Refugee Resettlement

Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme

The government announced that the 20,000 local authority pledges required to meet the Government's commitment to resettle Syrian refugees have been secured. However, government has indicated that a local authority that has not yet pledged any places but wants to get involved can still indicated their wish to participate. This allows government to ensure new arrivals can be settled in the places that can best meet the needs of families and because the VPR is not the only resettlement scheme with which the support and assistance of local authorities is needed.

Councils will receive a contribution to their costs for five years. The Chancellor announced that over £460 million of the overseas aid budget will be used by 2019-20 across the statutory sector to assist with first year costs. Government will provide around a further £130 million by 2019-20 just to local authorities to contribute to the costs of supporting refugees up to their fifth year, including an 'extreme cases' fund that will assist with high cost cases. Other statutory services will receive funding via the normal routes after year one.

Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme

It was announced in April 2016, that the government will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to resettle children and adults from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In January 2016, the government announced that it had commissioned the UNHCR to develop and lead a new initiative to resettle vulnerable children impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.

The new scheme will be specifically tailored to support vulnerable and refugee children at risk and their families. Several hundred individuals will be resettled over the next year with a view of resettling up to 3,000 over the lifetime of this Parliament. On the UNHCR’s recommendation, the scheme will not solely target unaccompanied children, but will also extend to vulnerable children at risk, such as those threatened with child labour, child marriage and other forms of abuse or exploitation. It will be open to all ‘at risk’ groups and nationalities within the region.

The scheme will continue to run alongside other resettlement schemes and other asylum procedures. Central and local government also have been working together to operate resettlement schemes for many years.

UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS)

This programme builds on the best aspects of the above two schemes and the longer running but smaller Gateway programme. It remains a voluntary scheme which will focus on the refugees in most need of settlement protection as recommneded by UNHCR. At present, this continues to be those fleeing Syria but it could change over the course of the scheme. The Government has pledged to resettle 5,000 people in the first year of the programme and is currently asking councils to pledge what support they think they can offer. The 5 year funding tariff remains, in line with the VPR and VCR programmes.

Refugee Resettlement - East of England

All counties in the Eastern region are participating in one or both of the above resettlement schemes. Please contact us if you would like to find more information or provide help. At a district level if your area is not currently participating in the scheme, then we would be happy to share information about the Community Sponsorship opportunity. This allows community groups to be directly involved in supporting the vulnerable people.
We have some amazing individuals and organisations who are working on receiving refugees. We are here to support this work and coordinate the resettlement of people in the East of England.

Anyone wishing find out more details of the work in your region including opportunities to volunteer or to donate money or goods to support refugees can check the following website.

www.gov.uk/helprefugees

Below are contact details of projects in the East of England who support refugee families on the resettlement programme.

For more information about the current resettlement schemes, community sponsorship scheme and to find you what you can do in parts of the counties where refugee resettlement is not yet happening, please get in touch with us:

Kate O'Driscoll: [email protected] / 07920 257964

Humeira Yaqub: [email protected] / 07815 013211