The Home Office housed Afghan refugee families in a hotel from which a boy fell to his death despite it still being subject to a fire service enforcement notice for safety failings.

       Five-year-old Mohammed Munib Majeedi fell from a ninth-floor window at the Oyo Metropolitan hotel in Sheffield, where he was quarantining with his family last week after arriving from Afghanistan.

       It is believed 16 Afghan families and 85 children had been placed in the hotel under the Arap refugee scheme for government and agency workers fleeing the Taliban. They have since been rehoused in other hotels or alternative accommodation.

       South Yorkshire Fire Service said on Tuesday that, in November last year, it had ordered the hotel to carry out improvement works to remedy multiple fire risks – and that the order is still in place because they had not been completed.

       They included unsafe cladding, an unsuitable fire safety risk assessment, inadequate evacuation procedures, structural and passive fire precautions not suitably maintained and a fire alarm system that was not up to scratch.

       The Home Office said corrective action or mitigations had been put in place to answer the concerns raised in the enforcement notice and the notice did not prevent the hotel being used provided mitigating action had been taken.

       "Hotels are selected using commercial arrangements used across government. All hotels booked in this way must meet relevant health and safety legislation and provide their latest health and safety risk assessment," said a spokesman.

       Local MPs have, however, demanded an independent investigation into what was known by the Home Office about the suitability and safety of the hotel before it was commissioned.

       Concerns had also previously been raised by at least one visitor to the hotel that the windows were "dangerous" for children because they could be opened outwards from the bottom up and the sills were only 3ft above the floor.

       In an article for The Telegraph this week, Dr Emma Haddad, head of asylum and protection at the Home Office, said her team did not want to use hotels but had no option because of the shortage of local authority housing.

       "All the hotels we use must meet stringent health and safety checks and provide detailed risk assessments to ensure they are suitable to accommodate vulnerable people," she said.

       It is estimated more than 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers are currently being housed in hotels by the Home Office.

       Oyo has been contacted for comment.