get an understanding of change over several years, Ipsos interviewed most stakeholder organisations and refugees in all 3 years of fieldwork.

Ipsos have summarised each year of fieldwork in a separate report, with a somewhat different angle.

• the first report (based on 2018 fieldwork) focuses on identifying how local authority and community sponsor groups support refugees, particularly in meeting refugees’ immediate and essential needs in their first year in the UK
• the second report (summarising 2019 fieldwork) describes how refugees are being supported with their integration beyond their first year in the UK, and on how delivery has changed to support new cohorts of refugees
• the final report (summarising 2020 fieldwork) describes further key changes and innovative practice demonstrated by local authorities and community sponsor groups. It also covers refugees’ progress towards the schemes’ intended integration outcomes and describes ongoing barriers to progress and areas that require further development