Asylum seeking children: Kent under pressure (again)

Once more, Kent faces big challenges reflecting the large scale arrival of unaccompanied under 18s claiming asylum - unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC), who are among the arrivals in small boats crossing the Channel. 

As of the end of May, 242 UASC young people had been taken into the County Council’s care so far this year. This is up sharply on the same period last year (when 189 arrived), which nonetheless saw the council having by mid-August to suspend delivering its statutory obligations and taking these young people into care.

Overall, KCC has (or had at the start of yesterday) 403 UASC in its care, as well as around 1100 care leavers of UASC background. Under the National Transfer Scheme for UASC, introduced under some of the provisions of the Immigration Act 2016, no local authority is expected to have UASC of more than 0.07% of its child population in its care. For Kent that figure is 231. 

Pressures on Kent services are now growing, with reception centre capacity almost entirely occupied, social work caseloads rising and a need for foster care placements (including some outside the county) as a result of a higher proportion of under 16s than in the past. 

Two developments follow from this. The first is that we are now close to a position where, as was the case last summer, I may get advice from our Director of Children’s Services that we cannot safely discharge our responsibilities and we should no longer collect UASC young people from the port. The second is that Kent County Council has issued a Letter Before Action to the Home Office, which is the first formal step towards a possible Judicial Review, relating to the Home Secretary’s unwillingness to use the powers she has under the Immigration Act to direct (‘mandate’) local authorities to accept UASC young people under the National Transfer Scheme. We have long argued is essential to ensure a robust and equitable scheme that takes the pressure off port of entry authorities such as Kent.

Inevitably this generated a lot of media interest yesterday; among the interviews I gave was to Radio 4’s Today Programme (interview starts after 1 hour and 16 minutes) and BBC national news (6PM bulletin, report starts after 21 minutes).