Agenda item

The Leader advised the meeting that a deputation had been received from Chris Mohr, in relation to agenda item 9, Borough Plan consultation.

The Leader invited Ms Mohr to address the Cabinet.

Ms Mohr referred to the Borough Plan regarding the priorities for children and was seeking agreement from the Council to taking in at least three additional unaccompanied refugee children a year over the next ten years, in turn providing a legal route to safety for just a few of the most vulnerable young people that were stranded in Europe and the Middle East.

Ms Mohr outlined that the deputation was part of a national campaign, launched by Alf Dubs with the charity ‘Safe Passage’, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport in 1938-9, when Britain took in 10,000 children and young people, including Alf Dubs and as well as the mother of a member of the deputation party attending this Cabinet meeting, to save them from the Nazis.  It was noted that the national campaign was called ‘It’s our turn’, and similar deputations were taking place across the UK asking local authorities to each make the same commitment. It was noted that Hammersmith and Fulham had already promised to take 100 places and Islington Council had also recently made this same commitment.

The deputation were clear that such a commitment was dependent on the Council getting increased government funding to meet  the costs of supporting the refugee children in full. The deputation recognised that the Council welcomed refugees and took care of a high number of unaccompanied minors whilst existing government funding was inadequate to meet these costs. However, the charity ‘Safe Passage’ felt that if enough Councils make this pledge, the numbers making the offer will help persuade the government increase funding levels. Therefore the deputation needed the Council to offer as many places as it could.

The deputation outlined that locally, in Haringey, there was a strong community support for this initiative from the three main faith communities, service providers, and from individuals represented in the deputation. The deputation represented a group of about twenty Haringey residents, some of whom were already involved in supporting refugees locally in various ways. The deputation and group were all committed to assisting this process and helping the young arrivals in whatever way they could.

The 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport was due to be celebrated on November 15th, when Alf Dubs and ‘Safe Passage’ charity hope to announce the pledges from Councils and lobby the government for adequate funding.

In conclusion, the deputation asked the Cabinet to commit the Council to a pledge to resettle at least three additional child refugees a year over the next ten years, provided the costs were met in full by central government. The deputation further requested the Cabinet respond to the deputation party representatives by the end of October with some idea of numbers of refugee children it would take.

The Leader thanked the deputation for their presentation and invited Cabinet Members to put forward questions to the deputation party.

The Cabinet Member for Civic Services commented positively on the campaign and sought an understanding of the progress being made with government on this issue. It was noted that research had been completed on the funding for refugee children, which showed that the current government funding levels were not sufficient. It was hoped that if enough local authorities around the country could pledge support, this could provide support to the campaign to increase funding and support. There was already a PAN London group of local authorities that had written to the secretary of state on this matter and now the emphasis was on obtaining as much support from local authorities to support these existing representations.

The Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families, responded to the deputation. The Cabinet Member began by thanking the deputation for putting forward their representations and appreciated the positive comments and recognition of the Council’s historic achievements in supporting refugees and refugee communities.

The Cabinet Member continued to outline the Council’s current support to unaccompanied asylum seeking children. It was noted that, nationally, the Council were expected to support a number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children that amounted to 0.007 of its child population, which equated to 42 children. The Council were currently supporting 45 asylum seeking children as looked after children. This also equated to 10% of Looked after Children supported by the Council. In addition, the Council provided support to 76 young people, between the ages of 18-25 who were previously unaccompanied minors and formally looked after children. In total the Council were supporting 121 young people.

The Cabinet Member highlighted the specialist support that is often required to help unaccompanied minors as they would have been through the most traumatic experiences in their own country and would have experienced serious abuse and violence in their journey and unfortunately on arrival in to the UK. The Council wanted to help these children, that were in their care, recover from these experiences and live happy and fulfilling lives.

The Cabinet Member further welcomed the deputation’s recognition of the current financial strain on the local authority. Following nearly 10 years of austerity and reduced government funding to support vulnerable children, there was a limited budget allocation. The Cabinet Member advised that, based on current government, funding settlement levels, to support three additional vulnerable children per year over the next 10 years, would cost the Council £1.3m which under current financial circumstances could not be sustained by Children’s service budget. However, if there were a government commitment to provide this additional funding, in full, then the Council would be happy to welcome at least three more child refugees per year over the next ten years.

The Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families agreed to write back to the deputation with the numbers of children that it could support with additional full government funding.

The deputation party thanked the Cabinet for considering their deputation.