Glasgow considers legal action against Home Office over refugee crisis

The SNP-led council expects around 2500 decisions on refugee status to be made by the end of this year which they say will place the "already stretched Homelessness Service under unprecedented pressure".

Councils have a legal obligation to offer temporary accommodation when they assess a person or household as unintentionally homeless but there are concerns Glasgow will not be able to handle the number of cases that are being rushed through this year.

Before the asylum 'crisis', campaigners raised fears of a "meltdown" over the handling of homelessness in Glasgow and it has emerged that according to a June analysis, the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) was already 1600 lets short of the 4500 it needs annually.

READ MORE: Fears for hundreds in Scotland over government asylum backlog plan

The council also fears that there will be a rise in requests for emergency accommodation and that it was "unlikely" that the HSCP - an amalgamation of Glasgow City Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde which delivers community health and social care services - would be able to source the number of accommodation placements to meet demand.

A council briefing says that this would lead to a "significant rise" in the number of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order which could in turn see the local authority subject to legal challenge.

Scotland's biggest city has the highest number of Unsuitable Accommodation Order breaches in Scotland with more than 6000 over the year-and-a-half to July this year. There were 3375 in the Glasgow city council area last year and over 2700 in the first six months of this year.

In 2019, the then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that breaches "should not be tolerated" and said it would consider introducing sanctions on those councils that fail to comply as part of plans to "transform temporary accommodation".

The council believes that moves to clear the backlog will be expected to leave Glasgow's homelessness services with a of £70.1m budget black hole in the next financial year.

Home Office figures show that more than 175,000 people were waiting for a decision on whether they will be granted refugee status at the end of June 2023 - up 44% from last year.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set targets to clear the backlog by the end of the year in December 2022.

Officials have cleared on average 2,061 of those cases a month since then.

With 67,870 of the legacy cases remaining, the Home Office would have to process around 11,311 of them per month if it is to meet its target.

The British Red Cross highlighted three Scots local authority areas where there are particular housing pressures for people in asylum accommodation - Glasgow City, City of Edinburgh and South Lanarkshire.

While the Home Office is expected to speed up the processing of claims for refugee status, the local authority says the UK government has confirmed they have not provided any financial support to deal with the costs.

The council is now considering legal action against the Home Office.

The council leader Susan Aitken has said they were "very likely being pushed into a position where we breach our statutory duties by decisions and actions by someone else [the Home Office and the UK Government]".

Lawyers for the council said there is "potential to take legal against the Home Office" and advice is to be sought by senior counsel. But they say that while "there's legal challenges we can make, there are legal challenges that can be taken against us".

City council lawyer Kenneth McDonald said: "There's no desire not to fulfill our duties, but it's not through want of trying. It's using resources to the maximum but those resources may not be sufficient.

The council has already been in contact with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency mandated to aid and protect asylum seekers.

The council says the UNHCR has been providing support and assistance.

Ms Aitken said the commissioner Filippo Grandi had told her that it was "completely unacceptable" for cities not to be funded for the the pressures policies were creating.

It is estimated that 1800 of the 2,500 would get refugee status by the end of the year.

When a person receives a positive decision, they are normally given 28 days to leave the asylum seeker accommodation provided by Mears.

The Red Cross has said that with the 28 day ‘move-on’ process – the time given to refugees to move from asylum support to mainstream benefits or employment – having changed, it has left some people with as little as seven days to move out of their asylum accommodation.

The charity warns this could lead to devastating levels of destitution saying it is "simply not enough time for most people".

Based on current data, approximately 77% of households who receive a positive decision in Glasgow and get official refugee status go on to make a homelessness application with the local authority.

It would mean an additional 1,386 homelessness applications would be made to the HSCP by the end of December 2023.

It is estimated that 74% of households dealt with by the Asylum and Refugee Support Team are already currently occupying temporary accommodation. The council says that if this remains constant, it will mean that 1,026 of the 1,386 refugee households are likely to require temporary accommodation pending an offer of settled accommodation being made.

