Our Strategy and Planning

Our Strategy and Planning

We have a new three-year strategy covering the period from 2023-2026. It is the result of a re-appraisal of our work, with an increased focus on our statutory functions and core remit, prioritising in the areas in which we can have the most impact. It builds on our past, but also offers a clear direction for the future.

Our strategy has three goals:

• Be a robust and effective regulator.
• Be known as experts in addressing worker abuse and exploitation.
• Be an essential enforcement partner.

We also have several key deliverables to ensure our people and resources are effectively managed to deliver our strategy.

This is the first of three annual business plans which sit underneath that strategy, focusing on delivering vital change for a more effective and efficient organisation. Under each of our strategic goals, the business plan identifies key deliverables that must happen this year to ensure we are in a position to deliver our strategy over the following years. We have also identified key objectives for our people and resources.

The targets in this business plan will help inform our targets for subsequent business plans in years two and three.

Strategic Goal 1: Be a robust and effective regulator

This business plan focuses on reprioritising our efforts to improve and enhance our work as a regulator. It includes streamlining our processes to ensure they are as efficient and effective as possible, ensuring our teams have capacity and embedding new ways of working. We have also reviewed our intelligence and tasking functions and will need to ensure changes are embedded across the organisation.

As a result of this work, we expect to see licensing decisions made more quickly, an ability to expedite applications that fall outside our target timeframe where appropriate and that our efforts are focused on higher risk businesses. This step change in the way we operate as a regulator will take time to embed this year. This will create opportunities for us in years two and three of the strategy, to identify opportunities for continuous improvement, increased engagement with the regulated sector and further reduce the time taken to make licensing decisions.

Over the next three years we want to see a clear trend in the improving the time taken to complete regulation activity. We also want to increase our inspection activity of licence holders deemed high-risk. We will achieve this by ensuring all licence holders are appropriately risk assessed. Whilst all allegations of serious non-compliance against our critical licensing standards are considered, not all are assessed as requiring an inspection. This year, we will be even more proactive and focused on licence holders who do require inspection and will ensure to increase the volume of inspections we carry out.

How we will deliver this in 2023-24:

Strategic Goal 2: Be known as experts in addressing worker abuse and exploitation 

The GLAA’s mission is to stop worker exploitation. To work towards this, our focus in this year’s business plan will be on enhancing our own understanding of current and future trends and threats to ensure our operations are prioritised. We will continue to work closely with key partners to protect workers and prevent exploitation. The implementation of new ways of working and investment in our capabilities will enable us to work more strategically in years two and three of the strategy. This includes being able to influence policy and practice through our analysis and evidence.

Thus, over the next three years we will be in a better position to drive strategic partnerships, inform policy on worker abuse and exploitation and shape the collective knowledge in this area. 

How we will deliver this in 2023-24:

Strategic Goal 3: Be an essential enforcement partner

The complexity of our work and its overlapping nature with other agencies puts partnership working at the heart of our enforcement activities. The GLAA has a national remit and a relatively small number of operational resources to deliver against that remit. In our first year’s business plan, we will focus on ensuring our expertise, skills, experience and delegated powers are used effectively to protect exploited workers. This will set us up for years two and three to work more effectively with partners on co-ordinated operational activity. 

How we will deliver this in 2023-24:

Our People and Resources 

[1] Whilst all allegations of serious non-compliance against our critical licensing standards are considered, not all are assessed as requiring an inspection.

[2] The GLAA is an intelligence-led organisation and has been working to improve the quality and relevance of the information we receive. Through this work we expect to see a rise in the investigations we undertake.

[3]Criminal and civil disruption orders include prosecutions, warnings/enforcement notices, Labour Market Enforcement Undertakings/Orders, Slavery and Trafficking Risk Orders/Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Orders, licence refusals, licence revocations, licence suspensions and Additional Licensing Conditions.

[4] Our Control Strategy identifies four specific priorities that will dictate our operational and prevention activity. These are based on our strategic threat assessment and are subject to change as the profile and our understanding of the exploitation of workers develops.