Hundreds of Ukrainian Refugees Left without Welfare Checks

Hundreds of Ukrainian Refugees Left without Welfare Checks

The second part of the Byline Intelligence Team’s investigation raises serious safeguarding concerns about the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Sascha Lavin and Sian Norris report

Nearly 300 Ukrainian refugee families on the Homes for Ukraine scheme did not receive a welfare visit from their local council in the first five months since they arrived in the UK, the Byline Intelligence Team can reveal today.

Data exclusively obtained through freedom of information requests to local authorities showed that at least 270 refugee families had not been visited within five months, despite Government guidance saying that “councils are expected to make at least one in-person visit once the guest(s) have arrived”. 

The guest and sponsor relationship is intended to last for six months, after which refugees may be expected to find their own accommodation. Some families will therefore not have been visited for almost the entirety of their time on the scheme.

Other families had to wait for significant periods of time before a welfare check took place. Byline Times’ investigation revealed 602 families had not been visited within four months of arrival, while 1,233 families had not been visited within two months.

The failure to conduct welfare checks raises serious safeguarding concerns, not least because the freedom of information requests revealed numerous occasions where the visit led to subsequent referrals due to worries over child welfare, overcrowding, or unsuitable accommodation. 

One London borough told Byline Times that a guest had been rehoused due to safeguarding concerns following the welfare visit. Another, in the south-east of England, said two families had been rehoused after safeguarding issues were identified during the visit.

However, these figures could be the tip of the iceberg. Hosts are expected to inform the council when their guest arrives, and some local authorities explained the delay in the welfare visit resulting from the host not contacting the relevant person to let them know their guest had come to the UK. 

This means there could be Ukrainian refugees who the council simply does not realise have arrived in the UK and therefore have not received a welfare visit.

More concerningly, relying on the host to inform the council opens up a gap in safeguarding that could be exploited by traffickers. A host could simply not tell anyone their guest has arrived, leaving that individual to become undocumented and at risk.

“There are a number of ways in which you determine whether a hosting match can be safe, and also a good match,” Robina Qureshi from Positive Action in Housing told Byline Times. “One way is to do a welfare visit. But there was a failure from the very beginning to implement any systematic way of assessing, matching and managing matches”.

This failure, Qureshi explained, led to “problems such as men offering rooms to women who have not been checked because it’s between two adults and there are no children involved. There are situations where male hosts could have ulterior motives which may not be sinister or criminal, but they may think, for example, they’ll meet somebody. We have heard of cases like these. War refugees should not be exposed to that kind of vulnerability”.

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Postcode Lottery

Three-quarters of councils that responded had visited Ukrainian families within two months of their arrival, taking swift action if the accommodation had proven to be unsuitable. 

But Ukrainian refugees faced a postcode lottery. 

Birmingham City Council, which has matched more than 500 hosts with guests, had not visited 120 families within five months. One welfare visit did result in a guest being removed due to their behaviour. Dorset County Council had not visited 34 homes in five months, while in the London Borough of Brent the number was 44. 

In response to the freedom of information request, Dorset explained that the data is not updated regularly and there can be a lag. 

Leicestershire County Council had not conducted a welfare visit to 136 homes within two months, and 24 within five months. A spokesperson for the council told Byline Times that “we work in partnership with district and borough councils across Leicestershire to provide families from Ukraine and their sponsors with practical support in person, over the phone and online. We’ve prioritised cases and recognise that amongst the hundreds of families who received welfare visits in the months following their arrival, some families didn’t”.

They added that they increased capacity, including hiring “a specialist safeguarding social worker, a triage officer and two further welfare officers, one of whom is Ukrainian and came to Leicestershire through the Homes for Ukraine scheme”.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: “Along with our partners, we carry out a comprehensive series of checks because the safety of all involved with this scheme is of paramount importance”. The council confirmed it works with the charity Refugee Action to conduct initial safeguarding checks: Child Advice and Support Service Check, a DBS Check, and a home visit. 

“Refugee Action conduct post arrival well-being checks,” the spokesperson told Byline Times. “They have been contracted from June and to date have contacted all arrivals and have assigned a caseworker for each. They are still in the process of meeting all arrivals face to face and have prioritised those with children and older adults. We are fully committed to ensuring the safety of all participants in the scheme and this system of checks underlines how seriously this is being taken here in Birmingham”.

The Government guidelines state that “at the visit, local authorities should sense-check the individuals and the relationship, being aware of potential safeguarding issues such as trafficking. They should also ensure that all guests and sponsor households listed on the application are correct and present”. It also advises that councils document their visits. 

The Byline Intelligence Team approached 361 councils across the UK, of which 90 did not respond.