Written evidence submitted by Kent County Council (AAC0029)
Introduction
This submission is from Kent County Council (KCC). KCC has a long history of welcoming refugees from World Wars 1 and 2 through to conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and now Ukraine. More recently we have proudly participated in the safe and legal refugee schemes including VPRS, ARAP and Homes for Ukraine.
However, the current pressures facing Local Authorities nationally are acute, with significant budgetary constraints, pressures on adults and children’s services, a chronic lack of housing availability and affordability alongside a homelessness crisis feeding into unprecedented demand for Temporary Accommodation. This pressure was recognised by the Public Accounts Committee in their report Homelessness crisis places unsustainable pressure on local authorities' crumbling finances published on 24 January 2025.
The delivery of asylum accommodation
KCC has written to the Chair of the South East Strategic Partnership for Migration Executive Board regarding the Home Office Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which is set up to assess proposals from accommodation providers that sit outside of standard property procurement under the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts. KCC’s concern is with the Stakeholder Engagement section of the SOP document. It is KCC’s interpretation that Local Authorities will only be “engaged” once the Government Subgroup has made the decision, which KCC feels is too late on in the process. KCC’s reasoning is that the Subgroup will be assessing the “impact on local services” and KCC therefore feel it is essential as part of the pre-assessment to include consulting the relevant Local Authorities (at both Tiers in 2 Tier areas).
KCC welcomes the ad hoc approach to procuring properties, given this helps with community cohesion. However, recently we have seen instances where this has not been the case particularly in the East of the county, procurement consultation for 90+ bedspaces in a new development. This shift in approach is a cause for concern; because of the rural geography of the new development, as well as the potential for large numbers to present to the district council for housing.
When the Home Office contractor considers procurement of properties there appears to be:
a) A lack of consideration given to the conduciveness of an area to achieving positive outcomes for those being placed e.g. crime levels, community cohesion challenges, education provision availability, public transport links etc.
b) Low weighting in the decision-making process given to risks of negative impacts on community cohesion or risks to those being placed e.g. community tensions, existing county lines/gang activity targeting vulnerable groups.
c) Low weighting in the decision-making process given to avoidance of areas where concentration of existing facilities for use by similar cohorts or facilities used by other services (e.g. probation) are already present.
d) The focus almost always appears to be based on price. On multiple occasions facilities have been procured that have previously been rejected by Local Authorities due to poor quality or other risks. Linked to that, little consideration appears to be given to anything other than upper tier totals in terms of distribution figures. Distribution should be considered by Middle Super Output Area level (MSOA).
Currently the Home Office contractor’s dispersal accommodation consultation period requires a 5 working day turnaround to respond. This timescale is neither realistic nor reasonable. At the very minimum the turnaround period should be 10 working days for Local Authorities and Partner Agencies to submit a response to the consultation.
The South East Strategic Partnership for Migration provides weekly data updates and has developed a shared dashboard, which can be easily interrogated. However, this data does not drill down to properties and where they are situated. Therefore, to enable KCC to maintain a strategic oversight of asylum properties across the county KCC officers requested access to the contractor’s property data base. Access was initially denied on two grounds
(note: access to service user information was not requested – just property lists and KCC felt that not being a Housing Authority is not a valid reason to turn the application down)
(note: Kent it the biggest county in the country and 1 officer with access is not sufficient to maintain resilience in oversight within KCC)
Following the Summer 2024 riots, KCC challenged the Home Office contractor for an additional officer to have access to the property database. On the grounds that the police and other public sector organisations were relying on KCC to provide them with timely accurate information, to enable them to plan their operations should an attack in Kent take place. Eventually after seven months of challenging the decision a second KCC officer was granted access to the property database.
The competition for limited stock is stoked by the lack of communication between the Home Office and other Government Departments when sourcing suitable accommodation. Kents ongoing housing needs is compounded by the competition for housing across all asylum streams including Homes for Ukraine, ARAP, VPRS, Hong Kong and the UASC care leavers we are responsible for, as well as homeless placements from London and further afield. London Boroughs have been bulk purchasing new properties within Kent to address their housing pressures which in turn is also placing pressures on housing and public services.
The impact of current arrangements for asylum accommodation on local areas
During 2023/4 extremely ambitious targets were set via the South East Dispersal Asylum Regional Plan for the distribution of asylum accommodation within the 12 District/Borough Councils in Kent. It is worth noting that the 2024 targets came after a previous set of ambitious targets, which were nowhere near being met, and yet the new targets (for the South East) were something like three times bigger still. The targets appeared not to consider the current homeless and Temporary Accommodation data available at the time and the realities of housing markets in southern counties like Kent.
As at 23 January 2025, the contractor’s property portal indicates that there is a clear concentration within deprived areas of the county and little distribution amongst the other districts/boroughs in the County. Two affluent districts in the county have no properties procured for asylum accommodation!
Kent Local Authorities are regularly outbid when sourcing properties for their own vulnerable communities by contractors working on behalf of Home Office, as previously stated with concentrations of procured properties in more deprived parts of the county, artificially raising rent levels impacting residents.
KCC values the regular monthly meetings between its Chief Executive and the Home Office Second Permanent Secretary with responsibility for Migration and Borders System.
KCC has a good supportive working relationship with the South East Strategic Partnership for Migration.
Availability of housing across the board is a significant issue across Kent. Supply in all tenures is low resulting in steep rises in private rents, lengthening housing waiting lists and pressures on housing and homelessness services. Local data indicates that the number of households placed in Temporary Accommodation across Kent continues to rise.
Given increased demand and the acute shortage of housing available across Kent, it will make it extremely challenging for those leaving asylum accommodation to find affordable, long-term accommodation in what is already a competitive market and we feel there needs to be a jointly designed and funded approach nationally, regionally and locally to manage the move on from asylum accommodation to mitigate the risks of destitution and street homelessness.
This is compounded by the competition for housing across all asylum streams including Homes for Ukraine, ARAP, VPRS, Hong Kong and the UASC care leavers we are responsible for, as well as homeless placements from London and further afield. Despite this, Home Office contractor continues to procure properties in Kent, and this only exacerbates the issue of Local Authorities not being able to secure properties in the private rented sector, because they are unable to compete with the financial incentives offered. This is all in the context of a wider financial and housing affordability crisis with many of our own residents also requiring homelessness support.
The cumulative pressures especially from other Local Authority Areas Looked After Children, in addition to KCC UASC and KCC’s own Looked After Children, puts pressure on our already stretched schools, particularly at secondary age, as well as Specialist Children’s Services. Across the county we are facing exceptional demand for SEND services and our capacity to be able to support pupils with complex needs is extremely limited. Whilst funding for Afghan and Ukrainian refugees is welcome, it is unhelpful that this is not consistent for other cohorts - from a school perspective the needs of the pupils are no different. DFE funding for Homes for Ukraine was ceased March 2023 – with guests still applying for visas to arrive and Ukraine Permission Extension which is shortly being opened this is also adding pressures to resources within schools.
NHS Kent and Medway ICB have always strived to provide high quality standards in primary care against a backdrop of high levels of deprivation that exist across the County. The patients in this cohort have significant unmet health needs and coupled with the language barriers that exist this results in extended time having to be made available for each appointment. The average appointment time for a resident patient is 12 minutes, for a migrant patient it is extended to 30 minutes to enable the clinician to understand the medical problem and treat it. Every migrant appointment takes up 2.5 times that of a resident patient.
Jan 2025