Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 imposes a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need.
Children seeking asylum (UASC) who have no responsible adult to care for them are separated or ‘unaccompanied’, and are therefore ‘in need’. The relevant local authority children’s social services department has a gateway duty to assess such children under section 17, and then, almost always, to accommodate them under section 20 of the Children Act 1989.
A child asylum seeker’s first encounter with the Home Office can be the point at which a welfare referral involves the relevant children’s services. This will, in the first instance, always be the local authority in which the child is present.
In July 2016 the national transfer scheme was introduced for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) arriving in the UK, so that children are no longer necessarily cared for in the local authority in which they first present, but instead may be transferred to an authority with greater capacity on a voluntary basis. The Home Office published an interim national transfer protocol and flowchart to govern this scheme. In practice, the national transfer scheme has some operational issues which has led to many children suffering long delays. If you have further questions on the transfer scheme there is more detailed information on the ADCS website. If you are working with a child who is adversely affected by the operational difficulties of the transfer scheme, you can make sure that the child has access to advocacy services.
The law is very clear that local authorities cannot label accommodation ‘section 17 accommodation’ if accommodation is properly to be provided to a child under section 20.
For unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the UK with no parent or carer able and willing to provide accommodation the presumption is that they fall within the scope of section 20, unless the needs assessment results in another response being considered more appropriate (for example if a trafficked child is at risk and it is appropriate to initiate care proceedings under section 31 of the Children Act 1989).
A child who is accommodated by the children’s services department of a local authority under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 for 24 hours falls within the definition of a ‘looked after’ child.
Where a child is ‘looked after’ by the local authority the local authority acts as the child’s ‘corporate parent’. There are a series of duties that local authorities owe to ‘looked after’ children. [6]
There are seven dimensions to a child’s developmental needs, to which the local authority must have regard and for which they must plan:
- health
- education and training (“the personal education plan”)
- emotional and behavioural development
- identity, with particular regard to religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background
- family and social relationships,
- social presentation, and
- self-care skills.
Guidance on care planning for looked after children is set out in detail in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010.
