Decision details

To inform Cabinet as to the potential financial and social implications of the Government’s Asylum Seeker Dispersal Programme to the extent that it will relate to Fenland.

Agreed to:

·       note the contents of the report;

·       request officers to provide instructions as to what preparations need to be made by the Council in respect of the Asylum Seeker Dispersal Programme and the assessment of the Council’s revenue budget implications of the scheme; and

·       instruct officers, in conjunction with the Portfolio Holder for Housing, to send letters to Steve Barclay MP and the new Prime Minister to demand:

o   that Government continues and increases its attempts to identify and reduce the number of illegal asylum seekers entering and remaining in the UK

o   that Government significantly improves the asylum processing system so that asylum seekers’ applications are processed in a timely manner

o   that measures to remove from the UK those destitute individuals who have no recourse to public funds be significantly improved

o   that all additional local authority costs resulting from the Asylum Seeker Dispersal Policy should be guaranteed to be reimbursed in full by Government, including those costs which are incurred following an asylum seeker’s application for asylum being refused.