Councils in the south spent more than £31million on social care for asylum seekers last year, new figures reveal, with unaccompanied children driving most of the cost.
Data published by TaxPayers’ Alliance from local authority spending shows that Hampshire County Council, Southampton City Council, Portsmouth City Council and the Isle of Wight together spent approximately £31.7million supporting asylum seekers during the most recent financial year.
The vast majority of the cost fell on Hampshire County Council, which spent £23.935million on asylum seeker social care in 2024, making it the second-highest spending council in the country on asylum seeker social care, after Kent County Council, which spent £41.5million.
This marked a dramatic rise compared with previous years, when the council went from zero expenditure in 2019 to nearly £24million within 5 years.
Of the county’s total, £20.1million went to support looked-after asylum-seeking children, while £1.92million went to adult asylum seekers.
Government figures show Hampshire was responsible for 305 unaccompanied children as of March 2024, falling to 181 by March 2025.
According to the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the increase has been driven by a combination of rising adult social care pressures and a growth in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) entering local authority care.
Under national arrangements, adults and families may be placed in local authority areas through the Home Office’s dispersal system. However, unaccompanied children become the statutory responsibility of the local authority as soon as they present at a port, airport, coastline or immigration processing site.
In the wider region, Southampton City Council recorded the second-highest expenditure, spending £3.32million on asylum seeker support in 2024. About £1.6million of this supported looked-after children.
This represented a small decrease of around 0.8% compared with the previous year, when spending totalled £3.35million.
Portsmouth City Council spent £2.416million, up 14% year on year, with £2.4million going to looked-after children.
The Isle of Wight Council spent £2.096million, down from £2.458million in 2023, including £1.26million on looked-after children.
Home Office data shows that, as of March 2025, more than 1,300 asylum seekers were receiving support from local authorities across Hampshire. Of these, Portsmouth was supporting 749 people, while Southampton supported 286.
So, the IW Council spent over 2 millions pounds on social care yet we had to sell our home to pay for care home fees for someone who lived and worked all their life on the Isle of Wight. This person contributed highly to the Isle of Wight and got kicked in the teeth when they heeded help.
It doesn’t hurt the island to do their bit for the cause.
Children are children wherever they are from, they should
all be given a chance in life.
IW Council can do such much more, many of the
schools on the island have places for extra children.
“many of the
schools on the island have places for extra children.”
You absolutely kidding me? Are you forgetting the school closures and attempted school closures?
Also, what do you mean about us doing our bit for children? The parents have decided to send them over here “unoccupied”. Yes, they are children, but there should be a national centre for these kids as if they spread all these kids all over the country, each school will be limited to teach them correctly as they don’t speak English. It will be a detriment to our schools and children when vast resources are used from every area of the nation to provide for them.
Diversity is great for the country.
No its not, it splits the population into their own groups
Fully agree, I would comment more tho it would get pulled
You must be tripping, or in a position of financial security. As ‘comment’ said, you pay in all your life, to a corrupt system, that then f*cks you over, when you most need it.
If our country was booming instead of teetering on third world status, due to years of mismanagement by the numpties in power, MAYBE take these overheads in. As we are bankrupt as a nation, why waste what little there is on non nationals?
Ryde resident makes a lot of sense, reread it.
And diversity is utter bollox, no benefit at all, apart from separating people into their own smaller groups, less likely to get together and over throw the gov and the corporations. That their idea of diversity.
You will own nothing, and be happy.
“diversity is utter bollox”
Well as, long as you’re content to eat just ‘British Food’, then maybe you’re right.
if you never want to eat curry, or chineese, ot thai, or itallian,….
but if, like most people, you like a bit of ‘diversity’ in your eating, (and culture).
then diversity of population is necessary…..
also , er. “you pay in all your life, to a corrupt system, that then f*cks you over”….
but of course the reality is that it doesn’t actually work that way,..
What you paid in, has nothing to do with supporting you in later life… what you paid was used to provide support & services at the time,,.
what you get now, is what is paid in now.. & popular opinion seems to be that people now don’t want to pay extra tax, so you can have a nice retirement.
but you’re right in “If our country was booming instead of teetering on third world status, due to years of mismanagement by the numpties in power”… if Thatcher hadn’t started the rot of selling off all public assets, to fund tax breaks (mostly for the rich), maybe we wouldn’t have the situation, whereby the billionaire class, has all the money & the rest of us have f*ck all….
but what to do ????
vote the CONservatives back in & just get more of the same,..
or vote Reform in & get it even worse….
