Kent County Council ‘running out of resources’ to support asylum seekers
Fiona Simpson
Monday, August 10, 2020
Kent County Council is “rapidly running out of resources” to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) after 42 arrived in the county on Friday alone, the council leader has said.
Around 275 UASC have been taken into care under the council since May when 60 new arrivals were recorded, KCC told CYP Now.
The figures come as Home Secretary Priti Patel was criticised over speculation plans were in place to draft in the Navy to reduce record numbers of migrants crossing the channel in recent weeks.
The council recorded a further 85 new UASCs under its children’s social care department in June, 70 in July and 60 in the first week of August, Conservative council leader Roger Gough said.
He told BBC Newsnight that a “particularly rapid” increase in numbers of UASC arriving in Kent is having a “very big” impact on the council.
“They are the people for whom we have to take responsibility, others - adults, children who are with their families are part, ultimately, of a national dispersal scheme.
“That puts enormous pressures on our reception centres and ultimately on our social workers as well,” said Gough.
KCC has called on the government to make the voluntary National Transfer Scheme mandatory in a bid to prevent the council “rapidly running out” of resources to support vulnerable children, including UASC.
In May, the council leader wrote to Patel seeking “immediate help with resolving the crisis that is engulfing services for UASC”, calling it “a burden currently being borne almost exclusively by Kent County Council”.
“If you do not take immediate action, I fear we will shortly reach a position where the county council no longer has the capacity to accept any more newly arrived UASC from Border Force at the port of Dover, as we will no longer be able to safely meet our statutory duty of care to them,” he said
Judith Dennis, policy manager at the Refugee Council, added: “There is a lot of pressure on Kent County Council right now to support unaccompanied children, and this responsibility should be shared out fairly amongst all local authorities. We would encourage every local authority to step up and take their fair share of unaccompanied children through the National Transfer Scheme.”
The scheme currently allows local authorities to sign up to accept UASC dispersed from local authorities which receive high numbers of migrant children in their care.
The scheme was launched in 2016 in a bid to relieve pressure on council’s such as Kent and Croydon which are supporting high numbers of UASC, largely due to transport links and geographical placement.
The government announced a funding boost for the scheme in June which will see local authorities receive £240 per person, per week.
It replaces previous rates of £150 per week for legacy cases and £200 per week for national rate cases.
Legacy cases relate to former UASC care leavers that entered the UK on or before 30 June 2016.
Immigration compliance minister, Chris Philp said there would also be a targeted 25 per cent increase in funding for local authorities across the UK looking after the highest numbers of UASC compared with their child population.
For these areas, a new tariff of £143 per child per night instead of the standard rate of £114 per child per night would be introduced, he said.
However, Jenny Coles, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said despite the increased rates many challenges remained in encouraging local authorities to take on UASC, particularly the availability of suitable placements and the time it could take for the Home Office to make decisions on a child’s asylum claim.