Recommendation 18

The Department told us that sourcing hotels in the COVID-19 pandemic had been an extremely challenging and fast-moving situation. It recognised that there had been some issues with engaging local authorities and explained that it had redoubled its efforts since we last discussed this issue in July 2020.49 However, since then we have been contacted by a number of Members of Parliament who reported that neither they nor their local authorities had been informed of hotel use in their area.50 Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council also wrote to us to describe how the accommodation provider had failed to communicate with local authorities, such as when moving asylum seekers to new accommodation, or to share its plan for dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks.51