Councillors debate asylum funding call-in

Earlier this month, Wealden District Council’s cabinet agreed to earmark £450,000 of grant money, which the authority expects to receive as a result of the use of Crowborough Army Camp as asylum accommodation.

The cabinet decision was discussed by the council’s overview and scrutiny committee on Tuesday (October 20), following a call-in request from several opposition councillors.

Opposition councillors argued cabinet members had made their decision without “sufficient information”.

Council leader Rachel Millward (Green) pushed back on this argument during the meeting. She said: “We are simply a clearing bank in this operation. There is Home Office money that is coming, via us, to distribute it via their guidelines.

“Their guidelines are strict, their scrutiny is thorough, any overspend or misspend would have to be paid back

“This isn’t us giving a grant to anybody. Our role is to simply distribute Home Office funds according to their rules, not ours.”

She went on to say that the allocations agreed by cabinet were intended to act as a framework for future decisions, with specific funding awards requiring applications from and detailed due diligence of the organisations involved.

She said these awards would also be reviewed by the Home Office.

Cllr Millward also noted that the council does not yet know how much grant funding it will receive from the Home Office, as the final amount will be based on how many people move through the camp.

Cabinet members had agreed to earmark a total of £450,000, as officers had advised this figure would represent a “prudent expectation of income”.

The indicative allocations include £50,000 for Crowborough Town Council and £100,000 for works to improve facilities within the camp itself (which would then be available for RAF and Army cadets once the asylum accommodation ceases to operate).

A further £190,000 has been earmarked for two organisations — Migrant Help and SAMAS — providing work on asylum seeker wellbeing and community cohesion.

Opposition councillors questioned how these allocations had been developed.

In response, officers said the proposals had been developed through conversations with partners who sit on the Multi-Agency Forum (MAF) — a group chaired by the Home Office to coordinate the operation of the camp.

It was also questioned whether the £50,000 figure for Crowborough Town Council would be sufficient to cover its costs, specifically spending connected to the use of CCTV.

In response, officers said Crowborough Town Council had already been consulted, but would also be able to apply for more (or less) funding than the £50,000 allocation at a future date.

Part of the overall grant is expected to go directly to Wealden District Council to alleviate its own costs resulting from the camp’s operations.

A report to cabinet puts this cost at “approximately £110,000” — a figure it says does not include direct officer expenses or work associated with legal proceedings .

The report said this portion of the grant will be “recycled” and go towards the creation of the Crowborough Community Investment Fund (CCIF) — a pot of money to be made available for community projects and initiatives, which respond to the camp.

Following debate, the scrutiny committee voted to take no further action on the call-in.