Scotland's national refugee charity#
The Scottish Refugee Council was formed on 31 July 1985 in a small office in Edinburgh, to help people fleeing Vietnam, and moved its headquarters to Glasgow in 1999 when the city began receiving people dispersed there while their asylum claims were decided. It now works across Scotland: its 2025-26 report says it helped more than 13,900 people from 108 countries, in 30 of Scotland's 32 council areas. Since June 2025 it has delivered the Scottish Government's integration support service for forced migrants, and it runs Refugee Festival Scotland each June.
Getting help#
Everything starts with the free, confidential helpline, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm for refugees and people seeking asylum living in Scotland, and for anyone supporting them. Staff speak several languages and can arrange an interpreter. There is no drop-in: integration support, help for families and the service for destitute people seeking asylum are all by appointment, booked through the helpline. In Dundee, a resettlement team with Arabic and Ukrainian speakers takes bookings by email. The site has pages in eleven languages, and its online guides can be read in more than twenty.
What its guides say about your name#
Its guide for new refugees is one of the most practical we have read, and the first thing it asks you to do after a grant is check your papers. The decision letter and eVisa should match, with the name spelled correctly, the right date of birth and the right type of leave. It suggests photographing every page of the decision letter and emailing copies to yourself.
Its eVisa page repeats the point: check your name, date of birth and status, and if anything is wrong, report it through GOV.UK's eVisa error form. Each member of a family, children included, has their own UKVI account. It also notes that anyone with an expired residence permit card and no eVisa must set one up before 31 December 2026, and that if a bank or benefits office will not accept your eVisa, the helpline will try to advocate for you.
Its bank account page lists the ID banks may take (an eVisa with a share code, a travel document, a passport, and sometimes an asylum registration card) and suggests trying more than one bank, or asking a charity for a support letter.
Correcting a name and changing one#
These are different things. A spelling the Home Office got wrong is corrected by reporting an error; the Scottish Refugee Council's guides cover that. Choosing a new name is a change. The Home Office's names guidance treats a deed poll as one part of the proof, alongside signs that the name is used everywhere in your life, and it alters the eVisa of someone without a national passport only if they are a recognised refugee, stateless, or in some cases have humanitarian protection. A Home Office travel document issued before the change stops being valid.
A deed poll works for people living in Scotland as it does elsewhere in the UK. Read more in your eVisa and UKVI account, long names and accents on how British documents print names from other alphabets, and the bank comparison.
This page describes what the Scottish Refugee Council publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. The Scottish Refugee Council has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
