Refugee crisis: the UK local government response so far
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Version 0 of 1. It has taken four years of war in Syria and a harrowing image of a young boy washed up on the Turkish shore to spark a wave of activism in the UK. In less than 24 hours a petition to welcome more refugees stormed past the 100,000 signatures needed to instigate a debate in parliament, and David Cameron finally pledged to house thousands more people fleeing the Middle East. But a few councils across the country have already been supporting vulnerable refugees for years through two government schemes. The vulnerable persons relocation scheme (VPRS) was introduced in January 2014 to provide a route for the most vulnerable Syrian refugees to come to the UK. These are victims of torture and sexual violence, the elderly and those in need of medical care. So far 216 refugees have been housed through the scheme by a number of councils across the UK, and given access to healthcare, education and employment. Meanwhile, many have come through the Gateway protection programme, a more general resettlement scheme that has been around for more than a decade. Sheffield was the first UK city to welcome refugees through Gateway, when a group of 69 Liberians arrived there in 2004 [pdf]. According to campaign group Citizens UK, at least eight councils have signed up to Gateway, with 14 more in the process. The programme offers a legal route for up to 750 refugees to settle in the UK each year. But these resettlement schemes don’t include those who have entered the UK independently and then claimed asylum: since 2011 the UK has accepted an estimated 5,000 Syrian refugees in total. Bradford council signed up to the relocation scheme in March 2014 and has resettled 103 vulnerable refugees: 23 families with 55 children and seven single people. “They have been welcomed and supported by the community as they deal with the trauma they have suffered, and the difficulties they face settling into a new culture in a foreign city far from their home,” says council leader David Green. “We have worked with the government to provide housing, medical support and other basic necessities to many Syrians who would otherwise have been faced with little or no hope for the future.” In May, Edinburgh council also expressed an interest in the relocation scheme.The city is in the initial stages of what is a long process to arrange facilities, despite the willlingess of NHS Lothian and Police Scotland to support the council. “We may be far away, but there are still ways in which we can help,” says council leader Andrew Burns. “The key measure of success will be that the number of refugees moving here will integrate successfully into the city in terms of their home, social and professional lives.” As Edinburgh shows, even when councils are willing to help, there are difficulties with both schemes. Funding is a big issue. Under both schemes, the Home Office provides £6,000 per refugee for the first year of resettlement [pdf] to cover health, education and social care, according to Citizens UK. The question remains as to who will pick up the bill after that first year. The issue of funding is what prevented Malvern from taking part in the VPRS this summer, while Worcestershire county council rejected the proposal , claiming the scheme is meant to bring refugees to urban rather than rural areas. The Local Government Association has now called for central government to fully reimburse councils that agree to take in refugees. Another issue is accommodation. With limited social housing in many councils across the UK, it is difficult to find suitable homes for resettlement. Refugees must be housed in a separate property – not a spare room or annexe – that will be available for a minimum of 12 months after they arrive. Citizens UK, which has been campaigning for a year for each local authority to take in 50 refugees, says it has been inundated with responses from people offering spare rooms, but the rules on these government schemes won’t allow this. The organisation is now asking for private landlords to rent out homes for these schemes at less than the market rate. It hopes that those with empty properties will be persuaded to offer refuge. In Westminster, meanwhile, Labour councillors have called on businesses, landowners, the Westminster Property Association, foreign investors and the voluntary sector to coordinate, and find a way to make some of the borough’s 1,550 empty private properties available to refugee families. Bradford’s Green says that taking in refugees is challenging. “Resources are and will always be an issue; the physical and mental scars of the refugees need to be treated and healed, but we do this out of a commitment to humanity.” The Home Office doesn’t release the whereabouts of the resettled refugees for privacy reasons, but it is believed Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bradford, Glasgow, Kingston, Coventry and Islington councils have pledged to open their doors to refugees. All campaigners agree that it’s now time for other local authorities to step up. Sign up here for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday. Follow us on Twitter via @Guardianpublic |