Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by members of the public:

(a)    Petitions: to receive any petitions received by due date of 10 working days ahead of the meeting (20 February):

                     i.         Take Action to Protect Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children in Brighton & Hove

(b)    Written Questions: to receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 28 February;

(c)    Deputations: to receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 28 February.

          a) Petitions

51.1    Ms H Berendt presented the petition ‘Take Action to Protect          Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children in Brighton & Hove’.

51.2    The chair provided the following response:

Thank you for your petition. I note that the existence of Home Office run hotels in our       city are a terrible way to treat vulnerable refugees and that it is deeply worrying that young people have gone missing. I want to take some time to address this because it’s so important.

Firstly, I want to highlight that although as a local authority we have a responsibility to be      involved when children go missing, it is Sussex Police who have a responsibility to find missing children, as is the case when any child goes missing.

Contrary to the narrative that some councillors have repeatedly attempted to paint, this council has continued to work to close the hotels for asylum seekers, including the      Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) hotel and those operating for     children and families. The UASC hotel is currently not operating.

To understand responsibility in this crucial matter we need to understand the recent history of it. As a local authority we do not run the hotel; it is the Home Office who opened it, the Home Office under contract with the hotel the Home Office that provides the staffing and we cannot close it but despite this we have continued to challenge its operation.

We received less than 24 hours’ notice that the hotel was opening back in July 2021,           being advised at the time that it was “temporary”. It followed Kent County Council advising they could no longer provide interim care for the sheer numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, or “UASCs”, arriving in this country, primarily through Dover.

A week before the hotel had been opened, greens sounded the alarm at a meeting of          Full Council where we pointed to our concerns regarding care for UASC and how many other councils did not meet their moral obligations to provide care for UASC through the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).

The NTS works like this, when an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child arrives, if the place they arrive at has above 0.1% of their child population as UASCs in care, they can transfer the young people to another local authority’s care. UASC may also arrive in an area as a “spontaneous arrival” – both of these are ways that Brighton        & Hove City   Council takes UASC into care, where we have consistently remained above that quota.

Councils receive some funding from government for providing this care, but the reality is it is not enough. We spend at least £500,000 a year extra in Brighton & Hove above the funding we receive. We do this because it’s the right thing to do but it is a struggle. The council continues to have huge financial challenges, as evidenced by our recent budget. In addition, we have big struggles in finding foster parents, supported living arrangements or residential care places for all children in care. It is this reason why   many councils will look the other way.

In response to Kent, the Government upped the rate local councils would receive for taking young people through the NTS - but this wasn't enough – which led to the hotels being opened a few weeks later. These hotels are supposed to be a temporary stay for a matter of days until another local council takes them into care, although the average length of stay is 18.5 days. The majority of children who go missing, go missing within the first 3 and over 1600 young people have stayed in the two UASC hotels that operated in Brighton & Hove.

As soon as the hotel opened, we were requesting meetings with the Home Office. We held one meeting within 24 hours, which was attended by the Department for Education (DfE). In this, as councillors we challenged the DFE on safeguarding and on the circumstances behind its opening but the Home Office did not even show up. We were repeatedly advised by the Home Office that this hotel was temporary, but in October 2021 they then opened a second hotel in the city. At the time they once again “apologised as they didn’t like to work this way” but cited extreme pressure that they were under in finding places to care for UASC.

In November 2021, the Government made their next policy attempt to close the hotels by making the NTS. This meant councils were forced to take UASC if they weren’t at the, at the time at their 0.07% quota. And this did in part work – the second hotel was closed in Brighton & Hove in January 2022 and the first had a temporary closure as I announced in my chair’s communications last January. However, sadly it re-opened again.

