Councils face £25,000 per child shortfall under refugee scheme

The study found that councils involved in the voluntary national transfer scheme are having to fund almost half the £55,194 annual cost of supporting each child, as the Home Office only currently reimburses £30,231.

The average annual per child shortfall for councils involved in the scheme is £24,963, according to the research, which was carried out by the East Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership into the costs involved in supporting unaccompanied children by councils in the East Midlands.

This includes £40,850 placement costs, £8,454 social worker costs and £3,396 for education support.

"This represents a considerable financial burden," says partnership chair Heather Smith. "Councils are meeting the shortfall (currently £7.46m per annum in the East Midlands) from already pressed children's services budgets."

She welcomed a Home Office commitment to review funding levels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and says more money is needed to ensure councils continue to take part in the national transfer scheme, which was brought in to ease the burden on areas such as Kent that take in a large number of refugee children.

"The current inadequacy of funding, coupled with significant capacity constraints, will inevitably challenge ongoing participation in the national transfer scheme and so it is hoped that the Home Office will make available funding that covers the actual costs of supporting unaccompanied children going forward," she added.

Already four councils in the East Midlands have withdrawn from the scheme due to the costs involved, with Nottinghamshire County Council the most recent to pull out last month. It joined Derby City, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire in deciding not to take part after calculating it faced a £14,000 annual shortfall for every unaccompanied child it supported.

Last November, the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) published a report on asylum-seeking children that found 43 out of 44 councils said national funding was not enough. One council reported a shortfall of £60,580 per child in 2015/16, while another put its total annual shortfall in supporting 50 unaccompanied children at £750,000.

ADCS said at the time that central government funding to help councils support refugee children is "wholly inadequate".

The Home Office spokesperson said: "Last year we substantially increased the levels of funding we provide to local authorities for the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, with current rates based on information they provided about their actual costs.

"We will be conducting a review of the funding arrangements in the coming months which will consider input from those local authorities caring for unaccompanied asylum seeking children."