On Wednesday 3rd May (2023), I and around 20 other hosts who have been co-ordinators under the Homes for Ukraine scheme met with Wiltshire Council Leader Richard Clewer and three of his senior council staff. My thanks to Richard and his team for taking the time to meet, and for a very useful set of discussions and explanations. My double thanks to everyone who helped set up and inform the meeting - David Vigar, Felicity Courage, Caroline Kay and others.

Comments herein are my personal views and understanding, and I am open to correction.

Our guests arrived here to generous hosts in Wiltshire opening their homes for up to 6 months, or 12 months, or longer. Having a family of strangers in our home for a period is no easy thing for either for us as the hosting family, or for the guests who are equally unused to such an arrangement. Furthermore they come from a war-torn land and should be regarded as vulnerable. Although uneasy, it makes sense for guests to live with hosts for a while to help them settle, learn the language, and sort out the issues, establish an ID and living in England.

But then most of these families want to become independent. And that's a problem in Wiltshire. Our Unitary Council, Richard tells us he has a total of 4,500 on the overall housing waiting list. Our private rental market is "broken". Virtually nothing is available for those on Universal Credit. Landlords and agents able to pick and choose who they let to from a sea awash with applicants when a property becomes available. Those landlords will naturally pick tenants who have years of UK security, and are likely to be around for a considerable period rather than being on a three year "no route to settlement" visa and with an intent to leave the UK by mid 2025. It's a big problem.

Landlords are looking for securities (deposits, guarantees) that by the nature of their recent arrival, our guests cannot provide. Wiltshire Council has the power, and the funding, provided by central government to help the Ukrainian program and help overcome these obstacles. It has, however, done so only in a very limited way. It's getting better, but still pretty limited. The Council advertised for a specialist housing officer for a 12-week contract to speak with, inform and help. 8 months later, no one has been attracted to apply for the role, and the work remains undone. There are guest support officers in place, checking that host house provision is adequate, and that guests are OK in homes. Indeed, they help re-host when something goes wrong, but the supply of willing hosts who can afford to house guests is limited.

Wiltshire have been paid more than £10,000 for each guest who has arrived in the UK to help in their resettlement support - though that figure has now dropped for the most recent arrivals (the theory being that systems have been set up). That's a total income of around £15 million. It's intended for the short term support of the guests as they arrive and settle here for a year or two; it includes a thank you payment of £350 per host per month to help towards costs. It does not include things like Universal Credit, medical costs and schooling for which funding come additionally from central government.

Richard told us that he does not want to spend the whole £15 million he has been given for short term support on that short term support, but is rather taking a longer term view. He has a major housing crisis is Wiltshire and asks (with some justification) how doing things like paying the first month's rent for guests moving into the own homes would help his overall problem - "robbing Peter to pay Paul". He tells us that Wiltshire has a far bigger problem that other counties - Richard has not been leader all that long, so perhaps he has a problem here that he's inherited from Jane Scott and Philip Whitehead. "Once it's gone, it's gone" he says. So he's looking to spend the bulk of the money on buying houses. But hang on, Richard:

1. You were given this extra money to help the current wave of guests, and whilst it was not ring-fenced to limit how you spend it, it was stated as intended to help now, and not your longer term problems.

2. You called us out on the morals of "favouritism" support and asked why Ukrainian guests should be treated differently, but in the next breath tell us of other schemes that are only available to Afghan refugees. Difficult topic, but I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it.

3. The housing is starting to come online - "aren't we doing great?". No, not really, it was needed from last autumn (2022) onwards and not with the first homes coming online now and the rest in the next year or so - whilst you may prioritise Ukrainian guests for these homes, by the time they are available to be occupied, most guests will have moved from their hosts. Properties will (surprise, surprise) available for use outside the scheme, helping you overcome your general problem.

4. "Once it's gone, it's gone if we help with rent". Not really - our guests are only in transient need of governmental help. This group is not a "support throughout life" group and they will be repaying taxes back (Council Tax, Income Tax, NI, VAT, etc) once when they're helped over their initial hurdles.

5. The £350 per month per household does not cover the extra costs hosts incur. You are relying on and stretching the goodwill of your hosts by sticking to that sum. Good people who have their household budgets being stretched at present and have taken in refugees are having their kindness and budgets abused. They cannot go on strike, and they do not want to put people out onto the street; your cynical calculation is that you can "get away" with £350 a month - even (as one example from our meeting) a host with 8 guests has brought the council an income of more than £80,000.

6. Purchased houses will be mostly in "Chippenham, Trowbridge and Salisbury" whereas guests are spread across the county - Marlborough and Malmesbury and Melksham - and many a guest family moving to them, after the upheaval of a war move, will be moving again to access them, uprooting children just established in a British School, giving up the new jobs that many have already settled into, and having to take further rebuilding steps.

