Labour User Labour Provider webinar 18 January 2024

Here you will find a recording of the Labour User Labour Provider webinar held on 18 January 2024 along with associated slides.

Transcript

Hello everyone who's joining us for this webinar of the labour user and labour provider.
I'm delighted to see people are joining quite regularly.
I'm gonna start the meeting, cause we'd like to start on time.
And as you may already know, the meeting is being recorded and will be shared after the event.

Suzanne (Guest) 1:22
My name is Suzanne McCarthy.

Suzanne (Guest) 1:24
I'm the chair of this group on behalf of the GLAA, and I'm a GLAA board member now regarding questions some of you have been to these webinars before you know that we would like you to put your questions in the chat function and we'll try to answer as many as we can during this webinar.

Suzanne (Guest) 1:48
Sometimes that's not possible, and if so, we will try to answer them outside of the meeting.
We do ask because we will have quite a number of questions.
I hope coming forward that as a courtesy, you only ask your question once.
It will be picked up.
I will be able to see the chat the presenters will be able to see the chat and we'll do our best to respond to you.
We have a very exciting, I think, an interesting agenda for you today with our speakers talking on topics we hope you will find interesting and informative.

Suzanne (Guest) 2:28
Without further ado, I'm going to ask Elysia, the CEO of the GLAA, to speak for her on her update.
So, Elysia over to you.

Elysia McCaffrey 2:38
Good morning, Suzanne.
Good morning, everybody.
It's nice to see so many of you on the call.
I don't know if it's too late.
Late yet to be wishing you all a happy New Year.
But it's still January, and it's the first time I've seen you so happy.
New year everybody.
And if we can skip on to the next slide, for me there, the speakers were speaking after me today are talking about the interesting stuff.

Elysia McCaffrey 2:58
So I'm not going to talk for too long this morning, but there are a few things I just wanted to recap for the benefit of everybody on this call and we put in place at the GLAA and new strategy last year.
So we're coming into the second year of our strategy and I thought it might be helpful.

Elysia McCaffrey 3:14
Just to recap, we may have shared this before on what our mission is, which is about stopping the exploitation of workers in the UK and the team here at glaa have been thinking really hard about how we make sure we maximize our impact and we do this in the most effective way that we can GLAA we have around 110 employees here and we have a remit across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Elysia McCaffrey 3:40
And and it's a small number of staff, really.
It's a small budget that we have and I think that we we tend to punch above our weight with this.
I think we do a really good job, but we are constantly making sure that we are working in the most effective way and having the biggest impact that we can for our size and for our budget.
And so it's really good that you can have some context around Intel and how we manage our Intel, how we're prioritizing our work and how we're kind of tightening things up to make sure that we're working in the best way that we can.

Elysia McCaffrey 4:11
We can move on to the next slide for me, I just wanted to recap as well.
What are three strategic goals are which are around being a robust and effective regulator, and you're here some things from Nicola around this today about being known as the experts and addressing worker abuse and exploitation because there is nobody who does what we do.
There is nobody works in the exact way that we do.
And then the third is around as being an essential enforcement partner.
So because we're small, we have to work with others.
We work with the police, we work with local authorities, we work with the fire service, health and safety, exact NCA and so on and so on and so on.
And so these are our strategic goals.
And I thought as becoming into a new year as we we've got some really good presentations today, it might be helpful just to kind of reset out.
That's our strategy.
That's what we're here to do now.
Over the last year, as we're in the first year of our strategy, we've been looking very hard at the organization, how we're structured.
Are we working in the right way?
We doing all of the right things and that's resulted in as making some quite significant changes that you might notice when you're engaging with us.
For those who engaged with us on a regular basis, you'll notice some new faces.
If we can move on to the next slide for me there, I just wanted to set out for you that this is the GLAA executive team now, Samantha Ireland on the right has worked with us for she's just had her 6th year anniversary and she's recently been promoted to director of Strategy and impact.

Elysia McCaffrey 5:35
So some of you will have worked with Sam before the other team might be new faces to you.
So Phil Cain is our director of operations.
He is responsible for all of our regulation and our enforcement activity and Phil joined us in summer last year and he actually joined us from our board.
He was a non executive director for short period of time and then and I'm delighted to that he joined the executive team because his he was previously in the police for a long time.

Elysia McCaffrey 6:02
He was a deputy chief constable in North Yorkshire and has huge, huge wealth of experience around all the matters that we're working on.
So has been a very welcome addition to the team.
Karen O'Brien.
Who's there in the centre joined us a little bit later.
She joined us in October last year and she's taking responsibility for all of our HR and our finance and it and so on.
So you might see a bit less of Karen, but that is that is our leadership team.
Now you'll find that some of the faces that you've worked with over the last 18 years or so aren't here now.
There's there's some people who've chosen to leave the organization recently, and so if you're struggling at any point to engage, use our team mailboxes.
The contact details for those, but if you're having any difficulty getting in touch with anybody, contact myself, contact Nicola or any of the three on here and we'll be able to help you.
So Suzanne, that was all I was going to cover this morning because the good stuff follows me.
But I'm of course happy to take any questions whether now or later in the session.
And you, you unmute Suzanne.

