The Committee considered a report by the Head of Planning, Housing and Health (circulate previously) regarding the Illegal Migration Act cap on safe and legal routes consultation.

The Head of Performance Management highlighted the following:

·       The Government had launched a consultation with local authorities to introduce an annual cap on the number of refugee entrants using safe and legal routes coming to the UK.

·       To date, the Council had responded positively to each of the specific refugee resettlement schemes established by Government. This consultation, however, provided the Council with the opportunity of setting out its capacity to house and support refugees against a clear local policy objective. This would promote the place – based approach advocated by Government.

·       The Council already supported safe routes in relation to the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme which were supported by statutory partners and Pickwell Foundation.

·       This provided the Council with an opportunity to review its existing arrangements with local groups and statutory partners to meet criteria needs of people relocation to North Devon as well as supporting integration into local employment and communities.

·       The draft NDC policy statement on refugee resettlement was set out in paragraph 4.5 of the report.

·       A realistic and evidenced based picture on North Devon’s capacity to house and support refugees in 2025, in accordance with the draft policy statement, was 5 households within the North Devon District area. They would need to be accommodated in homes exclusively delivered through community sponsorship schemes. 3 – 4 of these would be single person households. 1 household could be a larger family who has a 3 bedroom need. 1 family could also be accommodated who has a greater complexity of need, e.g. who requires their property to be adapted in some way.

·       The deadline for the end of the consultation was on the 15 December 2023.  A non return would be interpreted as a “zero capacity commitment”.

In response to a question from the Committee, the Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised that in addition to the funding set out in paragraph 5.1 of the report that the Council would also have access to the Disabled Facilities Grant programme to put forwards an application to finance any adaptations to a property if required and therefore would not be an additional cost to the Council.

The Committee wished to thank Jeremy Mann, the former Head of Planning, Housing and Health who had recently retired from the Council, for this final report and for all his hard work and support to the Council over the years.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the draft local policy objective on refugee settlement as detailed in paragraph 4.5 of the report be approved;

(b)  That the Chief Executive be delegated authority to put forward the proposal to Government as detailed in paragraph 4.7 of the report on behalf of North Devon Council or for this information to form part of a collaborative response (Team Devon, whole SW region) if this is considered to be a more appropriate and flexible option.