Homes for Ukraine Tariff Grants across the UK: FOI release

Information requested

1. The UK Government's Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities provides details of the number of 'Homes for Ukraine' per-person TARIFF GRANTS (£10.5k) which have been provided to local authorities across the UK which support local authorities in their provision of wrap-around support to individuals and families from Ukraine to rebuild their lives and integrate into communities. Please provide details of all internal Scottish government discussion/meetings/correspondence (including between Ministers, civil servants and SPADs) which mentions and relates to the number of Tariff Grants which have been claimed by local authorities in Scotland. Please restrict the search dates to between July 2022 and the present day.

2. Data information provided by the UK Government's Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities indicates that, for the period between the launching of the Homes for Ukraine scheme and the end of June 2023, Sixteen thousand, three hundred and fifty-three (16,353) Tariff Payments have been claimed from the UK Government by Local Authorities across Scotland. Please confirm whether the Scottish Government considers this figure to be an accurate reflection of the number of displaced Ukrainians with a Scottish Individual Sponsor or Scottish Government Super-sponsor who have arrived and are living within the communities of Scotland.

Response

Question 1.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. Under Section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) of the correspondence you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:  http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

Question 2.

The answer to your question is: ‘More than 26,000 Ukrainians on a visa with a Scottish Sponsor have arrived in the UK, many of whom will have made their own accommodation arrangements and may never have been in contact with a local authority. All UK visaholders are free to live and work where they choose and their movements are not routinely tracked within the UK. Many Ukrainian arrivals may have self-matched with a volunteer host, assisted by a charity or support network or simply made their own arrangements. Those people may never be in contact with a welcome hub or local authority seeking accommodation and so funding claims would not be made in these cases.

All Scottish Local Authorities are in practice therefore only claiming for Ukrainians that they hold sufficient data on ie those they directly provide services to such as those who have been individually hosted or who have spent significant time in welcome accommodation. This is by no means all the Ukrainians that are currently in Scotland. The tariff claims are not designed to be a means of counting all Ukrainians living in a given area and it is incorrect to use them in this way.’

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