Suzanne (Guest) 7:05
Thank you.
That's my first penalty of the day.
I was just saying that other good stuff is always with you.
I haven't had any messages or chat coming in yet with any questions for you, Alicia, that may happen as we go through the sessions as people ask things, but in order not to waste time, we'll go on to Claire Gardner.

Suzanne (Guest) 7:25
Who is going to talk about the intelligence update
Claire, can I put it over to you?

Claire Gardner 7:32
Yeah.
And so I'm Claire Gardner.
I I've not presented one of these meetings before, so if I just introduce yourself, I have been here for just over a year now and I am an intelligence and research analyst.

Claire Gardner 7:44
And so yeah, next slide please.
So I think my colleague Rob went through these at the last meeting in more depth, but I thought just recap on our new control trust control strategy priorities which were introduced in September 2023.
And so we have 4 now, one of which is exploitation of seasonal workers in the output sector and forced and compulsory labour in the residential care sector.
Mapping and operational activity around organized crime groups and high risk, non compliant labour providers, including unlicensed activity.
And so I think Colin will be speaking in more depth about these later, but yeah, that was just an overview of our control strategies.
Next slide, please.
And so I just want to talk about some intelligence collection plans that we've introduced at the moment.
And so our head of intelligence has developed a series of these and related to the new control strategy priorities and the two that I was just wanted to introduce today were the to identify individuals or groups involved in linked or linked to the commission of offences relating to the exploitation of seasonal workers in the agriculture sector and to identify license to identify individuals or groups whose operating practices identify them as high risk licence labour providers who or who are operating as unlicensed gangmasters within the regulated sectors.
And so just wanted to introduce these to you, because I think these are gonna be a way of that.
You could help us to fill some about intelligence gaps.
So the aim of these is to then this plan of focus on the intelligence requirements and provide a structure for the collection of information so that everyone in the GLAA is a clear understanding of what the intelligence is we need and what we are going to do that intelligence.

Claire Gardner 9:35
And so these two in particular, I think that you as Labour users and their providers can help us with these.
And on the next few slides are just breaking them down into information that you could perhaps provide us with.
So next slide please.
So this is some of the Intel that I feel that you could help provide us with to help us fill these knowledge gaps that we have.
And so the first one is to identify the identity and roles of those involved, so any workers or exploiters you come across methods used to exploit workers and breach the licensing standards.
So again, anytime you're interviewing workers, if you come across any of these methods and locations and linked dresses linked to any exploitation methods used to identify and or recruit workers, use of professional enablers and facilitators and identification of same so landlords and the accountants that you come across that are helping to enable these this exploitation, any methods of travel or movement both across the country and into the country.
And that's a big intelligence gap of our.
So any information that you have on that, we would be grateful to receive that next slide please.
Communication methods used by the exploiters in particular, and the methods are used to contact workers.
So things like Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram and the different communication methods.
Again, that's the big intelligence gap of ours that we don't really get much information on and it makes this difficult then to police those systems.
So any information on that would be greatly received and involvement of other forms of exploitation, including organised immigration crime.
Again, we are starting to look at OCG's and so any information around that and any organizing, many immigration crime is of great interest to us and the use of imitation, intimidation and violence and securing compliance and cooperation from workers or other criminal groups.
And obviously we get a lot of information from the workers that they're intimidated by the exploiters, but we don't get enough information about how they're intimidated.
So again, we have those sort of pockets of knowledge gaps and methods of extortion and depth enforcement again and a lot of our information we get is about workers who have been debt bonded paying lots of fees and different countries range of different amounts.
And we haven't got enough information on that.
So you can any information that would be greatly received methods used to evade detection, including the use of identity fraud.
And again, when you're speaking to workers, you might get in in more information on that.
So this was just more a list of things of how you could provide us with that information to help us as the GLA fill out intelligence scouts that we that we have.
So obviously I think this slide this slides we sent out to these bullet points would really help us to fulfill our collection plans that we've developed.

Claire Gardner 12:49
Next slide, please.
So we've noticed recently through doing some of our products that we have had a a huge increase in reporting from labour providers and labour users.
And so Labour providers have been providing us with contacting us if they've been approached by people wanting to supply them with workers.
We've had Labour users contacting us, letting us know about unlicensed gangmasters trying to provide workers to them, so that information again is really useful.
So it's more without sounding patronising.
Thank you.
And keep up the good work, because that's really useful information for us.
Next slide please.
So this slide is just.
A bit of information from our seasonal worker profile, so this was produced back in August 2023.
And just to coincide with the strategic assessment and but I thought it would just shared a few key findings from that profile.
So in the period between the 1st of January 23 and the 31st of July 2023, the GLAA intelligence team created 40 referrals reports relating to seasonal worker scheme operators.
The top three allegations recorded we're fees and providing additional services other which is a full employment fraud and no GLAA licence.

