Dear Common Council of the City of London,

Request for information about numbers of and support for asylum seeking, refugee and appeal rights exhausted young people including leaving care policies and services.

Background

Tower Hamlets Law Centre, which was established over 30 years ago, provides legal advice and representation, mainly to people who work and live in the borough, but also through a number of London wide and regional services. We focus on work that helps people deal with the causes and symptoms of poverty. This includes Housing, Welfare Benefits, Immigration and Asylum, Education, Employment, Debt, and Community Care law.

We work alongside other law centres across the city to deliver London Council’s youth homelessness advice project, which has developed our expertise in advising young people at risk of homelessness. We specialise in advising young people who have both immigration/asylum and housing needs, including assisting young people to access support from social services when they are leaving care.

We are researching variations between the leaving care services that different London Local Authorities are providing for refugees, asylum seekers and appeal rights exhausted young people (aged 18-21 years, or up to 25 years if in full time education). We hope to identify examples of good and bad practice and to generate a better understanding of leaving care services for this group of young people, with a view to improving the provision.

We would be grateful if you could provide us with responses to the following questions:

1. Statistics on young people

• How many looked after children and care leavers are the responsibility of this local authority?
• How many unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) is this local authority responsible for?
• How many UASC are placed in this borough by other local authorities?
• How many former UASC are receiving leaving care services in this local authority, and of these how many are appeal rights exhausted?
• What percentage of UASC and former UASC have additional needs (e.g. related to disability) and how many of these former UASC are getting support to meet these needs under adult social care legislation?

2. Support for UASC and refugee and asylum seeking care leavers

• Are UASC supported through universal or targeted services (i.e. is there a dedicated Unaccompanied Minors team or are UASC’s social workers working within universal teams)?

• Are refugee and asylum seeking care leavers supported by social workers and personal advisors in universal or specialised teams?

3. Support for Appeal Rights Exhausted young people

• In the last financial year 2011-2012, how many appeal rights exhausted asylum seeking care leavers under 21 years (or 25 years if in full time education) were discharged from Local Authority services?

• How many of the young people referred to in the question above had their support terminated as a result of a human rights assessment?

4. Request for Policies and Reports

Please provide copies of the following reports and policies for your Local Authority (as set out in The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 3: Planning Transition to Adulthood for Care Leavers, including The Care Leavers Regulations 2010, Appendix F):

a) Provision for the allocation of leaving care support to young people who are relevant or former relevant children and the review of pathway plans for these young people
b) Leaving Care Financial Policy
c) Setting up home allowance policy
d) Human Rights assessment procedure and criteria
e) Complaints report

Yours faithfully,

Rosalind Evans

Dear COL - EB - Information Officer,

Your response to my freedom of information request has been delayed. By law, you should normally have responded promplty and by 22 August 2012.

Please could you repond to my request as soon as possible.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Rosalind Evans

Dear COL - EB - Information Officer,

Thank you for your response. I had not received your response to our questions so thank you for attaching it again.

I have followed the link to the PAN London procedures, but I could not find any policies on care leavers.

In your response to question 1, you have written there are 'no appeals pending' and in your response to question 3, you have stated that you had no appeal rights exhausted young people supported by the Local Authority over the last year. Could you clarify if these refer to the same group of young people, and whether this means that you have no appeal rights exhausted young people receiving services?

Thank you for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Rosalind Evans