Thousands of children in the UK, many of them British, are living in dangerous, squalid conditions well below the poverty line as a result of rapid changes to government immigration and benefit policies, a report by the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford warned on Wednesday.



Children are the “collateral damage” of “a dysfunctional system in which they are the ultimate losers” according to the authors of the Compas report, which estimates that 3,391 families and 5,900 children were supported under local authorities’ Section 17 Children Act 1989 duties in 2012/13. Two thirds of families who were supported by local authorities for up to two years or more – at a cost of £28m for the year – were waiting for a decision from the Home Office; of the cases looked at by the study, 52% were granted leave to remain.



Charities seeing an increase in the numbers forced into destitution – with some families living on as little as £1 per person per day – argue it is only a matter of time before a tragedy on the scale of Victoria Climbié occurs to a child from a family who has “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF), a criterion for many attempting to regulate their immigration status.

There is a tension between the desire to keep them out of the welfare state and a legal obligation on local authorities

Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old, was tortured and murdered by her guardians in 2000. Her death led to a public inquiry and produced major changes in child protection policies in the United Kingdom.

NRPF families – including those on visas, overstayers and those applying for British citizenship who cannot work or claim benefits – were being abandoned by the Home Office while their status applications were being processed, leaving cash-strapped local authorities struggling to cope with the burden of caring for children whom they had a legal obligation to protect from destitution.



“There is a real tension between the desire to keep these people out of the welfare state and the legal obligation that falls on local authorities,” said co-author Jonathan Price. “There is a question to be asked about the long-term impact on children of living on subsistence rates that are well below welfare rates.”



The report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, found that support from local authorities varied wildly. Families were grateful for any support they received, but subsistence payments “in all cases were well below support for destitute asylum seekers and hard case support rates”, said the report. One authority provided £23.30 per child per week and nothing for parents: for a family with two parents and one child, a little over £1 per person per day.

Christiana at home in Lancashire. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for The Guardian

Families told the study they struggled to feed and clothe their children and pay for transport or school meals, because they did not qualify for free school meals.

The report, which surveyed 137 children’s services departments in England and Wales as well as 105 voluntary sector organisations, and carried out 92 interviews in eight local authority research sites, found that before receiving help from social services, children were “living highly precarious lives”, with families and particularly mothers sometimes subject to exploitation, prostitution and domestic violence.

Local authorities had a legal duty to protect children from destitution, but the report warned that there was evidence councils (which have had their central funding cut by 40% overall since 2010, according to the Local Government Association), were reluctant to assess families referred to them, with many charities arguing they had to threaten with a legal letter before an assessment was carried out.

Jean Demars, housing project lead at Praxis, a charity in Bethnal Green, east London, estimated that 90% of cases they refer are initially knocked back without assessment. According to the report, because of changes to immigration rules there was a 19% increase in the number of NRPF families getting emergency support from local authorities. “To be fair it’s hard for local authorities, they act unlawfully some times and unfairly at others but the Home Office has created a monster and they have been lumped with it,” he said.

Henry St Clair Miller, team manager of the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) team at Islington council in north London, and manager of the national NRPF network, said authorities were trying to work more closely with the Home Office to resolve cases quicker, but it was a “grey area” that needed more guidance. “It’s a significant problem, primarily from a resource perspective,” he said. “We don’t have sufficient resources to provide accommodation and subsistence. There is a big responsibility placed on social services, but not a statutory clarity about how we should be doing it.”

A family may receive help in one borough but not get an assessment in another, he added. “There will be people falling through the cracks and getting no support at all [...] If you have a report about safeguarding concerns then surely something needs to be done about it, you can’t just ignore it.”

Rita Chadha at the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (Ramfel) said the charity used to deal with one case a week, but now is dealing with cases daily. “The real issue is getting social services to accept they have a responsibility and admit they have a duty of care to make an assessment, but it is extremely difficult to get past the gatekeepers,” she said.

While the report noted that “few local authority interviewees considered taking children into care to be a legitimate consideration at any stage. Advocate and parent interviewees said such ‘threats’ are often made.”

“I cannot think of a single family we have helped who have not been threatened with a phrase like: ‘You have to go back or your children will be taken away,’” said Chadha. “It’s horrendous. We have to tell them they have a right to an assessment, but they are very fearful.”

The report warns that there are “real concerns” about the long-term impact of poverty on these children, but Chadha fears the consequences may come sooner than that.



“In my opinion it is only a matter of time until a serious case review like the Victoria Climbié case, involving a child with no recourse to public funds, happens,” she says. “We are just waiting for a tragedy to happen.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We welcome those who wish to make a life in the UK with their family, work hard and make a contribution. But family life must not be established here at the taxpayer’s expense.

