Unaccompanied child asylum seeker plans delayed

As part of the Better Outcomes: The Way Forward Improving the Care of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children reforms, published in January last year, the Government outlined the plan to move young asylum seekers to specialist local authorities to reduce the pressure on port-of-entry authorities mainly in the South East.

But there has still been no agreement over where the specialist areas will be, despite a series of discussions between the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) and local authorities.

Lisa Nandy, chair of the Refugee Children's Consortium, said the delay is likely to be a result of confusion about where the funding for the specialist authorities will come from and government uncertainty about how many authorities it wants to sign up.

But she is also concerned that pushing through reforms quickly could be damaging for asylum-seeking children.

She said: "We know from the experience of dispersal of adult asylum seekers that people were moved to areas before there was enough of a range of services and the capacity to meet their needs.

"The last thing we want is to see is young people being sent to places where the infrastructure to support them simply isn't there."

The UKBA confirmed it has recently completed a series of regional workshops, which resulted in several authorities expressing an interest in becoming specialist areas.