Teen refugees costing Torbay thousands

Council pays for 14 child asylum seekers

Teenagers who arrived in Torbay as unaccompanied asylum seekers are costing the bay’s council tens of thousands of pounds every week, with little help coming from the Home Office.

Members of a Torbay Council scrutiny board on services to children and young people heard that once the youngsters turned 18, their placements could cost up to £1,200 a week. Just £270 of that comes from the Home Office, which placed the young people in the area.

The council has to find the rest.

Fourteen teenagers are eligible for the support package, to which the cost of social workers could be added, members were told. In addition, the Home Office pays the council to process their applications for just 28 days, even though the work can last up to four months.

Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Churston with Galmpton) told this week’s meeting that it is important to highlight the costs so that the council could go back to the government and demand more help.

The council’s children’s services department first highlighted the financial situation when asylum seekers arrived a year ago to be housed in a seafront hotel.

Director of children’s services Nancy Meehan told the meeting: “These people have the same rights – and absolutely rightly so – as our own children in Torbay who come into care.”

The board also discussed a meeting with Ofsted at which progress in children’s services was praised. The bay has recently obtained a ‘good’ rating, having been in special measures some years ago.

But Ms Meehan said a lack of suitable accommodation in the bay for young people leaving the care system could prevent it from going further.

“We have got to become outstanding, because that’s what the children deserve,” she said. “We should never strive for anything but outstanding.

“But we wouldn’t be able to get that now because of our accommodation challenges.”

She said Torbay needs more than 100 properties each year to service care leavers; a combination of self-contained flats and rooms in larger buildings.

The impact of the area’s historically high number of cared-for children meant that as they moved through the system at the age of 18, they create a rising demand for housing.

Cllr Billings urged the council to do more to make developers include provision for local young people leaving the care system.

The meeting also adopted a new ‘Torbay Pledge’ to care leavers and children still in care.

“Everything we do is focused on the voices of young people,” said the council’s divisional director of safeguarding Becky Thompson. “That voice is being sought on a daily basis. We consult with children and young people about everything we do.”

Cllr Patrick Joyce (Con, Wellswood) said the report on the pledge had been ‘positive and uplifting’.