Collective data recorded on NRPF Connect demonstrates that councils provide essential ‘safety-net’ support to safeguard the welfare of families, adults with care needs and young people leaving care who have no recourse to public funds and are at risk of homelessness or have insufficient income to meet their basic living needs. In the financial year 2024–25, 91 councils in England, Scotland and Wales collectively spent £94m supporting just over 5,700 households with no recourse for public funds.
While restricting people from accessing benefits remains a central aspect of UK immigration policy, alleviating migrant homelessness, destitution, and child poverty will remain a key area of social care practice. The UK government must recognise the vital role that local government plays in delivering this essential safety-net for residents with no recourse to public funds by providing funding and clearly defining legal duties in existing statutory guidance for social care practitioners.
It will be essential to continue the successful partnership between the Home Office and councils that has been established through NRPF Connect, but the high time-on-support averages and significant number of households supported on a long-standing basis demonstrate that existing processes are insufficient to reduce costs to councils. In 2024–25, adults with care needs received support for an average of just under 2.5 years and families an average of just under 1.5 years, with 30% and 16% of households, respectively, receiving support for at least 1,000 days.
Therefore, more needs to be done by the Home Office to enable councils to effectively promote the welfare of children and adults receiving support, and to prevent local government from holding the financial burden of supporting people on a long-term basis, in recognition that many households will obtain leave to remain or be unable to return to their country of origin. A grant of leave to remain was the case closure reason provided for 66% of families and 54% of adults whose support was ended during 2024–25.
To reduce the need for long-term local authority support, it is also essential that the government takes steps to ensure that people with pre-settled status who are at risk of destitution access benefits in line with recent case law, and that people in the asylum system who are eligible for Home Office accommodation have support implemented without unnecessary delay.
It is particularly concerning that a high proportion of families that were referred for (32% of referrals), or were receiving (28% of supported households), support in 2024–25 had leave to remain with a NRPF condition.The UK government should not put more residents at risk of destitution through extending immigration-related restrictions and should enable people with leave to remain to be assisted through the benefits system at times of need.
Content updated: 23 October 2025
