Local authorities lead on work with local partners and local communities to help families settle into their new homes.
Key messages
Councils have an excellent track record in welcoming asylum seeking and refugee children, as well as their families, and continue to work hard to support the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme alongside all the other schemes in current operation.
Over 4,000 Syrians were resettled in under the scheme in the 12 months to the end of September 2016. We are confident that there will be sufficient pledges to support the Government's aim to resettle 20,000 people by 2020.
The focus should be now on ensuring families are well supported. Councils and their partners will be helping some of the most vulnerable families access ongoing support services to help them cope with injuries, disabilities and recover from the severe trauma they may have experienced.
The LGA has supported the announcement of funding to contribute to the costs of supporting refugees up to their fifth year to support local activity to resettle Syrian refugees and the recent announcement of additional funding for English as a Second Language (ESOL) for the Syrian programme, given access to ESOL is crucial to resettlement.
There are multiple different schemes in operation for supporting refugees and there are also thousands of asylum seekers who are not housed by councils but who rely on council services. Clear links need to be made across all the programmes that resettle asylum seekers and refugees to make sure there is enough funding and support services available.