Dispersal policy 'put asylum-seekers at risk' -The Independent.

Dispersal policy 'put asylum-seekers at risk'
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 16 March 2007

Asylum-seekers were put at risk by the Government's much-criticised policy of dispersing them around the country, according to a Home Office report which the department refused to publish.
Tens of thousands of adult refugees have been moved around the country since 2000 in an attempt to relieve the pressure on London and the South-east.
Although numbers of asylum-seekers have fallen sharply in recent years, the policy is still in place, and the Home Office has indicated that it could be widened to include unaccompanied under-18s.

Private research conducted for the Home Office nearly five years ago by academics from Oxford Brookes University laid bare the extent of problems with the policy. It followed the murder of a refugee in Sighthill, Glasgow, the stabbing of another in Hull, and reports of rising community tensions in several northern towns and cities. The research was never released by the Home Office, which finally published it yesterday under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.
The researchers warned that asylum-seekers had been sent to "highly volatile environments" where they encountered hostility and prejudice. They said there was "a worrying level of spontaneous racial harassment and racial attacks. The procurement of housing in the poorest areas polarises entrenched views held by the host community against the incomers."
This has left asylum-seekers isolated from their local community and lacking help and advice, the academics told the Home Office.

They pointed to a series of problems in the north-west of England, which has received large numbers of refugees. The Moston and Cheetham Hill districts of Manchester were considered "extremely dangerous and very unpleasant environments" by refugees.
"All asylum-seekers interviewed in these two areas reported wanting to move elsewhere, having experienced constant threats and verbal harassment.
Asylum-seekers placed in Toxteth and Everton also reported racial harassment and, in some cases, physical abuse, the study said.

Tensions in Everton were exacerbated by the perception that asylum-seekers were getting preferential treatment at the district's health centre.
"Many asylum-seekers complained of hostility from local ethnic minority populations, in contrast to what they referred to as 'English people'," the study said.
It also uncovered a host of practical problems and mistakes in the introduction of the dispersal programme. One example was a Somali family being sent to live in Redcar, Cleveland, despite no other Somalis living in the town and no translators being available.

Anna Reisenberger, acting chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "This confirms what asylum- seekers have been telling us for many years - the dispersal system left them vulnerable to racism and extreme isolation. The efforts that have been made to improve their plight since this report was filed must be continued by everyone concerned."
Nick Clegg, the home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, who made the FoI request, said: "No wonder the Government buried this report. It is a devastating condemnation of its centrepiece asylum dispersal policy.

"Breaking up families and then dumping asylum seekers in sub-standard accommodation in some of our poorest communities was always bound to backfire. It was a policy that was neither humane nor practical."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "The material in this report is historic and was not published previously because it did not affect our policy on the dispersal of asylum seekers."