London Councils: 'Short-term migrants must be counted'

Councils are losing out on million of pounds in funding because the government does not include short-term migrants in their grant calculations, London Councils warned today.

The warning comes after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released estimates for the number of short-term migrants found in each local authority. Short-term migrants are migrants who move to an area for more than one month but stay for less than 12 months.  

The figures show that, of the estimated flow of 1,295,000 short-term migrants coming to England and Wales in the year to mid-2007, over a third (480,000) went to London boroughs.

Seven of the top 10 local authorities receiving the most short-term migrants were found in London, with Westminster at the top, receiving 62,800 short-term migrants – or 27 per cent of the borough’s mid-2007 population.

However, because these estimates are still at a ‘developmental’ stage, they will not be used to help allocate funding to local authorities.

Short-term migrants are not currently included in the population estimates that are a key component in determining council funding from central government.

So even though these migrants live in a local area and use public services in that area, councils will not receive any funding to help provide those services.

London Councils estimates that each borough receives around £600 for every resident under the government’s main source of funding, the revenue support grant.

But population data also helps determine funding from other specific grant streams, so uncounted members of the population result in thousands of pounds in missing funding.

London Councils’ Chairman Councillor Merrick Cockell said: “These new estimates prove what we have long been arguing – there are thousands of short-term migrants in the capital that local authorities simply aren’t receiving funding for, even though these people use council services. 

“We need the ONS to complete their work on these estimates urgently so they can be quickly mainstreamed to ensure London’s councils are fairly funded for short-term migrants.”