Local Authority support for migrant families who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF)

What is it about?

The ‘Air Jamaica generation’ of undocumented migrant families who came to the UK over the past 30 years, have received less political and scholarly attention than the so-called Windrush generation, yet are some of the most socially excluded in the UK. These families, particularly those with dependent children, are often invisible in social policy discussions because they lack the legal right to paid employment, and are subject to the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) rule, which excludes them from accessing the majority of welfare state services, including most social security benefits, local authority housing and homelessness assistance. One of the few statutory welfare services which undocumented migrant children and families do have the entitlement to are services provided by local authority children’s services. This paper analyses the levels of support provided to undocumented children by local authorities under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, arguing that in the absence of access to mainstream social security benefits, the level of support provided is not an adequate safety net to prevent poverty and to protect a child’s health and wellbeing. The article concludes that the lack of support to prevent undocumented migrant children falling into poverty and destitution is rooted in discriminatory legislation and policy, and results in situations which are structural in cause, but which would be viewed as neglectful if as a result of action by an individual parent or carer.

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Photo by ev on Unsplash

Photo by ev on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It expands on the concept of 'statutory neglect' by analysing the level of subsistence support provided by local authority children's services to families with NRPF. By using freedom of information requests the article is able to compare subsistent support levels with the HBAI poverty line and the JRF minimum income standards. Subsistence support was below both of these measures of deprivation.