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Councils back away from asylum seeker housing amid contract uncertainty

Local authorities have put on hold their plans to join the government’s asylum seeker housing scheme after problems with the government contract.

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Picture: Getty
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Councils have put on hold plans to join the government’s asylum seeker housing scheme amid contract uncertainty #ukhousing

In an interview with Inside Housing, Debra Coupar, deputy leader of Leeds City Council and co-ordinator of asylum housing issues across Yorkshire, revealed that “a number” of councils in the area have paused their plans.

This, Ms Coupar said, is as a result of the difficulty the government has faced in finding a provider for asylum seeker accommodation in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Currently, asylum seeker housing across the UK is provided by private outsourcing companies G4S, Serco and Clearsprings.


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Local authorities, however, have to give their consent to join the scheme before asylum seekers can be housed within their boundaries.

According to Ms Coupar, some councils were in the process of doing this before the contract ran into trouble, but have now put their plans on hold.

Over a month ago, a cross-party coalition of 14 council leaders signed a letter to home secretary Sajid Javid a month ago warning of “mounting chaos” in the system.

In that letter, the leaders suggested that some local authorities might leave the scheme over the problems it has faced awarding a new contract. They also complained that local authorities had not been involved in the government’s market consultation process.

The current contract finishes in September 2019, when the Home Office plans to renew the same scheme for 10 more years.

When it first put the contract out to tender in December last year, however, it failed to receive a single compliant bid for Yorkshire and the Humber or Northern Ireland.

It put the contract out to tender again in May this year, but has not yet revealed the results of this process.

Ms Coupar said it was “very disappointing” that the government had not yet replied to the leaders’ letter.

She added: “The biggest worry is that we won’t have a contract in place and we’ll end up having to deal with a housing crisis the magnitude of which has not been seen in a long time.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “There is an ongoing procurement process for the asylum accommodation and support contract for the North East [and the] Yorkshire and the Humber region.

“We are confident of having a fully operational contract before the expiry of the current contract, with sufficient time to properly transition the services.”

 

The Housing Podcast: What’s going wrong with asylum seeker housing?

Listen or download here:

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