LGA Conference: calls for improved communication between Home Office and councils over asylum seekers

The Home Office has come under fire from councillors and chief executives over poor communication with local government on placing asylum seekers in hotels.

Simon Ridley, Interim Second Permanent Secretary who leads the Home Office’s group on asylum support, resettlement and accommodation, was grilled at the Local Government Association's annual conference on Tuesday (4 July) over the policy in a question and answer session on resettling asylum seekers.

He was subject to a series of questions lamenting poor communication channels between the Home Office and local authorities, with one chief executive raising concerns about safeguarding implications.

The London Borough of Barnet's Chief Executive, Cath Shaw, demanded that councils be notified when safeguarding concerns are flagged at asylum hotels.

Shaw said: "When a safeguarding concern is raised in a hotel, the process is that the hotel management refers it to their head of office. The head office refers it to the Home Office, and the Home Office decides what to do.

"There's a lot about this that is hard to fix. That isn't one of them. Can you instruct your contractors to notify local councils directly when they have a safeguarding concern?"

A second question from the Managing Director of Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, Mari Roberts-Wood, criticised the Home Office's approach to notifying councils of plans to move asylum seekers into local hotels.

Speaking to Ridley, Roberts-Wood said: "You said that you are looking to change how you engage with local authorities and improve things. I've got a town within my borough which already has 600 single males in three hotels within 300 yards of each other.

"I've received an email this morning telling me that that is going to increase by another 200. An email."

She continued: "I'm not getting any traction from the Home Office. No one will engage. No one will listen. I've got health colleagues, I've got the police seriously concerned about community tensions in a very, very small town in one place in Surrey, and from my perspective, I need to be able to sleep at night and say that I've done everything I that can to flag the concerns that we have about the pressure we are facing. This is an inappropriate amount of people.

"We've got a really good track record of supporting refugees in our area. This is too much, and no one is listening to us."

Chair of the panel, Cllr Izzi Seccombe of Warwickshire County Council, said: "I think one of the frustrations [...] from the local government perspective is the communication at times probably lacked a little bit of depth."

Responding to the questions, Ridley said: "What we are increasingly really wanting to lean on is a proper based placed approach which we want to do through in the main proper meaningful regional engagement."

He later added: "We need to be deepening the communication for sure and addressing the challenges that there are.

"As I say, I hope we're getting better at that. I'm under no illusion that there's more we need to do in central government, but I also think there's no way any of us are going to be able to do all things at all times, and so understanding where those choices are and how we make them is going to be really crucial in the coming months and years."

Adam Carey