Report highlights problems faced by asylum-seeking children classified as adults

In 2023, more than 3,400 UASCs arrived in the UK seeking protection. Beyond this statistic, there is a growing number of unaccompanied young people subject to “flawed” Home Office age assessments at the UK border.

Home Office data shows a 450 per cent increase in age disputes, from 853 in 2020 to 4,698 in 2023. These young people are often sent to adult accommodation sites, where they lack support and protection. Many are sent to Scotland.

JustRight Scotland’s report, Unlocking Support: Age Disputed Young People in Scotland, highlights systemic barriers to these young people accessing local authority support.

The report notes that there are significant barriers to referral to statutory local authority child safeguarding support. These include local authority delays of weeks or months to meet young people, unlawful refusals to engage by simply relying on the flawed Home Office age assessment, and demands that referrals arrive via the police. These barriers often trap children and young people, many of whom are victims of trafficking, in unsafe accommodation shared with adults.

The second issue is the fairness and consistency of local authority ‘brief enquiry’ age assessments when they do meet the young people. Evidence obtained from freedom of information requests to 32 Scottish local authorities reveals a “postcode lottery” of practice.

Of the local authorities that record the data, 41 per cent of young people referred to local authorities are found to be adults based on a single brief enquiry meeting. However, practice and outcomes vary widely between local authorities. In particular, local authorities that receive higher numbers of age disputed cases are more likely to classify young people as adults, leading to unfair and unequal treatment depending on where the young person seeks help.

Moreover, many decisions by local authorities to treat young people as adults are eventually overturned when challenged by legal representatives, revealing fundamental questions of fairness in their conduct. Finally, there exists an emerging pattern that some local authorities are failing to provide adequate accommodation to young people they accept are or could be children, leaving vulnerable young people in dangerous conditions, unsafe housing, or even street homelessness.