Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the need for contingency asylum accommodation contracts to include training for frontline staff to understand the vulnerabilities of people seeking asylum.

To ensure staff working in all asylum accommodation have the skills and experience for the role the providers have a training programme as required by the Asylum Accommodation and Support Services contracts (AASC). Additionally, employees are subject to pre employment checks.

The contracts are published and the requirements of the contract are set out in the Statement of Requirements, this includes provisions around training and the training programme for those with face-to-face contact with our customers.

The Provider must fully equip and train staff (including volunteers) to ensure they are able to fulfil their roles and ensure appropriate and sufficient security provisions are made for all staff undertaking face-to-face activities. Those with face to face contact must cover the following:

• Ethnic diversity and cultural awareness
• Suicide and self-harm awareness and prevention
• Basic First Aid
• Gender based violence
• Fire Safety
• Health and Safety
• Vicarious Trauma
• Unconscious Bias
• Counter Terrorism
• Modern Slavery

As a minimum, provider staff should receive refresher training on the requirements listed above annually (i.e. refresher training completed every twelve (12) months), or more regularly if required.