Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of adequacy of the nine-month timescale for the (a) mobilisation of and (b) transition to the new asylum accommodation and support contracts.

The Home Office has designed the project to replace the current asylum accommodation and support services so as to ensure a smooth transition of services from one Provider to another.

The timetable allows eight months for mobilisation and transition activities, which is similar to the time that such activity took when the current contracts came into operation. The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract(AASC) mobilisation transition plans have also built on a number of other lessons, including the creation of a team with suitable experience, expertise and understanding of the new contracts and the early engagement with enabling functions from across the Home Office to plan out the demands that will be placed on them.

As we move to the mobilisation phase we will increase our engagement with Local Authorities, where my officials will be happy to discuss and address any concerns that Local Authorities have with the transition plans^.