Officials responsible for ramping up the UK's response to the Syrian refugee crisis have "achieved a great deal" quickly, but must do more to reassure councils over the government's long-term commitment to the programme, according to a new report by the public spending watchdog.
United Nations figures show that almost five million Syrians have sought refuge from the bitter conflict in their home country over the past five years, with over a million applying for asylum in Europe alone during that time.
Amid a public outcry over the UK government's limited response to the refugee crisis last year, then-prime minister David Cameron ordered an expansion of the existing Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme, which had resettled just 239 refugees at that point.
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The new target called for 20,000 Syrians who had fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey to be settled in Britain by 2020.
One year on from the relaunch, a new report by the National Audit Office finds that 2,659 Syrians – or 13% of the target – have now been resettled, and the Resettlement Scheme's programme team – based in the Home Office but drawing in officials from across government – wins praise for having "successfully expanded the original programme at speed".
The NAO says that a Christmas 2015 target of taking in 1,000 Syrians was met through "good partnership working across central and local government, strong working relationships with international partners and a concerted effort by all involved", and the spending watchdog finds that the programme team then built on this "labour intensive" pre-Christmas push to put the programme on a more sustainable long-term footing.
"The programme team sensibly reduced internal targets and expectations of the programme in the first quarter of 2016 to allow time to redesign it in the light of lessons learned," the NAO says. "This redesign considered crucial aspects of the programme, such as improving process efficiency and communication and designing a monitoring and evaluation framework."
The redesigned programme is now, the NAO says, seeing an average of 348 refugees resettled every month with the team "confident they are on track" to meet the 20,000 target by 2020.
However, the watchdog says central government needs to make sure "the goodwill of all involved is turned into actions", and warns that under-pressure town halls could still struggle to support resettled people for the full five years of the programme.
"Local authorities continue to face budget cuts and if higher than predicted costs impact local authorities’ ability to deliver quality services, the chances of refugees integrating successfully into the UK will be at risk," it says.
The NAO also finds that some local authorities are still unsure about how much they will expected to contribute to the scheme, which is initially funded through the UK's aid budget before central support tapers off in the later years.
And it says that while refugees interviewed by the NAO themselves had "received a warm welcome from their new communities", some remained "unsure of their rights in the UK" or what would happen to them at the end of the five-year programme of support.
Launching the report, NAO head Amyas Morse said: “The programme team achieved a great deal in a short amount of time, resettling much larger numbers of refugees than previous programmes, due in large part to the dedication and goodwill of those involved.
“The characteristics of the refugees arriving in the UK will become clearer over time. With this new information, the programme team must adapt budgets so that no organisation taking part in the programme struggles to participate effectively due to cost pressures.”
Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of parliament's cross-party Public Accounts Committee, said local authorities "should be appluaded for stepping up to help these people in desperate need".
But she added: "We need to be convinced that the government is committed to supporting local authorities in their efforts and is clear about its expectations and funding beyond the first year of a refugee’s stay in the UK. "