Agenda item

Further to Minute No. 87 of the meeting of the Cabinet and Commissioners held on 10th October, 2016, consideration was given to a report, presented by the Ian Walker, Service Manager – Looked After Children, concerning the National Transfer Scheme, where on 1st July, 2016, the Home Office and the Department for Education launched a new voluntary transfer arrangement between local authorities for the care of unaccompanied children who arrived in the United Kingdom and claimed asylum.

Reference was made to the report which set out in detail  what constituted an unaccompanied asylum seeking child, the reasons why and the legal duty to provide support for children and young people who sought asylum.

The National Transfer Scheme had been launched  and provided financial support to encourage all local authorities to volunteer to support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, so that there was a more even distribution of caring responsibilities across the country. Under the scheme, a child arriving in one local authority area already under strain caring for unaccompanied asylum seeking children, may be transferred to another Council which had the capacity.

Three options were proposed and one recommended:-

·             Option 1 – Not to enter into the proposed voluntary arrangement.

·             Option 2 – Rotherham received unaccompanied asylum seeking children outside of the regional model.

·             Option 3 – Rotherham participated in a regional model for unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

Rotherham was advocating Option 3 which would be led by the regional Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

A discussion and a question and answer session ensued with Members and the following issues were raised and clarified:-

·             The demand for additional foster carers would be met and the allocation of suitable foster placements managed through the benefit of a regional approach to ensure the impact on Rotherham’s looked after population was reduced.

·             The sufficiency strategy, which was under development, would lessen any impact on existing mental health services for children and young people and assist with the capacity of services to deal with the extra demand.

·             The CCG were aware of the concerns around the extra burden on CAMHS and it was noted that looked after children were being prioritised as part of the assessment process.  However, a regionalised approach would join up services to identify how the children’s needs could best be met.

·             Work had already commenced to look at a raft of support services and training that could be provided for foster carers in their care of children with specific needs.  Appropriate support networks would then be put in place.

·             Timescales for the development of placements and support networks were yet to be confirmed, but it was likely the larger cities in the region would be the most appropriate places initially to take children into reception centres.

·             Invisible costs, which were those related to the demand on existing social care services, would be mitigated, but the impact minimised as far as possible.

·             Rotherham was also an importer of looked after children into the borough as well as an exporter, but it was envisaged that the regional approach would strengthen the current arrangements with independent providers with places being secured on a South Yorkshire regional basis.

·             Meeting the educational needs of the children would be demanding, but it was felt transitional arrangements would be developed to ensure children put into mainstream education had learnt the basics of English.  Whilst the figure of thirty-nine children were earmarked for Rotherham their integration would be incremental.

·             There was little evidence to suggest that the unaccompanied children coming to Rotherham would be considered a risk to others.  However, the full circumstances as to why they were seeking asylum would be identified and any risks dealt with.

·             The Corporate Parenting Group would be provided with updates in due course.

·             The appropriate recruitment/training process associated with social care staff for dealing with these children had already commenced.  It was noted that no children had yet been received into Rotherham as the proposals were in the early stages and Member involvement in the working group set up for this process was welcomed.

Resolved:- (1) That the report be received and its contents noted.

(2)  That Option 3 - Rotherham participated in a regional model for unaccompanied asylum seeking children, be supported.