Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request
We write to request the following information under the FOIA in relation to assessments of, and the provision of support to, families with No Recourse to Public Funds (“NRPF”) seeking access to support under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Contact details
1. Does your local authority have a separate team dealing with requests for support under section 17 Children Act 1989, for example an ‘NRPF team’?
2. If yes, please provide contact details for this team (telephone and email)
3. If no, please confirm where referrals for such support should be directed to and provide contact details (telephone and email)
4. Please also provide contact details for the relevant legal team supporting children’s services or dedicated NRPF team (telephone and email)
5. Is the local authority a member of NRPF Connect?
There is no separate team. Families with no access to public funds come through our Front Door in the same way any unknown children do. They are assessed within the Assessment Teams and then transferred to children and families as needed.
Policies
6. Do you have any guidance or policy documents or other such written material in respect of undertaking assessments and providing support pursuant to section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to families with no recourse to public funds (including documents specific to this issue, or of more general application but covering this issue)?
7. If yes, please provide us with a copy.
We do not have a policy.
Assessments
8. How many families/children approached the local authority for support under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024?
9. How many of the families/children who approached the local authority for support under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 went on to receive a) financial support; b) accommodation; C) both
10. How many of the families/children identified in question 8 had no recourse to public funds (either because of a restriction on their leave to remain or because they were undocumented)?
11. How many families/children with no recourse to public funds received a) financial support; b) accommodation; C) both under section 17 following their assessment?
12. How many pregnant persons approached the local authority for support under section 17 between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024. Of these, a) how many of the pregnant persons had no recourse to public funds, and b) how many of the pregnant persons with no recourse to public funds went on to receive a) financial support; b) accommodation; C) both.
Subsistence:
13. Does the local authority pay a minimum rate of financial support to families/children with NRPF, who have no other means of income, under Section 17. If so, what is this rate?
14. Does the local authority provide any additional payments, such as for young children, pregnant mothers, or maternity grants? If yes, please specify.
Accommodation:
15. How many families with no recourse to public funds were supported to remain in their own accommodation by the local authority contributing to rent under section 17 between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022?
16. Please provide a list of the types of properties that have been used to accommodate families under section 17 between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022 (e.g., self-contained flat, HMO, B&B) and a breakdown of how many families were accommodated in each type of accommodation in this time period.
17. Does the local authority provide accommodation to families under section 17 that does not have access to kitchen space or cooking facilities?
18. If your response to question 16 is yes, between the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022: How many families were placed in accommodation with no access to kitchen space and/or cooking facilities?
Spending
19. Between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 what was the total cost to the local authority of providing support to
a. Families under section 17; and
b. All families with no recourse to public funds under section 17
Following on from our response to the first question, we do not hold separate recorded information for questions 8-19. To extract this information from our files would therefore require a manual review of our files which would take longer than 18 hours. Pursuant to section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are therefore not obliged to provide this information.
By way of further advice and assistance, we should clarify that, in response to questions 15-18, families with NRPF would mean that they are not entitled to local authority accommodation. If we had to source housing for a family with NRPF, it would be in the private sector.