Written evidence from No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) Network (CSC 181)

Education Committee

Children’s Social Care

Introduction

1. The No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) Network, hosted by Islington Council, provides advice and guidance to local authorities across the UK about statutory support for people who are excluded from mainstream benefits and housing assistance.

2. We are submitting recent data and more current contextual information to be read in conjunction with our original evidence dated 15 January 2024, which focused on the role of children’s social care in providing accommodation and financial support to families with no recourse to public funds, and addressed the following questions:

• What factors are causing the increase in demand for children’s social care?
• The reasons behind the rising cost of children’s social care for local authorities, and ways to mitigate this

What factors are causing the increase in demand for children’s social care?

3. We are now able to provide data for the financial year 2023 to 2024, which evidences the increasing costs being met by children’s social care when delivering accommodation and financial support to families with no recourse to public funds under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 (‘section 17 support’). [1]

4. Data recorded on NRPF Connect by 78 local authorities in England and Scotland showed that, at the end of March 2024, 1,563 families with no recourse to public funds families (including 2,824 dependants) were being provided with accommodation and financial support, at a collective annual cost of £34 million. 78% (£26.6m) of the collective cost was spent on accommodation.

5. The average annual cost of supporting an individual household rose from £18.4k at the end of March 2023 to £21.7k at the end of March 2024.

6. Between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, referrals for 3,364 families were made to children’s social care for section 17 support - a significant increase from the 3,073 referrals made to 75 local authorities in 2022-23.

7. The families that requested or were provided with section 17 support by children’s social care were diverse in terms of the parent’s immigration status.

8. Of the families provided with support at the end of March 2024:              
• 38% had no leave to remain
• 18% had leave to remain with a ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition
• 18% were European Economic Area (EEA) nationals or held an EEA-related immigration status
• 14% were seeking asylum or had made an unsuccessful asylum claim
• 12% had leave to remain with access to public funds

9. Of the families requesting support in 2023-24:

• 28% had leave to remain with a NRPF condition
• 24% had no leave to remain
• 17% were European Economic Area (EEA) nationals or held an EEA-related immigration status
• 16% had leave to remain with access to public funds
• 13% were seeking asylum or had made an unsuccessful asylum claim.

10. The fact that a significant proportion of families receiving or requesting support had leave to remain with a NRPF condition is concerning. Local authorities have reported that over the last year or so, they have received more presentations from parents with student and work visas who are struggling to meet their housing and living costs. Examples include parents with Health and Care Worker visas, who are not being given sufficient hours of employment by their sponsor or who have had their employment abruptly terminated after their sponsor has lost its licence.

11. For the first time, we profiled the structure of families receiving section 17 support at the end of March 2024 and the nationality of children within those families:

• 12% (188) included a British dependant
• 80% (1231) were single-parent households
• 73% (1135) were female single-parent households

12. The need for a direct social care intervention to provide accommodation and financial support in order to prevent homelessness and alleviate destitution is expected to continue at similar or increasing levels whilst immigration-related restrictions to public services remain in place.

13. The House of Commons Library reported that, at the end of 2023, around 3.3 million people held visas that are usually subject to a NRPF condition, whereas the Migration Observatory reported that at the end of 2022, 2.58 million people held visas that typically had NRPF condition. [2] [3]

14. As an increasing number of migrants in the UK are subject to a NRPF condition, there remains the risk that some families in this position will experience homelessness and destitution following the loss of employment or a change in personal circumstances that leads to difficulties meeting high housing and living costs. In such circumstances, they will not be able to claim Universal Credit, Child Benefit, or disability benefits, and cannot access local authority homelessness assistance.

15. Parents who have leave to remain with a NRPF condition will not qualify for funded childcare for working parents, tax-free childcare, and, in most cases, cannot be provided with emergency payments through the Household Support Fund. Therefore, parents who are working may struggle to meet high housing and living costs through income from their employment alone.

