Child asylum-seekers living in homeless accommodation in Edinburgh amid surge in unaccompanied arrivals

Numbers of child asylum-seekers coming to Edinburgh alone have spiked in recent months.

Nearly 20 child asylum-seekers who arrived in Edinburgh alone have been placed in homeless accommodation

Nearly 20 child asylum-seekers who arrived in Edinburgh alone have been placed in homeless accommodation amid a huge increase in the number of unaccompanied youngsters.

'Unprecedented demand' is being placed on social work and accommodation services with 61 Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASCs) being looked after by the city council.

Numbers have spiked in recent months with 34 coming in 2023/24 so far, including 24 who arrived 'spontaneously' and 10 who were transferred to the capital from other local authorities.

In the entirety of the 12-month period covering 2022/23, there were 10 arrivals with nine of those considered spontaneous.

According to a new report by the local authority, efforts to reduce the number of youngsters in homeless accommodation are being stifled by the 'unpredictability' of spontaneous arrivals, which are linked with organised crime and disproportionately made up of Vietnamese children.

There is also a risk that young people could be 'displaced' to other areas due to accommodation services within the city reaching capacity.

The council is required to provide UASCs with supported accommodation until the age of 21, but Home Office funding is not meeting costs for specialist accommodations or to house those aged 18 and over.

The report touts using supported lodgings for 16+ year-olds, commissioning more accommodation, deploying 'flexible contract solutions' to free up space in existing living arrangements and boosting staff numbers to deal with the surge.

However, the UASC service is said to be presenting the council with a 'concerning' financial pressure which will become 'significant' if things do not change in the coming year.

The document reads: "An increase in Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, through spontaneous arrivals and the National Transfer Scheme has created unprecedented demand on social work, accommodation, and support services.

"This is not matched by additionality of resource. This unpredictable demand has left young people of 16 plus years being placed in residential and homeless accommodation.

"This approach risks the unintended consequence of displacing Edinburgh’s young people to out of area placements, when local accommodation options are at capacity.

"Service delivery is being reviewed to consider how best, to offset the need for emergency responses leading to high-level and costly packages of residential care."

The council's education committee agreed on Tuesday to ask the Home Office for more funding and request a meeting with Scottish refugee minister Emma Roddick.

Education and children's services executive director Amanda Hatton allayed fears the service could be put at risk. She said: "The concern is more about the financial pressure, not that we wouldn't deliver the service.

"Any unaccompanied asylum-seeking young person becomes a care-experienced young person so we are, in essence, their corporate parent and we would always do that and we would always make the right decision for young people.

"The problem is that the funding that we get centrally does not cover the costs of making the right provision for those young people."

Ms Hatton linked the issues to Edinburgh's housing crisis, adding: "One of the challenges we have is finding the right placement for this group of young people. We have historically always put these young people in our residential provision and that's okay for some young people but it doesn't work for all of them.

"You've got to get the right mix of young people in residential provision and it just doesn't work sometimes if that mix doesn't work effectively. We are looking for people to come forward to be foster carers and we're looking for people to be foster carers particularly for this group of young people if they were interested in doing that."

She continued: "Having that range of move-on accommodation, accommodation that's safe and good quality for young people generally would help with this group of young people as well."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The safety and welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is our utmost priority and providing care placements for them is a national issue that requires participation from local authorities across the UK.

“We are continuing to work with local authorities across the UK to support them to fulfil their statutory duties to accommodate unaccompanied children nationwide.”