Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 25
25
Accepted
Paragraph: 119
Confirm safeguarding responsibility for children in hotel accommodation and explain measures addressing disappearances.
Recommendation
The disappearance of separated children from hotels, and a continuing absence of clarity over who is responsible for safeguarding in hotels, is extremely concerning. Channel crossings, migration and asylum 47 The Government must immediately and clearly confirm where responsibility lies for every aspect of safeguarding children housed in this accommodation. It must also explain what steps it has taken to understand the causes of children’s disappearances from hotel or similar accommodation, and the measures put in place to address them.
Government Response Summary
The government describes the existing multi-agency wrap-around care for children in hotels, including professional care workers and robust missing persons protocols, and clarifies that the Home Office does not have the power to detain children.
Paragraph Reference:
119
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
children, including their mental health and emotional wellbeing needs. In a small number of cases where Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) are temporarily accommodated in hotels they are supported with wrap around care, including from professional care workers, social workers, and nurses. Additional local support is provided by local authorities, the NHS, and charities, e.g. rolling registration with GP practices and on-ground support from the Refugee Council. Activity is supported by SACC (Safeguarding Advice and Children’s Champion) a Home Office team led by professional advisers who are registered social workers with extensive strategic and frontline experience in safeguarding the vulnerable. They provide safeguarding advice and assistance in cases where there are concerns over the welfare of an encountered child. This helps to ensure that vulnerable children are identified at the earliest possible opportunity and helps to facilitate access to any safeguarding services to which they are entitled by virtue of their age and assessed needs. The National Transfer Scheme, the mechanism allowing for the statutory responsibility for caring for UASC to be transferred from an entry local authority to a different local authority, became mandatory for the majority of UK local authorities with Children’s Services on 14 December 2021. The remaining local authorities were directed to participate on 15 February 2022. Any child going missing is extremely serious, which is why we work closely with local authorities and the police to operate robust missing persons protocols to ensure their whereabouts are known and that they are safe as well as to understand the reasons behind the child going missing. Social Workers and Team Leaders almost immediately (upon arrival at the hotel) talk to children at higher risk of absconding about trafficking and modern slavery risks. Social workers cover the topic again in regular sessions with young people. The Home Office have no power to hold the children and they are free to leave the hotels whenever they want. Even local authorities cannot detain children, even for safety, unless they have a very specific court order that is only used in extreme circumstances.