1. In 2022 (the calendar year), how many individuals claiming to be children (aged under 18) were referred to your children’s services department having been assessed to be an adult by the Home Office and placed in adult asylum accommodation or detention?
2. Of those referred, how many were subsequently assessed by your children’s services department to be under 18?
Devon County Council believes compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time.
This is because we do not record, in a directly reportable way, whether referred children have been assessed by the
Home Office to be adults. We would therefore need to manually review the records of all Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) referred in the calendar year.
We received referrals for 59 UASC in the 2022 calendar year. To locate, review and extract information from these records would be in excess of 18 hours at approximately 20 minutes per record.