Claire Gardner 14:15
Again, the top one was for us was fees and a lot of work has come to us being charged fees and again we haven't got a grasp of that information about the amount of fees people are being paid, if they're sort of if they're legal in that country, haven't got that knowledge.
So any information on that and that you can provide to us is greatly received top locations.
It recorded where Lancashire, London and Warwickshire 50% of referrals recorded were exclusively female workers and 33% recorded work exclusively male workers.
That was a flip from the previous profile when it was mainly mail workers.
Received so to see more female workers is a bit of a change for us.
Top three nationalities of workers recorded were was Uzbeki, Kyrgyz, Bulgarian and Tajik and then one possible emerging trend that we've seen more recently is a lot of workers coming to us that have been contacted by the fraudulent fraudulent recruiters, but they are reporting to work with the operators, so they're providing documentation that has the names of operators on so it looks genuine.
But then when it's digged into deeper it is it is fraudulent paperwork.
And then when we're contacted, we contact the operators.
They're letting us know that obviously they have never heard of these companies, so that is one thing that we're looking out for at the moment and it's a an emerging trend about next slide, please.
And these were just some intelligence gaps that came out of the seasonal worker profile.
So the profile of the seasonal worker and again we get information from workers, but we don't always have contact details and then contact them back and we're not provided with their the demographics.
So sort of the gender, age, nationalities and also accommodation and the recruitment methods that these workers are recruited by.
So that is one of our intelligence gaps and a lack of knowledge around the supply of recruitment rules in different countries.
So again, that's what we're trying to do with work with different countries and and build relationships those.
So we can get a the greater knowledge of those.
That information surrounding the the, the and recruitment rules and also their fees, and that is, like I said before, a big gap of ours that we don't understand.
All of the fees that are charged around the country, so it can be quite confusing when it comes in a very confusing for the workers and when they are not sure if they should be paying it or shouldn't be paying it.
So they are the three intelligence, three main intelligence gaps that came from the seasonal worker profile.
Next slide please.
So this is just our intelligence inbox.
So again, going through all the things that I've just spoken about, UM and any things that you can provide as to help us fill our intelligence scabs, if you come across any of that information that you wish to share with us and this is our email address for intelligence inbox and we would greatly appreciate any information you can provide us with.

Suzanne (Guest) 17:23
Hi Claire.
I haven't had anything yet in the chat by way of question, but I think it would be very hopeful.
I mean, you told us what you don't have and there's obviously a gaps here and there, but you do have some information coming to you and it might be helpful to just explain what you do with that information, how you analyze and how you actually put it into a form that is useful for the other parts of the GLAA to take such action as is appropriate.

Claire Gardner 17:54
OK.
Yeah.
So we so our intelligence comes through in a variety of forms.
We get people ringing the helpline.
We get referrals from other government departments and that goes to our intelligence department, but we have then assist an intelligence management system that we use to pull that data.
It's we have issues with our data at the moment and which we are working through.
It's sometimes quite difficult to to pull that data, but as analysts, we pull it and then we read through that manual.
Manually and then we usually have our tasked from other people within our department.
So recently I have done the seasonal worker profile but my colleague Rob has done a care profile that's one of the things we look at.
So we pull that information, we read through it, we put it into charts, we put it into sort of some reason and key points and we produce documents that we share with internally and both externally I at the moment I'm doing a document that I do quarterly and that is intelligence found in modern slavery.
So I collect all the data that this has indicators of modern slavery.
I read through it and then I produce the document and just pull out the key facts so key locations and the work profile, exploitive profile issues that we have with accommodation.
Sort of obvious of interest and the organizations that have are of note that keep appearing and then we produce them in sort of like a A readable format and with headings and then they go on a distributed internally.
And if they want to go externally, then we usually put them on our website.

Suzanne (Guest) 19:42
And it's just a small team, isn't it clear?
How many people are actually doing this work in the GLAA?

Claire Gardner 19:46
It's so the we have two week two intelligence officers who are sort of pulling the intelligence out and then it's just a self 2 analysts myself and rob and then we've got Donna is our senior analyst.
So yeah, it's a very small team and and yeah, when we're having to read the data manually, it just take a while to produce these documents, but hopefully they're use.

Suzanne (Guest) 20:09
That I'm sure certain they are.
Umm, we've had a chat here that's been answered by kathryn, but just to make sure that everyone knows that the slides that you're seeing today will be actually available on the website and email to everyone who has registered for the event.
So don't worry, you will get the slides coming to you if you.

Suzanne (Guest) 20:31
If you're here today and registered, that's great.
Well, Claire, I haven't had any more specific questions to you, but don't go away cause up.

Claire Gardner 20:39
No, I wouldn't.

Suzanne (Guest) 20:39
Things may come up afterwards, but what you're asking is, of course, what many investigative arms are looking for, which is for people within the sector or even the public to give us the information, because we're only as good as the information we receive.
So I hope that your plea and we've got something here from Emma with regards to temporary large tenancy for construction site workers are employees are taxed on this.
But how do we ensure they're renting?
They are renting somewhere that is not open to abuse.
I don't know whether you can answer that, Claire or somebody else can.

Claire Gardner 21:17
I'm.
I'm I'm not sure off the top of my head, but I can certainly take that question away and get back to you, Emma.

Suzanne (Guest) 21:23
OK.
Either you take it away or or someone who's on the call from the GLAA may be able to answer it.
Now we've got a thanks very much to her, but we don't have an answer as such, but we will come back to Emma, but we will go on now to Colin, who's going to talk about control strategy and give us an update on that.
So calling if you could make yourself visible.

