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Initial accommodation centres
Reception centres, called initial accommodation, each accommodate around 200 people – fewer in Glasgow and Northern Ireland. These centres are the usual first accommodation for any asylum seeker who asks for support and is not immediately detained, apart from unaccompanied children. If a place cannot be found on the first night after claim, asylum seekers may be accommodated in an interim hostel in Croydon while accommodation is found, or in hotels in any region where the initial accommodation is full. Accommodation in the initial accommodation centres is usually full board with limited cash provided.
The use of hotels as asylum accommodation has increased considerably in the past few years. The Home Office is not transparent about the number of hotels in use,[1] but it was reported in March 2023 that there were 395 hotels in use.[2] The government is trying to reduce the number of hotels in use.[3]
People accommodated in a hotel, even if only for one or two nights, have limited or no access to many of the reception-related rights granted to asylum seekers (e.g. legal advice, healthcare, etc), with reported cases of persons having only restricted access to accommodation. The consequence of such temporary ‘emergency’ accommodation is that it additionally delays their access to the support system and other welfare services to which they are entitled, as it may take a couple of days before they access advice and complete an application for asylum support.[4]
Asylum seekers should not stay in initial accommodation for any longer than 3-4 weeks[5] but there can be dispersal backlogs and it is common to find asylum seekers stuck in initial accommodation for many months due to a lack of dispersal accommodation.[6] There was a huge increase in the use of hotel and other full-board accommodation during 2020 and 2021, this has continued since. The Home Office issued a statement about the use of hotels and other temporary accommodation.[7] The use of hotels for anything other than a very short period continues to be criticised, including in a report from the Refugee Council in July 2022.[8]
If the asylum seeker qualifies for Section 95 support they are moved into smaller units, mainly flats and shared houses, in the same region, but as regions are large this may not be within travelling distance of their legal representative if they have one. Dispersal Accommodation is in the North, Midlands and South West of England and in Wales and Scotland, very limited numbers are housed in the South of England or in London. Asylum seekers have no choice of location. If asylum seekers are not detained after screening there is no distinction in the initial accommodation based on the claim or its route.
Initial accommodation centres, hotels and former military barracks are used to accommodate people receiving section 98 support and some receiving section 95 support. The number of people supported under section 98 at the end of 2023 was 49,1763 (almost twice as many than at the end of 2021).[9]
A court ruled that the provision from local authorities to house people otherwise at risk of street homelessness can include those with no recourse to public funds, including people refused asylum and appeal rights exhausted.[10]
Dispersed accommodation
All accommodation for asylum seekers is managed by three large private companies under contract to the Home Office, much of which is provided though sub-contracts to smaller companies.[11] The assessment process for eligibility for the accommodation remains with the Home Office, which is ultimately responsible in law for the provision of accommodation. The companies remain responsible to the Home Office under the terms of their contracts to provide and manage the accommodation. New contracts were approved in January 2019 for a ten-year period.[12]
A UK charity has written a guide to the 2019 contracts and has details about all types of accommodation and services covered.[13]
The contract between the Home Office and the private companies requires that families shall be housed in self-contained accommodation.[14] In practice there is some use of hostel-type accommodation for families with small children, and some lone parent families are housed with unrelated families, though nuclear families are normally kept together.[15] Accommodation frequently fails to meet the needs of supported persons, particularly those with children or mobility and health needs. Asylum accommodation has been repeatedly criticised for failing to provide security, respect for privacy and basic levels of hygiene and safety, particularly for women; in the media and in the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee report published in December 2018.[16] The same committee looked at the government’s Covid-19 preparedness with a focus on Institutional Accommodation in 2020.[17]
The most common form of accommodation after the initial period in the initial accommodation centres is in privately owned flats and houses, managed by the companies contracted to the Home Office, or by their sub-contractors.
[1] Written response, ‘Asylum: Hotels Question for Home Office UIN 10598’, 24 January 2024, available at: https://bit.ly/49qbTGZ.
[2] BBC News, ‘Where are asylum seekers being housed in hotels in the UK?’, 25 October 2023, https://bit.ly/3woWpV8.
[3] Home Office, Asylum hotel summary and FAQ, 7 March 2024, available at: https://bit.ly/49pan7U.
[4] Information provided by Refugee Action.
[5] Home Office, A guide to living in asylum accommodation, available at: https://bit.ly/42MjAVB.
[6] Home Affairs Select Committee, Asylum Accommodation, January 2017, available at: http://bit.ly/2n0KUwI.
[7] Home Office media blog, ‘The use of temporary hotels to house asylum seekers during Covid-19 ‘, 8 August 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/30rr0OJ.
[8] Refugee Council, Lives on Hold: Experiences of people living in hotel asylum accommodation, July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3VcF1KX.
[9] Home Office, Immigration system statistics data tables, Asylum seekers in receipt of support detailed datasets, year ending December 2023, table Asy_D09, 29 February 2024, available at: https://tinyurl.com/bdhnwfkr.
[10] Shelter, ‘High Court rules councils can lawfully accommodate street homeless people with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ – will the government now provide proper guidance?’, 10 March 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3qJUEfY.
[11] Home Office, Living in dispersal accommodation, 25 May 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3woiP98.
[12] Home Office, ‘New asylum accommodation contracts awarded’, 8 January 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2SUJgdM.
[13] Asylum Matters; The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts – a guide, 2019, https://bit.ly/49n0Ka4.
[14] Home Office, Compass Project: Schedule 2, Accommodation and Transport, Statement of Requirements, B.8.
[15] Evidence given to the Parliamentary Enquiry on Asylum Support for Children and Young People.
[16] House of Commons, Asylum accommodation: Replacing COMPASS, December 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2A164kM.
[17] Home Affairs Select Committee; Home Office preparedness for Covid-19; Institutional accommodation, 28 July 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3MEGCW0.