Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to Written Answer of 12 December 2023 to Question 5046 on Migrants: Health Services and Housing, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of data sharing between stakeholders and local authorities; and what plans he has to improve it.

We continue to work closely with local authorities (LAs) and share regular, timely and relevant data and Management Information in the form of heat maps to allow effective planning and understand the geographical distribution of asylum seekers in the UK.

Whilst provision of healthcare is not a statutory duty or obligation for the Home Office, ensuring those in our care are sufficiently looked after and safe is the right thing to do. Home Office and health partners already collaborate with local authorities and others, to make this happen at an operational and tactical level; however, strategic oversight and shared direction have been lacking.

We are building on these products and following feedback from LAs, have increased the breadth of information contained to include further details including accommodation type and demographics.

In conjunction with our strategic migration partnerships, we continue to work with LA forums and other partners to understand and identify ways of managing impacts.

Heatmaps are shared with local authorities to provide an indication of the number of decisions and therefore cessations that could flow through down to LA level because of the increase in decisions made this year. The data only provides a snapshot in time and is heavily caveated as it is taken from live sources and therefore has not been assured to the level that published data has been and as such there are no plans to share it with Honourable Members.