Colin Norton 21:47
OK, I will.
I will.
Then I'll take it off because my internet's quite quite poor.
So that's who I am.
Morning, everybody.
My name's Colin Norton and I'm one of the national investigation leads for the GLAA.
We've gone through a significant restructure change recently following the recommendations and consultation with with the TOM, so there's a lot GLAA officers as as previously discussed, taking up new posts and certain core functions have been amalgamated, which I'll go on to shortly.
Umm, what we've done is we've the previously the compliance teams and our enforcement teams were separate and there was a lot of silo working, but what we've done is we've combined both those teams just so the investigations are looked at more effectively and more efficiently.
So we moved away from Silo working and we've moved.
We've amalgamated the enforcement teams and the compliance teams, so I I oversee the South team.
We've got one in the SW, one in the in In the SE my colleague Martin Plimmer runs the north, so each team so two in the South are are headed up by two investigation managers, Nev Bradbury and Paul Williams.
Paul is a SE Nev is the South West, and then the two in the north.
We've got Dave Powell in the northeast and Andy Brown in the northwest.
I'm so Martin oversees the north.
I oversee the South and we've got within our teams about 42 officers.
The majority are the enforcement officers, so we've got 8 compliance officers in the north and five compliance officers in the South.
So that's, that's our our structure, if you like, within the enforcement and compliance teams.
But we are one team, North and South.
So so I've been asked to give a a brief update around some of the areas which which have already been touched on.
So the control strategy priorities have changed recently and this is based on where the GLAA wants to go.
The current intelligence to the information being received into the GLAA, so we have.
Each CSP as or control strategy priority as a four P plan wrapped around it which covers protect, prevent, pursue and prepare.
So they're they're the four P's.
That's why it's called a four P plan and and if people already know this, forgive me.

Colin Norton 24:20
But so the the areas that we cover within our CSPs are seasonal workers, scheme, the care sector and labour exploitation within that sector.
Organised crime groups and OG's linked to labour exploitation and the high risk non compliance or and unlicensed criminal activity within the regulated sector.
Now these these plans are all about stopping the problem before it takes hold, helping those workers and victims that need our help, advice and guidance be a proactive going after those individuals and suspects that exploit and cause harm to vulnerable workers and vulnerable victims.
You know, we try to identify the problem, work with partners and and and we're trying to always improve our knowledge around these areas and these plans.
So I wanna talk about the last one in a in a a little bit more detail.
So the high risk, non compliance unlicensed criminal activity which is a bit of a mouthful, so.
So we've we've adopted a new approach to unlicensed labour providers and and we're trying to encourage which is already been mentioned.
Again, Labour users and labour providers to come forward with any information regarding, you know, unlicensed labour providers.
So the the collection plans already been touched upon, but.

Suzanne (Guest) 25:45
Colin, can I stop you there for a moment?
One person is asked if you could give the four points again please.

Colin Norton 25:52
The The four control strategies. Yeah.

Suzanne (Guest) 25:55
Yes, I think that's what they mean.
If you could do that again.

Colin Norton 25:57
OK.
Yeah.
So the first one is seasonal work.
The seasonal worker scheme.

Suzanne (Guest) 26:03
No, it's the prepared prevent, pursue and protect.

Colin Norton 26:05
Oh, sorry.
Right.
OK, so protect is the first one.
Prevention.
Is the second one pursue so the third one and prepare is the last one?
I'll. I'll.
I'll put that on the chat before I before I leave, so I where do I get to?
So yeah, so it it it's really which we're trying to encourage Labour users and labour providers to come forward with any information regarding any of our CSB's really.
But you know anything around our Labour users and labour providers and the unlicensed criminal activity, so you know all all I would say and it's it's a pitch really and a plea is is if you're not sure send it in you know if you think it's modern slavery.

Colin Norton 26:54
If you think it's trafficking, if you think it's exploitation within that sector or any of the sectors, just send it in, cause we'd soon have it and then we can look at it, review it, you know, dig a little bit deeper, would sooner have it than not have it so that that that would be my pitch really.
And I know Claire's already touched on it, but if you if you think you've got something, you've got a hunch or you've got a gut feeling just sent you just send it in.
So and I'll give you an example of that.
In November and December.
We had four referrals regarding unlicensed labour providers coming from licence holders.
So and these companies were advertising jobs in the regulated sector and within two weeks because we had this information, we acted on it.
We identified the directors of the companies.
We approached them, we spoke to them.
We gave warning letters to them.
We gave them some advice around applying to the GLAA for a licence within that regulated sector and and they did that.
So you know it, it was just a small amount of information, but it was worth doing.
And now the they're they're on board.
They've they've got a license and you know it, there was a little bit of education in there as well.
So, but we'll always be proportionate in our enforcement approach, so we'll seek to give advice if we can.
Uh, we'll seek to give warnings for minor or low level breaches.
And and that allows us to focus on the more serious criminal breaches that were occurring.
So we also need to consider our approach around the growth cheating within the Deregulation Act.
So you know, we have to take into consideration potential economic consequences or economic loss.
We've gotta be proportion proportionate.
Sorry, would either decision making and keep and regulatory burdens to a minimum?
That's that's what we try to do.
We're gonna be conducting more unannounced compliance inspections in 2024, so this year on companies, uh, in the regulated sector and and they're just randomly selected companies.

