personal contacts of their staff. While the bulk of housing provided has come from local authorities, perhaps 80 per cent, a significant proportion was made available by the housing associations.
41. While we have been aware of the pressures faced by many local authorities in meeting the housing needs of the native population in their areas and the possible reluctance of some local authorities to accept for settlement large groups of Vietnamese because of possible adverse local reaction, it is clear that the key difficulty in securing housing from local authorities has been the Government's policy of not making any financial contribution towards what the local authority will have to spend not so much on housing as on the longer term needs for education and social services. While the Government has avoided expenditure on refugees in settlement the resultant difficulties in obtaining housing have considerably extended the reception phase of the programme and the Government has had to pay for this.
(ii) The policy of dispersed settlement
42. From the outset the policy which Government encouraged and which we pursued was to establish small settlements of refugees throughout the country, aiming at between 4 and 10 families (perhaps 20 to 50 people) within the area of each housing authority. This policy had its merits. Since no Government aid was to be provided to local authorities to meet the needs of the refugees in settlement it sought to spread the load by limiting the demands on each area and in this way it certainly ensured that our efforts to obtain housing got quickly off the ground. It recognised also the important part to be played by members of voluntary support groups in settling the refugees within the community and therefore sought not to overtax the groups. We regard the work of these groups as an essential part in any planned settlement policy and have expressed our appreciation, earlier in the report, of their efforts on behalf of the Vietnamese.
43. There are two points to be made about the policy in execution. First it was not possible to achieve. Such was the need to take advantage of housing offers where they were made that as shown in Appendix B there is a very uneven spread of settlement; large numbers in some housing areas, minimal or nil settlement in others.
44.
Second, the policy paid insufficient regard for the Vietnamese needs in terms of employment and job training; their ability to gain access to language education; and the problems which they face coming from a culture so different from our own and particularly, for some of them, living out the trauma of their refugee experience. While local voluntary effort could strive to help with these needs it could not be expected to do so without the support of the professional statutory services. And yet in efforts not to overtax local resources the policy has achieved a situation where in most areas local authorities and other agencies take the view that there are insufficient numbers of Vietnamese to justify the special provision we believe they require. There are growing indications that the refugees' reaction to these problems of isolation and stress is to move from their initial settlement areas to urban areas where they hope to find security in the larger Vietnamese communities. Even when the last reception centre is closed it will not be possible to say that the process of settlement even in terms of housing is over.
10.