A more humane way of detaining children of failed asylum seekers will be signalled today by the UK Government with a £150,000 pilot scheme in Glasgow, designed to end youngsters� incarceration at Dungavel.

A more humane way of detaining children of failed asylum seekers will be signalled today by the UK Government with a £150,000 pilot scheme in Glasgow, designed to end youngsters' incarceration at Dungavel.

From early next year, up to four families at a time will be housed in separate ex-council flats in the city before they are sent back to their country of origin. Each will have access to basic household amenities such as a washing machine, fridge, furniture, and TV for around two weeks before they are repatriated.

Families will be able to come and go, but there will be some supervision, with regular checks by Borders and Immigration Agency officials and, possibly, social workers, so that any absconding should be detected early.

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy told The Herald last night that ministers "have to learn from the past", when children of people seeking asylum in Britain were held behind high walls and barbed wire in the intimidating surroundings of Scotland's only immigration removal centre in Lanarkshire.

That policy caused a storm of protest, from politicians and religious leaders to campaign groups and ordinary citizens, outraged at what they saw as innocent children being punished for the actions of their parents and being incarcerated in what were effectively prisons. Representations to change the system have been made by both the Catholic Church in Scotland and the Church of Scotland.

Detainees can be held at Dungavel for up to 72 hours before being transferred to the Yarlswood centre in Bedfordshire. The time limit was introduced following a national campaign in 2003 on behalf of the Ay family, Turkish Kurds who had been held at the Scottish centre for more than a year before being deported to Germany. Such was the support for Yurdugal Ay and her four children, aged eight to 14, that the Home Office changed the system.

However, at present, an estimated 2000 children are still locked up each year in UK immigration removal centres. If successful, the 18-month Scottish pilot could be expanded across Scotland and form the template for similar projects throughout the UK. One scheme already exists in Kent, but is different in that families are housed away from the centre of communities in hotel accommodation.

Mr Murphy said he had been pushing for a change in policy for some time and recently held talks on the subject with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Phil Woolas, the UK's Immigration Minister, representatives from the Scottish Government, and Steven Purcell, leader of Glasgow City Council.

Today, the Scottish Secretary will announce the "alternative to detention pilot" after talks with officials from the UK Borders and Immigration Agency in Glasgow.

He said: "When it comes to families and when it comes to Dungavel, we can do things differently. We can operate in a more sensitive and sensible way. Nobody comes into politics to put families and children into detention centres."

Mr Murphy stressed there would be a vetting process so that families who were the most unlikely to abscond would be the ones accommodated in the supervised flats. He accepted that whatever vetting is done, there would always be a chance that some people might abscond, particularly those who feel the UK asylum system has failed them.

However, the Scottish Secretary was adamant that it was a risk worth taking to try to introduce a more humane approach: "This is a trial and we are determined to try to do things differently and do everything we can to introduce a more sensitive policy. We hope it will benefit them staying in a family home rather staying behind barbed wire. It is the right thing to do."

Asked if this was not a recognition that the previous policy of automatically sending families to Dungavel was inhumane, Mr Murphy repeated his line about being more sensitive and "learning from the past".

He admitted that, if families did abuse the system by fleeing, the pilot might be judged to have failed and the previous system of detaining all failed asylum seekers and their families at Dungavel would be resumed. However, he added: "We want this to work and a huge effort will be made to make it work."

Last night, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Refugee Council welcomed the pilot, noting how the organisation had been working for some time to develop an alternative to detention.

She added: "If it is to be a success, it must be a true alternative to detention and we would expect to see a reduction in the number of families and children being held in Dungavel and other removal centres throughout the UK.

"The pilot must also be properly assessed and evaluated and, if done properly, could be a blueprint for detaining asylum seeking families and children at the end of the asylum process with dignity and humanity."

Earlier this month, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, clashed with immigration officials over the impact that reforms to UK asylum law would have in Scotland.

Setting out the Scottish Government's "clear lines in the sand", the minister said he was opposed to detaining children prior to removal from Britain and wanted to see asylum seekers integrated into communities from "day one" of their arrival in the UK.