Colin Norton 29:00
So and we're also trying to use obviously.
Experienced investigators were trying to be more proactive.
Well, with our capabilities such as surveillance to obtain evidence and and prosecute labour providers and Labour users that are committing serious breaches of section 12 and section 30 and offences under the Gangmasters Act, so we're working all the time, collaborating with partners such as HMRC, DWP and to identify potential offences and worker abuse.
And I and I won't talk too much of this, but we've also introduced the new model regarding application inspections where we're we're we're we're greatly reducing the waiting size for licenses to be granted.
So a lot less documents and within six months of these businesses beginning to trade, they're gonna be subjected to a a full compliance inspection by our teams, obviously ensuring that they meet the criteria and the standards necessary.
And yeah, and we're gonna be conducting a a new business spec inspection on all new license holders in 2024.
So now just to give you a a bit of a flavour of how much information intelligence that comes in, I can't speak for Martin because I I don't see any of his his Gen reports or his intelligence reports, but the, the, the ones that come out to me for the South.
And, you know, I've had 127 since the 1st of September, which is quite a lot and and and and what we do is we we review him, we consider whether matter for the GLAA I that GLAA sorry.
I have we got the right powers to deal with it as a criminal and we make a decision made on all all the factors contained within the report and if it's one for us, we we allocate it to an investigation officer.
If it needs developing further, that will stay with the intelligence team and if it needs to be shared with partners, then we do that also, which Claire also touched on.
And it, and it may be at times where the information for potential offences and risk is better placed with another organization like the police, the NCAA, Border Force, etcetera.

Colin Norton 31:13
So we have to take all that into consideration, but if it is one for us and the investigation manager, so obviously my two Nev and Paul will put an investigation plan with actions being set for the case officers and and you know and it gives their rationality, decision making and clear direction.
So we know where that particular investigation is gonna go.
We'll always prioritize safeguarding of any identified victims as well the file the the investigation goes on.
Our Crimson system and I, and that's where the the case Officer updates their inquiries on there and they're reviewed every three weeks by the investigation manager, our review them every three weeks as well.
And our director, Phil Cain, dip samples as well, bimonthly.
So previously I think some of the investigations that slipped by stagnated a little bit, but since this whole new change and there's a lot more drives, a lot more direction.
And there's a lot more scrutiny around the the investigation.
So what has been done?
What hasn't been done?
Why hasn't it been done?
And then if all the actions have been set and there's more to do, then that is part of the review update and and new excellent new actions are set by the investigation managers.
I mean, there's some, it's it's a much improved system that we've got now.
So so like if I talk about high risk business visits as well, I think I've got enough time.
We've got a total of 57 that need dealing with before the end of March 24 due to breaches.
So as part of the new work in strategy and focus, we're adopting a, A a thematic risk based approach to compliance inspections.
So it might be that one or two might need phone calls.
One or two might need letters.
Sending out some might need physical visits, and we might need to interview some of the work, so it's, you know, it's a collection of and consideration of all those areas really and previously all are all our CIO's were full CI but but as part of this new way of working we're we're just focusing on the issues that have been identified which is obviously it's a quicker, slicker, slim down approach as well.
The reports are are smaller, potentially, and are turned around more quickly.
Obviously, we find other concerns that haven't been identified to as during a visit or during the conversations that we have, then we'll dig a little deeper around those areas as well.
Umm, the other thing we're doing as well is because we've amalgamated our teams.
So enforcement and compliance, we're we're trying to carry out these visits jointly with compliance and enforcement officers just to expand our learning knowledge around compliance.
And Paul Cornelius kindly trained it up.
Our INFORCEMENTS officers as well, me included, so all updates as I've mentioned, go on Crimson and Glass and the reports that needs to go back to the license, Umm, office with our recommendations do otherwise.
If there's no issues through our investigations, we just close the the the inquiry down and so just to sort of summarize, there's gonna be more focused on high, medium and low business businesses around visits, inspections, prosecuting those that don't have licenses, more positive use of civil enforcement powers that we've got.
So our Lu use limos and written warning letters, so out of those 57 high risk business visits that are talked about, we've actually allocated 51, which is more than we've ever done previously.
And both in the north and the South, we actually completed and closed 18 so far.
So we're we're, we're well on track to reach our target.
We're just trying to be more proactive with recruitment agencies as well.
We're we're engaging more in the private and the public with the public solid to educate around licensing laws and our powers.
I'm trying to work more with some of the embassies as well, which I've been doing this morning with Jane Thorpe.
Yeah.
Would you and we're just trying to reach out further to educate workers and and give advice, I mean, as also this week, I've been speaking to some of the international liaison officers overseas at the NCAA, have got so in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe as well.

