Guidance issued to social workers at the Kent Intake Unit (KIU), including guidance on age assessment, has been ruled unlawful by a High Court judge. A full copy of the judgment can be found here
The ruling found that the decision not to implement a full Merton compliant age assessment was unlawful and that detention of two young people at the KIU was also unlawful.
Mr Justice Henshaw summarised the case as follows: “Since September 2020, the SSHD has been detaining newly arrived unaccompanied young people at the KIU, a short-term detention holding facility at Dover port, and carrying out short assessments of their age using social workers whom she has employed. These assessments are conducted inter alia where the young person’s claimed age is in doubt but the SSHD’s officers do not consider that their physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggest that they are significantly over the age of 18.”
The KIU guidance was withdrawn from use on 14 January with the Home Office stating there was no longer a need for social workers at the KIU to undertake abbreviated age assessments following the Home Office’s decision to change the threshold that its immigration officials can apply to age disputed cases.
The Home Office also stated that age assessment arrangements at the KIU were only ever intended to be a temporary measure to deal with the “unprecedented circumstances” that arose in autumn 2020, when Kent County Council made the decision to no longer accept unaccompanied minors into their care.
At ISWS we have seen a significant increase in requests for independent age assessments, many of which have come through the KIU. We know that this policy has also had a significant impact on Local Authorities all over the UK, who have suddenly had to accommodate large numbers of young people who were dispersed to hotels as adults. Set against the backdrop of the National Transfer Scheme rota which is moving at an unprecedented speed, Local Authorities have been put under huge pressure to provide services to young people in a practice area that might not be familiar.
We are yet to see the impact of withdrawing this guidance but at ISWS, we hope it takes the pressure down a notch, allowing Local Authorities to breath a bit easier, even if that’s just in the short term.
