Bath and North East Somerset Council is expecting its suspension of looking after more unaccompanied children who came to the UK to seek asylum will end this month.

The council has not accepted any of the children into its care system since September, when it wrote to the government to request a pause due to "significant financial pressure." Now a council officer has said that it expects to start taking the children into its care again this month.

Children who arrive in the UK as asylum seekers without a parent or caregiver are put into the care of local authorities, with the responsibility shared across the country to avoid overwhelming social services in the council areas where most arrivals take place such as Kent. Known as the national transfer scheme, it has been mandatory for all councils since 2022.

Questioning the council's stance at a council scrutiny panel on January 15, Lambridge councillor Joanna Wright said: "A lot of residents think we are a very wealthy city and, if we can't accept child asylum seekers, then where else in the rest of the country can accept them?"

Council cabinet member for children's services Paul May said: "We have been taking our share. Other local authorities in the South West, when we were looking, weren't actually taking their share and it was adversely affecting our budgets really quite badly — to the tune of £2.4m. So it was something we had to address."

Under the national transfer scheme, the amount of unaccompanied children assigned to a council is not meant to be more than 0.1% of its child population. But the council's director of children's services and education Mary Kearney-Knowles said that Bath and North East Somerset had accepted more than this.

She told councillors: "Our chief executive wrote to the Home Office to request could we pause referrals through the end of March because we had exceeded our 0.1% and a range of other local authorities across the South West had not. […]

They did for a period but it is likely referrals will continue in January because we are below our 0.1% now in terms of the quota."

In the 2022 to 2023 financial year, the council accepted 32 of the children into its care. Explaining the reasons for the suspension when it was first mentioned to councillors in November, Mr May said: "We should care for them, that is not the issue.

"But if their case is not dealt with by the Home Office by the time they get to 18, they then come into our requirements around 18-25s and there is no funding actually given for that so it is a real cost issue."

Although the council they are assigned to will be their corporate parent responsible for their care, many of the children will actually be placed in a different local authority area where they may have already been located before being referred to a council or where they may have family or friends.

The last unaccompanied child accepted by Bath and North East Somerset Council in September was placed in a town in another local authority to be close to a family member, although Bath and North East Somerset Council remains responsible for their care.