Colin Norton 35:42
So would you.
We're trying to do a bit of everything and just trying to reach further afield as well.
So I mean, my last pitch to everybody and I will stick my email address on the chat before I go is we're trying to do a lot prevention work as well.
So Claire mentioned scams and floors have been happening.
Now I've I've read some of the problem profiles recently and I know Claire touched on them, but the ones I wanna try and focus on myself or Facebook, telegram, flagman and WhatsApp so I don't know if any of the people on this call have got avenues into any of those platforms, but we wanna try and sort of spread the word, educate our our workers and and people apply for, for, for jobs all over the all over the world.
In you know, into the UK and we're just if if anybody's got links into any of those platforms or websites or anything like that, if they can email me direct just so we can try and and pull together some advice and guidance and posters just for people you know, so they're aware educated and they know what to do and what not to do.
And so people aren't aren't scammed in the future as well.
So and that's that's it from me, Suzanne and everybody.

Suzanne (Guest) 36:53
Telling you've obviously stimulated thought among those listening because we've got a number of questions for you.
I'm not sure you're gonna be able to answer all of them.

Colin Norton 37:00
Alright.

Suzanne (Guest) 37:02
Some of them we might have to give afterwards.
I'm gonna take them in the order that they've been raised.
The first one was Joanne Young, who says.
Where you find unlicensed labour providers is any action taken in respect to the Labour users that use them?

Colin Norton 37:21
Yeah.
So the the the Labour users fall under the section 13 of the of the Gangmasters Act.
So we we can do that.
But again, like like I've mentioned, it's we've just gotta be proportionate.
It it it, it might be that they were.
They weren't aware that they had to be to be licensed or something similar, so it just depends on the circumstances.
But yeah, we can take action if if if we need to to summary summary only offence.

Suzanne (Guest) 37:43
Thank you.
And we've got one from David Camp.
I'm not sure you're going to be able to answer this.
He's given a long link, but he says this shows this is a report that we put out on impact shows only 6 compliance inspections completed in 2023 up to the 8th of December.
What is the actual figure for 2023?
I don't know if you know this, Colin, and we might have to come back to David on this particular issue, but I thought I'd put it out to you or anyone out for like Alicia.
You might have those figures at their fingertips.

Colin Norton 38:19
Well, off the top of my head, I've the compliance inspections.
You know the the high risk ones especially we've done, we've done 18 since I think October.
So you know we've what was the figure?
Sorry, what was the figure?

Suzanne (Guest) 38:30
He said this particular and a link which is from the GLAA R inspector impact who has been inspected.
Compliance inspections 2023 shows only 6 compliance inspections completed in 2023 up to the 8th of December, and he's asked what the picture.

Elysia McCaffrey 38:49
So Suzanne, it's sorry, it's Elysia.
And so yeah, we have done many more than this.

Suzanne (Guest) 38:52
Wait.

Elysia McCaffrey 38:54
We we'll update the website when when we're able to do so, but Colin is right to highlight.

Colin Norton 38:54
Yeah.

Elysia McCaffrey 38:59
We have done many, many more than this and that will be updated when we can.

Suzanne (Guest) 39:03
OK.
What would I?
I think that's very helpful.
Thank you, Neil.
Caught his asked Will application still be subject to any inspection, Colin?

Colin Norton 39:15
Say that again, sorry.

Suzanne (Guest) 39:16
Will applications.
I think that's application for licenses still be subject to any inspection.

Colin Norton 39:24
Yeah.
So any any so we've, I mean I don't wanna touch on what what Nicola is gonna talk about but and and yeah and any of the application expectations that are granted that come out of the new model office which Nicola we'll talk about they'll come to our teams and or my team or Martin's team and they'll be subject once they start trading within six months to a A A compliance inspection a full compliance inspection but I'll let Nicola expand on that.

Suzanne (Guest) 39:28
Yeah, I imagine it will cover this.
Yeah, we'll leave her her ammunition for that.
And the next one is from Andrew Dunnett.
He says that he's reported several concerns to the GLAA.
Most serious was workers being made to pay for work to a third party, but he hasn't seen anything actioned on this yet.

Elysia McCaffrey 40:10
Shall I respond to that Suzanne and then Colin, if there's anything you want to add to that?

Suzanne (Guest) 40:11
3.

Elysia McCaffrey 40:15
So Andrew, thank you for proactively flagging things up with us.
One of the kind of difficulties is that we can't always come back to people to let you know what we're doing and we we do.
And action all Intel that comes in to us.
So we will be taking action.
It might be that we're having together further information or something.
It might be that you won't see something immediately, but don't let that put you off from reporting things in to us.
If you've reported it to us, we do assess it and we do take action where we can.
Colin, is there anything you'd add to that?

Colin Norton 40:44
No, I've just put my email address in the in the chat as well for for everybody.

Suzanne (Guest) 40:49
That's really helpful.
Call and I'll give you one more question here.
It's actually not a question.
It's actually give you some information.
She this is from Sam, who says tend to find the Tik, T.O.K, Instagram and Telegram are most common for scams so there's a bit of information and intelligence for you.

Colin Norton 41:08
Lovely.
Thank you.

