More than £300m given to English councils to help house Ukrainian refugees still sits in council bank accounts, a freedom of information (FOI) request has revealed.
FOI responses from 150 councils in England found that £327m – about a third of the £1bn budget – has gone unspent, while thousands of refugees face homelessness.
Most of the funds that have been spent so far have been used to pay staff and partner organisations, according to the Guardian.
To date, only £22m and £15m have been spent on temporary accommodation and private rented accommodation respectively.
In February, the British Red Cross estimated that over the following year 6,400 Ukrainian households in the UK will experience some form of homelessness.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said: ‘Councils are given a set amount of funding per arrival and it’s not unusual for this to be spent over the duration of their time in the UK rather than all at once. Ultimately councils are best placed to understand the needs of their local communities and explain how this money is spent.’