16. Parents who have pre-settled status are unable to qualify for Universal Credit if they are not exercising a qualifying right to reside. The Department of Work and Pensions can award Universal Credit to a parent if the family is at risk of destitution, unable to work, or unable to access support elsewhere. However, Universal Credit is unlikely to be awarded on this basis when the local authority is providing section 17 support that adequately meets the child’s needs. [5]

17. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) reports that nearly half of the Directors of Children’s Services who were surveyed for the Safeguarding Pressures Research – Phase 9 said ‘service demand had risen in relation to families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)’. ADCS noted that:

‘For families with pre-settled status and mothers who were survivors of domestic abuse on dependent visas and/or with NRPF, statutory children’s social care was often the only route to access housing support and basic living costs.’ [6]

The reasons behind the rising cost of children’s social care for local authorities

18. It remains the case that central government does not reimburse councils when section 17 is engaged to provide accommodation and financial support to families with no recourse to public funds, and our data continues to demonstrate that support is usually a long-term intervention.

19. At the end of March 2024, the average time that a family had been receiving support for was just over 1.5 years (568 days) and 293 households had been supported for at least 1000 days, making up 19% of the total households receiving support at that date.

20. In the financial year 2023-24, 70% of households had their section 17 support ended following a grant of leave to remain (usually on a settlement route), which would enable the family to access benefits and mainstream housing services. However, for families who had their support ended following a grant of leave to remain, the average time on support remained high at 553 days. Only 5% of families had their support ended due to leaving the UK.

21. The data demonstrates that the majority of families supported by children’s social care have a long-term future in the UK and only a very small proportion of families can be expected to avoid destitution in the UK by returning to their country of origin.

Ways to mitigate rising costs of children’s social care

22. In our evidence submission dated 15 January 2024, we included our recommendations for government, which are also listed on our website. [7]

23. Our more recent data demonstrates that:
• the costs to children’s social care services of supporting families are increasing,
• the average time on support remains high with the number of households supported on a long-term basis (1000 days or longer) increasing, and
• the majority of families continue to have support ended following grants of leave to remain.

24. Therefore, the government needs to urgently implement the following recommendations to effectively safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and to reduce pressures on children’s social care budgets:

• Central government to deliver grant funding to councils, which can be used by a council to invest in improving its response when supporting households with no recourse to public funds under social care legislation.
• The Home Office to implement policy and procedural changes to ensure that going forward, councils only need to provide short-term support interventions under section 17, such as by routinely prioritising immigration claims made by households that are recorded on NRPF Connect as financially supported by local authorities.

25. The high number of single-parent households receiving section 17 support demonstrates the disproportionate impact that the immigration restrictions have on this group, particularly female single parents. Some recommendations that we have made, which could significantly benefit this group include:

• Remove child benefit from the list of public funds and amend benefit regulations to enable all households with children to access this, subject to the income threshold
• Enable all parents to access free childcare hours through the working parents scheme and tax-free childcare
• Open up access to the Healthy Start scheme to all low-income pregnant women and families with no recourse to public funds (currently under consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care)
• Enable councils to provide discretionary cost of living and emergency support to all residents in need by removing ‘discretionary welfare payments’ from the list of public funds (for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland), or to exempt the Household Support Fund should ‘discretionary welfare payments’ remain on the list of public funds

References

[1] NRPF Connect 2023-24 national data report: https://nrpfnetwork.org.uk/-/media/microsites/nrpf/documents/nrpf-connect/annual-reports/data-report-20232024.pdf

[2] House of Commons Library research briefing, No Recourse to Public Funds (07 October 2024), https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9790/.

[3] The Migration Observatory, Deprivation and the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) condition (15 November 2023) https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deprivation-and-the-no-recourse-to-public-funds-nrpf-condition/

[4] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/visa-processing-times-applications-inside-the-uk#family-visas (accessed on 28 January 2025)

[5] DWP DMG memo 5/2024: AT and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights Assessment https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/667d133baec8650b100900ab/dmg-memo-05-24.pdf

[6] ADCS Safeguarding Pressures Research – Phase 9 (January 2025) https://www.adcs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ADCS_Safeguarding_Pressures_Phase9_FINALv1.pdf

[7] NRPF Network summary of current policy recommendations https://nrpfnetwork.org.uk/information-and-resources/policy/summary-of-policy-recommendations (accessed on 28 January 2025)

January 2025