Decision Maker: Executive Member for Corporate Services
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: Yes
Is subject to call in?: Yes
To consider an urgent request from the Home
Office for North Yorkshire Council to use additional Ministry of
Defence’s (MoD) Service Family Accommodation (SFA) for ARAP
eligible individuals
and their family members currently residing abroad.
To seek approval to use additional MoD SFA properties in North
Yorkshire to
accommodate ARAP individuals and their family members currently
residing abroad.
To approve the use of an additional eight
Ministry of Defence (MoD) Service Family Accommodation (SFA)
properties in North Yorkshire for Afghan ARAP households eligible
to come to the UK who are currently living outside of the UK.
Humanitarian concerns remain about the plight
of the Afghan households who are eligible to live in the UK but are
not able to do so because they have not secured accommodation here.
The MoD properties provides an opportunity for some of those
households to be able to come to the UK without further delay, in
advance of permanent housing being found.
North Yorkshire County Council’s pledge made in February 2023
was to use additional SFA properties in Catterick Garrison for
eligible Afghan citizens living abroad who were seeking relocation
to the UK under the ARAP. Following the closure of the bridging
hotel estate in the UK, the Home Office is now urgently trying to
match Afghan ARAP households overseas to Service Family
Accommodation in the UK.
A collaborative, cross-government approach is in place to support
the effective integration of
the Afghan families under the ARAP.
To not approve the use of an additional eight
MoD SFA properties in North Yorkshire for
Afghan ARAP households eligible to come to the UK who are currently
living outside of the
UK.
Publication date: 26/09/2023
Date of decision: 26/09/2023
Effective from: 04/10/2023
Accompanying Documents: