Luton’s children’s services under strain after migrants moved from Manston

Luton Borough Council's children's services have dealt with an added burden after the exodus of migrants from an immigration centre in Manston, a meeting heard.

On Wednesday (January 11), a meeting of its scrutiny children's services review group was told that the council received 40 referrals over a three-month period, compared to six it usually gets.

During a presentation on the Luton Safeguarding Children Board annual report 2021/22, the group was told that specialist processing work has meant upskilling some staff.

LBC's service director quality and improvement Damian Elcock explained: "One element of increase is around the referrals through young people presenting as unaccompanied minors seeking asylum.”

He said: ”We used to get two referrals a month. Between the middle of October, when there was the mass removal of people from Manston, and now we've had about 40. So 40 in three months as opposed to normally about six.”

Mr Elcock added. "That's a significant demand pressure that has arisen, for which we were unprepared as we weren't expecting it.”

Migrants from the Manston centre were dispersed around the country, putting unexpected pressure on the local authority.

Independent chairman and scrutineer for Luton Safeguarding Children Board Alan Caton said: ”There's a good culture of learning and continuous improvement, and a real desire across Luton to make our services better. As a partnership, it's really important we hear the voices of children and young people.”

He added: “They have concerns about mental health, and problems around gang activity, serious youth violence and knife crime.

"We look at trends and how Bedfordshire Police are performing with children in custody, and how health perform with children in acute settings with suicidal ideation, drug overdose, and with knife crimes.”

Mr Caton criticised the police and the health services for not contributing as much to the safeguarding partnership as he think should they should.

He continued: “It's a tripartite partnership jointly led by police, the council and the BLMK integrated care board.”

"That cost has disproportionately always fallen on the local authority and that's the case pretty much across the country."