Suzanne (Guest) 41:10
I'm just looking to say thank you, Colin, for putting your address in.
I'm sure people will take that away.
I just want to make sure nobody else wants to bring up any other questions before we speak to Nicola who's scene has been set by you.
Very well.
Colin, I don't see anything popping up, so let's go to Nicola.
Who's going to talk about the regulation update?
A good Segway to her from what you've been saying, Nicola, are you with us?

Nicola Ray 41:37
I am.
Good morning everybody and happy New Year to everybody.

Suzanne (Guest) 41:38
It's.

Nicola Ray 41:41
And I'm a little bit croaky, but I'm I think my voice will hopefully hold up for this session because it won't be particularly long and I'm just gonna give you a quick sort of overview of what's been happening in regulation.
When I talk about regulation, I mean what's happening in the licensing scheme rather than the wider work we do on modern slavery, et cetera, and Collins already picked up a couple of points.
So you might hear me saying some of the same things a little bit, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because obviously there is a lot of change going on at the moment in the way that we're going to be operating our licensing scheme.
Could I have the next slide please?
So one of the things I wanted to talk about really is what we've been doing with applications.
So we been looking at our applications process now for a while and we recognize that we really need to do something to improve the way that we deliver our applications and we wanted to make sure that we delivered our work quicker and more speedily as I like to say and make sure that people get applications more quickly than they did previously because we recognize it was taken quite a long time for some of our applications to be dealt with.

Nicola Ray 42:48
So over the last year, we've been doing some work that we call our target operating model and we've been looking across the organization, but specifically in regulation and the licensing area, we've been really looking into our processes.
We've been looking at redesigning our processors, trying to hone them down so that we get rid of all of those kind of unnecessary steps or those unnecessarily handling bits and with the driver of trying to make sure that our applications are progressing through the system as quickly as they can do.
We've also, as you've probably picked up from some of the conversations we've restructured our team as well to help with that process to make sure that we're not getting people double handling and that there is one person now who is generally going to be responsible for the application once the initial checking process has happened.
One of those pieces that we've really focused in on and which is become clear from the work that we've been doing.
So Colin mentioned the model office.
The Model office is our test environment where we've been testing out some of our processes.
Umm, since sort of September time and looking at what happens when we try these new processes out, one of the areas that we picked up on quite early on is that we need our applicants to be ready.
One of the delays with applications can be that somebody puts an application in and then disappears off on holiday or they haven't sent us all the right documentation.
And if you're across our social media, you'll have started to see some quite strong messages about applicants being ready to apply and making sure that when you put your application, you've got all of your systems in place.
All of your processes in place, but also that you're ready to go, and the idea is that we will be getting those inspections.
So those cases which will be getting inspection will get an inspection really promptly and be able to be able to do that inspection.
We need that person to be ready to go.
One of the things that we really focused in on is making sure upfront we're getting all of the information that we want and we will be sending out an email.
You'll notice this if you put in a new application in.
Once your application is submitted within a day or so, you'll be getting an email asking for copies of the documentation that we need to start our inspection process and that will be things like contracts, pay slips.
If you have workers in other sectors I'm timesheets, it also will be things like if you provide accommodation.
Although we're finding not many labour providers this day or actually providing accommodation, again, if you provide transport information around that and we'll ask you to return that information quickly.
So it is really helpful if any applicants I'm can really engage with the process and get on board with us to try and make it as smooth, but also as quick as we can by being ready and you'll keep seeing a lot more across our social media around being ready and getting yourself ready for an application.
And I think Neil, last, we're still be doing inspections.
Yes, we will still be doing inspections.
Most of our inspections will be virtual inspections.
We've set some criteria for when we determine what sort of inspection that we're going to be doing, but we will predominantly still sticking to our virtual inspection, although obviously there will be some exceptional cases when we feel there's a need to go out and do a physical inspection to really help us to test some of the information that may be have been provided and also the one of the key changes for us is that all of the inspection work now apart from those face to face inspections will be carried out by the licensing team.
So that is why we're sort of instigating a system where one person looks after the application once we have all of the information so that it's not going off to different parts of the team or different parts of the organization unless there's a need for a face to face inspection.
Next slide please.
So in terms of our compliance activity, uh, as Colin intimated, every business once it gets a licence will also have a follow up inspection quite promptly.
One of the issues that we've been really sort of focused in on over the years is that an application inspection generally tests what a business is going to do, is looking at systems, it's looking at processes rather than what might actually happen once the business is actually delivering a service in the regulated sector.

Nicola Ray 47:09
So one of the things that we've identified is that as part of our focus on ramping up our compliance work is that every business within a time period around about six months is, Colin said.
Once they let us know that they're trading, so we've got something to go and look at from a regulated point of view will be given a compliance new business inspection when we'll be testing out their compliance with the standards.
That will include some worker interviews to ascertain if there are any areas of exploitation that we need to delve into further, but also just to assess what's going on in the business.
Uh, we're also going to be risk assessing every licence holder once a license now is granted every licence holder will be given a risk rating, which we are using to determine when we go out to visit those businesses.
Collins probably mentioned, I think as you have picked up our most high risk businesses as assessed by yours will be the ones that will be going to visit more frequently until we assess that that risk has been lowered or minimized and obviously there will be an element of random inspection as well.
So that we can test that our risk model is right, it is delivering the right businesses to us in terms of what we think are most high risk businesses.
And it does mean, though, that everybody will have an inspection at some point over the next few years.
Our aim is to really be I've covered off all of our licence holders by inspection and around about four years and also we will be doing a lot more, as Colin said, a lot more compliance inspection and that would be done by our investigations team rather than licensing team.
The licensing team will still be responsible for making the decisions on those businesses as to whether they keep their license or whether it's revoked, but the actual investigation work will be completed by our new investigations team and that was all I was really gonna cover.
So I'm happy to take questions.