A council analysis says it is not clear where additional lets could be found. They say if accommodation cannot be sourced, this "could lead to an increase in rough sleeping".

It is estimated that there is likely to be around 700 negative asylum decisions.

These households will have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), and therefore have no rights to access homelessness services.

Annemarie O’Donnell, the council’s chief executive and Susanne Millar, chief officer of the HSCP, has told councillors: "Given the scale of these figures there is every likelihood that Glasgow will see an increased pattern of people with NRPF rough sleeping like other parts of the UK requiring intense outreach capacity from third sector, health and social care support for those who are deemed most vulnerable."

The HSCP has been seeking to cut back on its use of high cost hotel and bed and breakfast accommodation as it already faces overspending its budget by £16.646m.

The British Red Cross has estimated that 53,100 asylum seekers who are seeking refugee status will be at risk of being without a home across the UK if the Government clears the backlog on decisions.

The charity said that even if decision-making on asylum claims is not sped up and the target not met, 26,000 people could still be at risk of destitution and homelessness.

The Glasgow City Council area was earmarked as having the highest housing pressure of any local authority in Scotland while housing 4,267 in asylum accommodation. The pressure on housing is rated at ten out of a scale of one to ten.

The Red Cross says that while more decisions are being made on asylum claims due to the streamlined asylum process it is putting an increasing amount of pressure on local authorities to support people to find housing quickly.

An asylum seeker is a person who flees their home country, enters another country and applies for the right to international protection and to stay in that country.

In the UK, asylum seekers are not allowed to work, and must rely on state support. Housing is provided, but asylum seekers cannot choose where it is.

Earlier this week, the housing minister Paul McLennan warned local authorities they are legally obliged to support the homeless with accommodation as it emerged the numbers who say they have been rough sleeping before seeking emergency help have soared by up to five fold in a year in Scotland.

Official returns show that some of the most affluent local authority areas have seen the biggest growth in cases where there was at least one member of a household who had experienced rough sleeping in the three months prior to making a homelessness application.

Across Scotland in 2022/23 there were 2440 cases - a rise of 295 (14%) from the previous year.

But the Falkirk council area has seen the biggest escalation with rough sleeping cases rising from five to 30 in the year.

In Glasgow the numbers dipped from 385 in 2021/22 to 340 in 2022/23.

Susan Aitken said: “The Home Office is embarking on a course of action which will be devastating for refugees and for cities across the UK. For Glasgow, a sudden cost of around £50m is simply unmanageable and the suffering caused to thousands of people who will suddenly be pushed into destitution is simply unimaginable.

“I want to see people humanely treated by the asylum system. Refugees and immigrants have enriched Glasgow’s culture for centuries and I am so proud that people want to make their home here. But this unstructured, unplanned and ill-conceived action will cause massive harm to people and to institutions across the country. The Home Office is doing this as a cover to their failure; they want to free up space in the North of England and Scotland to allow them to empty hotels in the South. They hope this will convince their voters they are getting a grip. Out of sight, out of mind is now the entirety of their asylum policy.

“Even at this late stage we can work with the Home Office. They need to do this in a planned and structured way and they need to provide cities with the resources to manage this. The human and financial cost of their current course is simply too much.”

A UNHCR spokesman said it was "aware of the important work underway in Glasgow to include refugees in the city’s social, economic and civic life, which has highlighted the benefits that inclusion brings for both refugees and host communities".

The spokesman added: "The commitment of the Scottish people to protecting refugees, and to their warm welcome and integration into Scotland, is very much appreciated. "

A Home Office spokesman said: “The pressure on the asylum system has continued to grow, which is why we have taken immediate action to speed up processing times and cut costs for taxpayers.

“To minimise the risk of homelessness, we encourage individuals to make their onward plans as soon as possible after receiving their decision, whether that is leaving the UK following a refusal, or taking steps to integrate in the UK following a grant.

“We offer ample support once claims have been granted through Migrant Help, access to the labour market and advice on applying for Universal Credit.”