“We work closely with local authorities to ensure that immigration decisions in cases receiving local authority support are made as quickly as possible.

“In exceptional circumstances, or where people granted leave on family grounds show that they would otherwise be destitute, they are granted recourse to public funds.”

Case studies: Christiana

Christiana* was only 18 when she came to London from Sierra Leone, with the promise from an older woman that she could work for her and get an education at the same time. But when she arrived the reality was very different. The woman brought men to the house, and Christiana was forced to have sex with them or she would be thrown into the street. “It was horrible, I didn’t come here for that – I was so scared I had no option but to do what she said,” she says. One night an old man took her to his house, and she refused to do what he wanted – the next day she was homeless.



She slept for several weeks on the streets, trying to avoid men until she finally met a friend and went to live with her. A few years later she met a British man, and thought she was in love. “He said for him to help me I needed to get pregnant, so I got pregnant for him but after he would bring women to the house, he said if I said anything he would call the police and get me sent home. I had to move out.” After the birth of her child, she escaped briefly back to the friend, but because she couldn’t support herself the friend refused to help any longer. Finally, she went with her baby and asked social services for help.

After a day of questioning she was sent to a hostel but no one answered the door. She started to cry, and a passing man said she could stay at his house. “He could have been a killer, he could have killed us both,” she says. Instead he put a roof over her head, and in the morning he and his housemates clubbed together to get her a few pounds to get back to the council offices.



Eventually, she was given a place in a hostel, and £25 in food vouchers a week. Then the local authority told her she had to move to a small Lancashire town, where she now lives with her two-year-old little girl, receiving £50 a week for food, clothes and travel.



“They gave me a train ticket, then I got a bus and the man was waiting with the keys. I’m totally alone here, I don’t know anyone. I’m too scared to leave the house,” she says.



Christiana is now 25. Since they moved over a year ago, they have been visited twice, she says. “You come here to work, to follow your dream – I just want to be given a chance to be a better person for my child,” she says. “I want to help my daughter to be beneficial to society, but Home Office, immigration, social services, they just make it so hard.”

Josie

Josie says: ‘They try and make our life more miserable, they want us to be stressed, depressed and give up.’ Photograph: Graham Turner

Josie came from the Carribean in 2010 and worked as a home help in south London. “I just wanted to earn some money to send home and then go back, but when you come here you can save almost nothing, I ended up just surviving,” she says. After falling pregnant by accident, to a British man, she lost her place as a home help and got kicked out of a friend’s house because she was unable to contribute.



“I left three times to have an abortion, but I just couldn’t do it,” she says. “I didn’t want to go to social services, I heard so many bad stories and I was so scared they would send me back, but I had no choice.” She had her daughter, and was put in a hostel with five families. “It was not a place for a child,” she says. “There was one bathroom, one cooker, mice and roaches everywhere – there were so many people.”



The Home Office have been processing her application since 2013, and the local authority have since given her a small flat and around £70 a week for food. “Now I have no idea what is going to happen,” she says, beginning to cry.



“I am grateful for what they have given me but I just want to live and work like a normal person – I don’t want to die like this. They try and make our life more miserable, they want us to be stressed, depressed and give up. I want to contribute. Not all immigrants are the same. But what can I do. I cannot beat the system.”

Ashake

Ashake, 27, has been living in east London for 17 years, since coming from Nigeria with her sister when she was 15. She had gained papers in order to work, and worked as a cleaner to support her and her son. But when she became sick and had to give up work, they had no recourse to public funds. She stayed with friends, but charity soon ran out.



With nowhere to go and a seven-year-old child to support, she went to the local authority and was told that, because she had £1,800 in her bank account, which she had saved for a decade to pay Home Offices fees for her ongoing application for leave to remain, they would offer no support.



With night drawing in, she presented herself at the local police station, where for two nights her and her son slept on the floor. “It was very cold, my son was crying – we are very unhappy,” she says.



The next day, without being able to wash or change his clothes or eat, her son was unable to go to school. “He is a very well-behaved child, he loves school and he would not stop crying. I just had to take him,” she says.



The council dealing with her section 17 application for support have still not fully assessed Ashake, although they have provided a room in a shared house, but no financial assistance. She lives thanks to the help and food bank at Ramfel, but she remains hopeful about her future.



“This government likes people to work, they don’t like giving money out. My hope is that they will see when I am better I want to work, I will clean, I will do care work. I want to work. Yes.”

*Names have been changed to protect identities