Am I being reasonable in my concerns? I believe so, and I look at what other counties are doing to give me a check based on what others are doing

a. ALL neighbouring counties have made or are making additional payments over and above the £350. It's a postcode lottery - some have upped it to £600. Others are paying an extra £50 per month per guest. Travel out of Wiltshire to any of our neighbours and you'll find a more generous scheme that's helping guests stay with their hosts and helping avoid the disruption of them having to move on as household budgets are squeezed

b. Other councils are paying first month rentals as people move to rented accommodation (yes, that costs money) and guaranteeing deposits (that is a cheap thing to do).

c. As far as I know, no other council is using the bulk of the money to buy homes which will fit into the general stock. Your wording of "we are not the only ones looking at this" is (no doubt) correct, but clever. You quoted another county who have, I believe, taken a serious look at what you are doing but I have seen no evidence of them adopting a similar scheme, and certainly not putting the bulk of monies intended for immediate support into it.

Richard had a one hour slot to talk to us. And it was really good to have Felicity and others explain the issues to him, and to listen to his response and explanations. But he then had to move on to another meeting, and left us with senior council staff who, however, could make no further comment on political policy. As a group, we did not press such points with them, but I really wonder how they feel about the rather unusual policies they're required to implement in Wiltshire.

Other topics not covered in my narrative above:

The Council HAS helped provide English for Speakers of Other Languages courses. Good, but there remains the issue of them not being difficult to access for many of the guest who have issues such as:
* Fitting in with children and childcare
* Public transport to get to and from classes
* Be at time that do not clash with their (often shift) work.
Not an easy one, and a magic "you can learn online" answer does not suit everyone

The support staff provided by the council have, over time, moved from looking purely after the guests to now having an eye out for the hosts too. There were some appalling examples in the early days, but it has been so much better of late - I can certainly say that in our part of the county, where a closer working relationship between the council officers and the hosting community is working much better. I appreciate it is a concern to professional offers that "do-gooders" in the community might not be fully aware, for example, or all the safeguarding issues and may - with the best of intent - make some situations worse rather than better. But at the same time, talking person to person within our communities does, for example, open up more potential hosts and help us help landlords understand that, actually, these guests are a "good bet" for them as they select tenants for vacant properties.

How do we progress this - "date of next meeting"? Richard considers it impractical to co-ordinate diaries for regular meetings, but has offered ongoing Zoom sessions with his staff. Excellent and an offer to be taken up. However, the overall strategy is set, and whilst the team may be persuaded (for example) to advertise the housing officer role in such a way that it actually encourages people to apply, I don't see Richard making any policy changes and indeed his intent would appear to be that the door is firmly closed to any changes.

Looking further ahead - our guests have 3-year Biometric Residence Permits and are in limbo as to what may happen beyond that point. We and they - for the most part - dream of being able to return safely to Ukraine, but it's anyone's guess as to how the war will drag on and whether remaining infrastructure will support them as they rebuild. Their visas are clearly stated as having "no route for settlement" in the UK. But are we going to chuck them out the year after next? I would doubt that - more than 100,000 people kicked out of the UK, most of whom are the very younger generation we need to be in our workforce. The answer is unclear, but no one has yet given us an answer other than "I'm sure there will be an answer"; I hope it's a caring one, and not a politically motivated one - an answer which looks out for the people concerned, and not just for popular vote.


Image - County Hall, Trowbridge, where we met. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WiltshireCouncilTrowbridge.jpg - under Creative Commons license

     1	   4  39 35 - Christmas Lights  
     2	  29  36  7 - Cafe in Park  
     3	  16  36 20 - Councillors who listen and inform  
     4	   5  36 31 - Flowers and Floral  
     5	  27  35  8 - Town Toilets  
     6	  18  34 16 - Trains  
     7	  16  34 18 - Affordable Housing  
     8	  22  33 11 - Assembly Hall  
     9	  21  33 12 - Parking - in Town  
    10	  17  33 16 - Walking routes and paths  
    11	  20  32 12 - Litter  
    12	  12  32 20 - Street Cleaning  
    13	  25  31  6 - Parking - around schools  
    14	  16  31 15 - Councillors with skill and time  
    15	  15  30 15 - Canal  
    16	  18  29 11 - Buses  
    17	  16  29 13 - Environment including climate  
    18	  13  29 16 - Nature reserve  
    19	  23  27  4 - CCTV  
    20	  20  27  7 - Better cycle routes  
    21	  11  27 16 - Council Staff who are available  
    22	   7  27 20 - Riverside Walk  
    23	  18  25  7 - Museum for Melksham
    24	  18  23  5 - Melksham House  
    25	  13  23 10 - Employment  
    26	  12  23 11 - Carnival  
    27	   9  22 13 - Riverside Site  
    28	   9  22 13 - Neighbourhood Plan  
    29	  22  21 -1 - Bank(s)  
    30	  13  21  8 - Play Areas  
    31	   9  21 12 - Sensory Garden  
    32	   6  21 15 - Better Information  
    33	  24  20 -4 - Speeding and Ratruns  
    34	  17  20  3 - Lighting in Park  
    35	   3  20 17 - Volunteer Support