Half Way Home: An Analysis of the Variations in the Cost of Supporting Asylum Seekers

Half Way Home: An Analysis of the Variations in the Cost of Supporting Asylum Seekers

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"1. The number of people claiming asylum in the UK continues to rise – over 70,000 applications were made last year. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 established the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) to provide support for new arrivals, but local authorities continue to play a pivotal role in supporting asylum seekers at a local level. They are still responsible for those people who claimed asylum prior to the new arrangements, and they now supply accommodation and support on behalf of NASS.

2. Local authorities that provide housing and subsistence to asylum seekers applying in-country are able to recover their costs from central government under a specific grant regime that is administered by the Home Office. However, they can only recover their costs up to a threshold of £140 a week for adults and £240 a week for families (increased to £300 in London in August 2000). The grant claims made in 1999/2000 show that the costs to local authorities of providing support varied tenfold, with some authorities, particularly those in central London, spending well above the grant thresholds.

3. This paper has been written in response to concerns about this variation. It analyses why costs vary, and looks at how some authorities manage to contain costs, while others do not.

4. The paper meets a specific request by the Home Office, the Association of London Government and the Local Government Association to examine such variation and understand its causes, in order to inform grant settlements in future years.

5. This paper:

recommends ways in which central government might administer the grant more fairly; and
helps local authorities by giving examples of good practice in the management of support to existing asylum seekers, which should also help them to better manage their new role as suppliers of support and accommodation to new asylum seekers.

6. The key messages of the paper are that:
accommodation costs accounted for approximately two-thirds of all asylum-related expenditure in 1999/2000, and generated most of the cost variations between authorities;
most authorities that participated in the Commission’s study used a variety of different types of accommodation, the average cost of each type of accommodation varied, but for nearly all accommodation types, the cost per week for housing a single adult or family tended to be more expensive in the capital; and
although authorities can take action to reduce costs by improving procurement procedures or dispersing asylum seekers to areas with cheaper housing, some authorities, particularly those in central London, are struggling with high numbers of asylum seekers and a lack of affordable local accommodation.

7. The Audit Commission suggests a fairer system for reimbursing local authorities with responsibility for asylum seekers. It recommends that the Home Office sets grant thresholds that are based on local market rates, assessed independently by rent officers. This would inevitably mean that the Home Office would need to increase grant rates in central London. However, it could reduce rates elsewhere, thus providing an incentive for authorities in cheaper areas to tighten control of their accommodation costs.

8. In addition, fixed allowances should be provided to cover subsistence and administration costs, which account for the other one-third of asylum-related expenditure.

This paper is a short bulletin, complementing the Commission’s two recent reports on asylum seekers – Another Country in June 2000, and a briefing for London – A New City in July 2000."

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