Councils in England would be forced to care for their fair share of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under proposals put out for consultation by the government.
The Home Office and Department for Education are consulting on plans to overhaul the national transfer scheme (NTS), a mechanism by which unaccompanied children are placed with local authorities around the country to ensure they are spread out evenly.
The NTS has been voluntary since it was launched in 2016, and the government has faced repeated calls to mandate the scheme to ease the impact on local authorities on the south coast that care for the majority of the unaccompanied children.
Kent county council has been particularly vocal in pushing for the scheme to be made mandatory. This month, it said it had reached its limit on the number of unaccompanied children it could care for, as the number of people reaching the UK in small boats across the Channel hit record levels.
Satbir Singh, the chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said it was vital the government made the NTS mandatory and that local authorities were given the resources they needed.
He said: “The current system is simply not working – it places an outsized burden of care on under-resourced councils in the south-east, who cannot and should not be left to bear all the responsibility. The government must ensure councils across the country step up and play their part in these children’s care.
“Without a fully funded and fully functioning national transfer scheme in place, we will continue to fail vulnerable migrant children. Not one more child should be locked up in adult detention or go without the care they deserve.”
Chris Philp, the minister for immigration compliance, said: “We appreciate the strain on resources at these unprecedented times, and these efforts have not gone unnoticed. We are committed to making sure that the national transfer scheme works as effectively as possible for vulnerable unaccompanied children and the local authorities supporting them. The consultation we are launching today seeks to make sure that we are sharing the responsibility for these children in as fair a way as possible.”
Meanwhile, the Home Office has deleted a video from its Twitter feed in which it attacked “activist lawyers” for frustrating government attempts to deport people it said had no right to be in the UK.
It emerged on Thursday that Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office’s permanent secretary, had told his team the term should not be used again. Simon Davis, the president of the Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, said on Thursday: “Attacks on the integrity of the legal profession undermine the rule of law.”
Other proposals being considered under the NTS consultation include a voluntary rota system between different regions in the UK, which would enable local authorities to plan more effectively for care placements for unaccompanied children.
Since the scheme began in 2016 up to the end of June this year, the NTS had transferred 1,054 children. After the recent increase in arrivals on the south coast, 60 local authorities have pledged more than 270 places to help support unaccompanied children.
The NTS has not been without criticism. A UN refugee agency report in 2019 found that transfers could be “highly disruptive” for children. It said there were numerous cases where children had been removed from their placements against their wishes and in a manner that was “clearly disruptive to their wellbeing”.
The consultation with local authorities will run until 30 September.