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30 Oct 2007 : Column 1255W—continued
Asylum: Children
Mr. Steen:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children went missing
from the local authority areas around Heathrow and Gatwick while under immigration control in each of the last three years. [148159]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 9 July 2007]: The Border and Immigration Agency is committed to keeping children safe from harm and believes that it is vital that there is a closer relationship with children in the immigration process. The Agency is developing a programme of work to underpin this principle. Part of this includes a recently completed consultation exercise on better planning and support for unaccompanied asylum seeking children. The findings from this exercise will be published soon. Among the proposals will be plans to ensure that UASC are in future placed with “specialist” local authorities who can demonstrate that they have the expertise to deal with the children's particular needs. It will be especially important to ensure that measures are in place to monitor and deal effectively with children who go missing from local authority care, including those who have been trafficked.
Children from abroad who arrive at Gatwick and Heathrow airports and require social services assistance generally become the responsibility of West Sussex county council and the London borough of Hillingdon respectively. West Sussex has reported that in the years 2004 to 2006 50 such children went missing or left care without explanation. Hillingdon has reported that in 2006 74 children went missing or left their care placement without informing their carers where they were going to live. It has advised that figures for 2004 and 2005 are available only at disproportionate cost.
Asylum: East of England
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost of support of asylum seekers was to each local authority in the East of England in each year since 1997. [159227]
Mr. Byrne: The information requested is set out and is based upon returns submitted by local authorities to the Department for Communities and Local Government. Funding for local authorities’ responsibilities in the area of asylum seekers is met by central Government through a combination of formula grant and by specific grants from the Home Office.
Information is only available from 1999 onwards. The information for 2006-07 has been taken from the indicative budget prepared by local authorities for that year.
| Net current expenditure on asylum seekers in East of England local authorities; 1998-99 to 2007-08 | |||||||||
| £000 | |||||||||
| Local authority | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 |
| Sources: 1. Communities and Local Government Revenue Outturn (RO) returns 1998-99 to 2005-06 2. Communities and Local Government Revenue Account (PA) budget returns 2006-07 which can be reviewed at: http://www.local.communities.gov.uk/finance/stats/natstats.htm#rev | |||||||||
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