Throughout this period, both councillors and officers highlighted our concerns about the hotels to the Home Office and so did local MPs. I truly believe that although this challenge did not lead to the closure of the hotels, it has at least, and indeed at most, led to them operating better. When the hotels first opened there were no qualified social workers on site, young people weren’t being registered with the NHS, the local authority was given no details on the young people arriving, no arrangements were in place should children go missing and the thriving community and voluntary sector in this city were being shut out. We pushed for all of these things to happen, and our Head of Safeguarding in particular has been consistent in reviewing the operations at the hotel and challenging to the Home Office. The Home Office did eventually commission a charity to provide advocacy to the young people in the hotel and allow our community and voluntary sector to support.

We have also sought legal advice on our position throughout to consider whether we could launch action against the Government. I don’t think it is appropriate for me to address at this stage here in case it prejudices any action the council may decide to take. I have mentioned the hotel repeatedly in my chair’s communications at this committee, mentioning it in almost every meeting since the hotel opened. I was hoping this would lead to further scrutiny of the hotel from opposition councillors, however this did not come until a few months ago when Labour suddenly woke up to the issue. They were clearly not listening to those chair’s communications or reading the minutes of this meeting as last week it was claimed it was never highlighted as this meeting when it was.

In late 2022, and in response to persistent media coverage, in particular about Manston as well as the cost of hotel accommodation for all refugees in this company, the Government then introduced their third policy attempt to close the hotels. They upped the quote from 0.1% to 0.17% under the NTS and also bribed councils with £15,000 as long as they took UASC from hotels. They would receive the money immediately, but not have to take the young people until the end of February. This meant that councils took the money but took longer than they usually would to take UASC into care, prolonging the stay of young people there. However, it has now resulted in what I expect to be a temporary closure of the hotel.

Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Partnership last week released a scrutiny paper which aimed to review the response of Brighton & Hove City Council, Sussex Police and the NHS in response to children going missing from the hotel. It highlights that, and I quote:

Local safeguarding agencies have responded to the situation with advice, training, consultation and full engagement in safeguarding referrals made on a case-by-case basis.

It further notes:

I [the author] am reassured having spoken to Police, Local Authority and the Home Office that children who go missing from the hotel are dealt with in the same way all children would be.

And further, another quote says:

There is clear evidence of a genuine will to work in partnership to ensure that the UASC placed in the hotel are afforded every opportunity to be safe and cared for. I have been provided with details of the partnership approach to safeguarding generally and specifically around missing episodes. Whilst the issue of children going missing is persistent (to varying degrees depending on the time of year) and needs further consideration, the response is thorough, appropriate and multi-agency. The three main agencies charged with safeguarding children in the city all play an active role and work together well.

The scrutiny paper makes 7 recommendations, the majority of which are targeted at the Home Office, however there are recommendations for us as a council to work multi-agency. I believe this report provides clear reassurance that the council has acted where the Home Office have been absent.

The scrutiny paper makes it clear that there needs to be planning for the summer ahead. We know that the number of small boat crossings will increase as the weather gets warmer and we know that this may put more young people at risk.

In the meantime, the council will continue to play its part but I would urge everyone to put their fire instead on the Government, who are responsible for this situation. It is the government who have created a hostile environment to refugees and who are, as reported in the press today, now proposing to break United Nations conventions towards refugees. It is the Government who have failed to create a better solution caring for UASC. It is the Government who have failed to address the chronic shortages in care placements for young people, meaning that councils will turn the other way.

As a council we want the Government to close the hotels and this is something we have always been clear on. But in the interim, we also want to ensure proper safety and regulation through OFSTED inspections rather than through the Border Agency, and for the legal status of these young people to be properly addressed.

We will always do our bit to care for UASC, through caring for them ourselves where we remain one of the councils who are the highest proportion of those caring for UASC and through challenging the Home Office in every possible avenue. We won’t always do it publicly and indeed we haven’t throughout this last nineteen months, but we give our commitment to communities that we will do everything we can.

51.3    The Committee agreed to note the petition since a report on the matter was called for at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Council      on 2 March 2023.

          b) Written Questions

51.4    There were no written questions.

          c) Deputations

51.5    There were no deputations.