Suzanne (Guest) 49:11
Thank you, Nicola, for that.
And it's very useful to have you and Colin sort of segueing with each other to present a whole of what we're doing in terms of the new style of regulation, the new way in which the office is working, we still only have the people we have, but we've been using them now in a very different way.
I haven't seen any more questions come up from the chat or any more comments, so I don't know whether Elysia wants to add anything or any of the other speakers to what we've said so far.

Elysia McCaffrey 49:47
Hi, Suzanne.
No, I don't think so.
And I I'm I'm really, really proud of the work that the team have done actually around the approach to regulation, the approach to enforcement, how we're responding to Intel and so on.
And as I said at the beginning of this session, we are really small team.
We do a lot with very little and I think that the work that the team have put in since the first year of our strategy to streamline our work, improve our effectiveness, work well our partners and so on, it's really clear from those presentations today.
So I'm happy to take any questions as well, but I think that's all I'd say, Suzanne.

Suzanne (Guest) 50:21
Thank you.
I see we put up the contact us list that we have here for the different teams and I think one of the themes that have come out of today's webinar is in fact how much we depend on those that were working with us in the sector to give us information that we can then use to help keep the sector professional and a level playing field which has the I know what everyone wants.

Suzanne (Guest) 50:47
I'll just wait a moment just to see if anyone has had a brainstorm.
Ohh we have had somebody with a brainstorm.
Is this from Andrew?
Is this process for new applications only?
As I've had my license for just over a year now and we were expecting an inspection after six months, but as of yet we haven't had one.
Nicola, do you want to speak to that?

Nicola Ray 51:10
Yeah.
So we will be potentially coming out to see you.
I'm sure it depends when you start to trading, but use the trading date as as when we start looking at when we're gonna come out to visit businesses.
But if your business was assessed, I don't know off the top of my head and I don't think we want to share here anyway.
But if your business was determined as low risk, then it might be taking a bit longer before you get that compliance inspection, but you should be getting an inspection.
The process for applications though, is for all new applications that we started from September.
It was mid September when we started, but the compliance work when we looked at risk rating, we did look back over all of our licenses that we've issued over the last 18 to 24 months to try and make sure we've got a really good picture of our sector.

Suzanne (Guest) 51:53
Umm Nicola, do you want to say anything about renewal applications?
Is there anything that anyone on the webinar should be aware of that is different from what has been done previously with manuals?

Nicola Ray 52:05
Now renewals operate same renewals is primarily an automated process.
The only thing we would say around renewals is that if you've changed any of your contact details, can you let us know because the system will automatically send it to the contact address that you give us and occasionally not, not all the time obviously, but we find that somebody's changing an email or something so they're not getting the prompts to tell them to go into the system to update their information and to check that the information that we've got on our license record is still accurate and to pay for the renewal.

Suzanne (Guest) 52:34
And then there's how often are renewals, please?

Nicola Ray 52:38
You can renew your license every year.
It's granted for 12 months and you get, yeah, you'll get.

Suzanne (Guest) 52:43
That basically every year.

Nicola Ray 52:45
Yeah.
And you will get your reminder about six weeks before it's due.
And if you want to, you can actually pay six months before it's due.

Suzanne (Guest) 52:52
Uh, we always like people to pay up front, but they don't have to.

Nicola Ray 52:57
Yeah.
And if you don't pay or for any reason, there are no old hasn't gone through, we will still contact you on their contact details.
We have just to check that you haven't missed any of the reminders.
Umm but yeah.
So we were like, but the system is the one that generates all the emails, but we will do at the end of the process, we always check as well just to make sure that something hasn't fallen through.

Suzanne (Guest) 53:16
But Nicola the responsibility is for the license holder, is it not?

Nicola Ray 53:20
Yes, to make sure that they're still licensed and not committing a criminal offense.

Suzanne (Guest) 53:25
Which we wouldn't want them to do.
We haven't had any more in the chat.
We're coming up to about 12:00 o'clock.
We're a little bit early, but I think we've covered everything we wanted to cover in the webinar and as I said, the basic theme has been please give us any information you have because we can use it effectively to help the sector and to help license providers and most importantly, the people working for them.
So unless there is anything else that's coming in on the chat, uh in the next minute or so, I think we will be closing this webinar.
Can I again say that you will get the slides, they will be available on the website and we will be emailing mailing everyone who is registered after for this event.

Suzanne (Guest) 54:17
Afterwards, with the material that's been presented today.
So I think since we haven't had any more questions, I will close the webinar and I hope that you have found it helpful.
Thank you very much.

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