Lefty gibberish
Would just like to point out that the ‘zero expenditure from 2019 to nearly 24 million in five years is a little misleading in several ways;
The levels of asylum seeking has not gone from zero, but the costs of contracts awarded which the previous government brought in in 2019 as a result of being privately ‘contracted out’. In other words, prior to 2019 central government paid for crap, minimal accommodation. And still the refugee numbers grew. Those contracts were initially expected to cost 4.5 billion over 10 years. Current estimate is actually 15 billion over 10 years. That’s the result of many ‘hotel’s’ popping up to cream off the crisis.No, we don’t have 3 times as many asylum applicants but the backlog from 2016-2024 was significant and static.
The unaccompanied children is a result of the National Transfer Scheme of 2016 and was introduced to facilitate the voluntary transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASCs) between local authorities. This became mandatory for all councils to participate in as of November 2021.
You read that right: 2021.
Remember who to blame for the mis-management and the get-rich-quick schemes before anyone starts pointing the finger at kids who’ve already lost too much.
Lost?? Who wouldn’t want a free ride in a new country?
I do agree we have been totally shafted by the old boy network, and its probably too late to revolt against them. Although that option is in the Magna Carta.
For more clarity.
Home Office: Retains responsibility for providing accommodation and financial support under the 1999 Act, often using private providers (Mears, Serco, Clearsprings). AKA disaster capitalists
Local Councils: Responsible for social care of unaccompanied children and providing support to adults who have been granted refugee status (known as the “move-on” period).
Funding Shifts: While the Home Office funds the initial accommodation, the financial burden on local authorities has increased significantly due to the need to support “move-on” cases, with some councils reporting astronomical increases in costs between 2019 and 2025.
They definitely need moving on
So, if I’ve got my maths right, Hampshire Council spent £66k for each asylum seeking child in 2024. Surely the local authorities that have the statutory responsibility for asylum seeking children should receive additional funding from central government?
Statutory responsibility should be putting on a boat, end of.
Concentrate on sorting issues for tax paying nationals.
Labour continually add to the financial hardship of council tax payers. Can’t get a library or public loos, but we can fund any chancer who fancies a free ride..
It was Tory policy. Labour didn’t make those rules. They did it so they didn’t have to increase central gov’t (income) Tax, again, because that’s Tory policy. Instead it hits as council tax. Either way, it has to be paid for, just as it does in every other country.
Whichever shower of stinking excrement is in ‘charge’ the working classes will be paying for it.
It is always foolhardy to pontificate unti one has one’s facts. The policies which have led to these high costs were all introduced by the Tories when then were in government. The Labour government has already massively reduced the number of assylum seekers residing in hotels – a policy the Tories introduced as their mates who owned the hotels have made a packet out of the scheme.
Labour have done very little to stop this. On re election they could have stopped it within weeks turned them all back as they arrived.
Kier Starver is innocent of the Reichstag fire. And thats about it. They are all the same bunch of …..
Facts will dispel your foolhardy Labour bias. They have been in office for less than 2, very destructive years.
Record business failures and unemployment as a direct result of Starmers failure.
People no longer believe the tales of labour greatness.
Exactly!! Britain is now the laughing stock of the world, with our succession of pocket lining governments, ignoring the voters
About £230 quid for every person on The Island, assuming we have 140,000 here. Astonishing.
You know what’s coming council tax to go up? To pay for more invaders.
It will bo up any way.
25% of our Council tax money goes into the
Council pension pot.
No doubt and those halfwits on the council for doing such sterling work
And so our council tax is going up to pay for it all.
What a joke the councils are.
Sorry but we just can not afford all this and we all suffer because we are expected to accommodate these asilem seekers.
It’s going to change when REFIRM GET IN.
Bang on brother, those county hall retards dont need another reason to throw our money away. They have excelled at that for years.
i think they should deal with our own children first not the asylum seekers should get anything from our country why should they
Unfortunately there is not much virtual signalling looking after our kids. Far better drag the soap box out, tell everyone how bad we are and thrust their skewed ideology into the public domain and brand a swastika on anyone with a different opinion
Actually Local authorities get direct payments from government for every asylum child looked after around £145 per day, plus £6000 extra for first 3mths,it’s not all funded by local Council Tax payers.
No its paid by income tax payers, the same mugs who pay council tax. The gov doesn’t have a magic hat producing money.
And how the fuck does it cost £145 a day???!! For one of them !!! Then two grand a month sodding ridiculous.
Thats more than probably 90% of our home grown children get spent on them. Absolutely disgusting.
IT ALWAYS WAS you plum!
And interestingly, it costs far more to keep kids in the care system in general because of the amount of band-wagon jumpers opening up ‘children’s homes’.
But you carry on begrudging a tenner a year on your council tax so a child from somewhere else other than your back yard can have a better life.
#I’m-alright-jack-and-I-intend-to keep-it-that-way-by-voting-Deform.