Labour User Labour Provider webinar 5 October 2023

Here you will find a recording of the webinar held on 8 June 2023 and associated presentations.

 

Labour User labour Provider webinar slides

The webinar transcript can be found below.

National Fraud Investigation Bureau guides

National Fraud Investigation Bureau services and guide

External suspension request form 

Justice & Care

You can contact Jess on jess@justiceandcare.org

Transcript for the Labour User Labour Provider meeting

David Snowball   3:14
OK. So that's that's 11:00 o'clock. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this labour provider and labour user meeting from the Gang Masters and Labour Abuse Authority. My name's David snowball. I'm one of the non executive members on the GLAA board and I'm sitting in today for Suzanne McCarthy. So again, thank you for joining. We've got four sets of speakers today. We'll just run through them in the normal way in terms of housekeeping. It's pretty simple. I'm sure you're all very familiar with what's what the expectations are.

David Snowball   3:45
Just to let you know, we will be recording this session and afterwards that recording will be available on the Glaa website. If there's anything that you missed or you want to go back and recheck, you can see it on the website along with other ones. Please keep your camera off. Please keep your mic on mute.
Unless, of course, we come round to AQ and A and you want to make an oral contribution. If you have any comments or questions, please do it in real time. Don't wait till the end of the of the speaker or wait till the end of the seminar that that way we tend to lose a bit of the thread and a bit of the interaction. So if you want to ask any questions, please put those straight into the chat box.

David Snowball   4:20
And we will get round to dealing with them. And if we don't get round to dealing with everything today, we will try and get back to you outside the meeting and make sure that your contribution isn't wasted.

David Snowball   4:32
So I don't think there's anything else I want to say at this stage. We'll we'll move right into the first presentation and that's from Laura Thomas, who is the head of National Partnerships and External communications at GLAA. So over to you please, Laura.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   4:45
Thank you very much, David. Good morning everybody.
I will have met many of you in my various other roles within the Gang, Masters and Labour Abuse Authority, either as a labour abuse prevention officer, a licencing officer or laterally as the partnerships officer. I've recently come into post as head of National Partnerships and External communications and as you can imagine, as I am embedding.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   5:17
It feels like a really good time to have a look at how we as an organisation.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   5:25
Are linking with you as our stakeholders, as our partners and with our service users as well.
And where that there's lots of different ways that we communicate with you through our social media channels, through our website and of course through these events and with our bulletin.
What I'm looking to do as we move into the new year is get a feel for how that is working for you as our service users as our partners.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   6:05
I won't ask you all to throw everything in at the moment.
But what I will ask is that you take some time over the next couple of weeks to think about what you use that we produce.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   6:20
What we need to produce that would make things better for you, but also think about what other government organisations, what other regulators you have contact with and what information you access from them, how you access that and what does and doesn't work.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   6:41
We really want to build a new plan that really serves people that really demonstrates how effective we are as a regulator.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   6:53
And gives you the information that you need to stop worker exploitation.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   7:00
So I'll leave it there very simply.
Thank you very much.
And I will turn my camera off.

David Snowball   7:11
OK. Thanks, Laura. Just just to sort of reinforce that, I mean one of the things that I think the board of GLA are very conscious of is that it's very easy to think that just because you're making noise and making sound and projecting outwards that people are listening. And if there's no kind of reflective echo from that, you can actually get quite depressed if you don't hear anything coming back in and it may, it's not meant to sound desperate. Please don't take it that way. But there's an awful lot of good regulatory activity that does not involve anything other than good communication and communicating, communicating those.

David Snowball   7:43
Powerful messages that are in the new glaa strategy around being a regulator, being a good partner, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The obviously, the glaa wants to broadcast that. It's a very small organisation. You know there's only between about 110 and 120 people working the glaa, but I'm convinced that that means that we have to punch above our weight and we have to get real value for money and everything that we do. So whether it's whether it's the Facebook link, whether it's Instagram, whether it's stuff on the website well whatever it happens to be happens to be.

David Snowball   8:15
You know, there's a range of choice there. There's a huge menu from which you can choose to get your messages and you get them from all different sorts of people at all different times. So Laura's Laura's request, really, I think is very valid and the board would very much support that idea that if we've got stakeholders and let's be, let's be honest, you take the trouble to engage with us. You're here today because you want to engage with the regulator.

David Snowball   8:38
There's absolutely no point in us just sitting back and saying will come to us that that communications is always two way.
What we're saying to you, what you're picking up, what works best for you, how it comes back. So that's really I think, Laura, just exactly what you just said, if you have got views about this, please let us have them because otherwise you know, we'll probably carry on doing what we've done.

David Snowball   9:00
And some of that will be into an echo chamber. Some of it will be into a void and some of it will actually hit people that need to hear it. So that was a heartfelt plea for me, really, to back up Laura's heartfelt play that we would like to know how you want to be communicated with anything else you want to add. Laura before I move on to ask Robert to take his part.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   9:18
No, thank you very much.

David Snowball   9:20
Good. OK, OK. So our next presentation is by Doctor Robert Stenson and Roberts, one of our intelligence analysts at Glaa. So over to you please, Robert.

David Snowball   9:32
Microphone.

Robert Stenson   9:36
Three years in and still not unmuting myself.

David Snowball   9:38
I know brain the size of a planet but can’t turn the mute off.

Robert Stenson   9:41
Oh, I know. Thanks.
Yeah. As David said, my name is Rob. I'm one of the Intel analysts here. I'm just going to be giving a brief overview of what's our control strategy. Priority areas are at the moment. I think it's probably worth starting first though. Just backing on to what Laura and David have just said.

Robert Stenson   10:01
We're in the process of.

Robert Stenson   10:03
Or have already been uploading sort of intelligence products that we that we put out, we put those on the website at the moment, but obviously if there's ways that you think would be better for those to reach you.
Then please reach out and we'll we'll see what we can do about that is sanitised versions of of intelligence products.
And so, for example, there's our most recent quarterly forced labour intelligence assessment up on the website now. 

Robert Stenson   10:32
But yeah, just just echoing David and Laura's calls if.
There's a way that would be better for those products to reach you. Then let us know and we'll we'll see what we can do about that.
So moving on to the control strategies then, if you've been on this call before, you've probably seen these first couple of slides, but I think it's just worth reiterating what a control strategy is and the purpose that it serves in the organisation. So control strategy drives sort of essentially the direction of the organisation in terms of our prevention work, our Intel work and our enforcement activity as well.

Robert Stenson   11:05
It says the strategic sort of priorities of the organisation. It helps us.
Manage resources across our different departments. That way the control strategies derived from the Strategic Intelligence assessment, which is compiled every year, the most recent one being.
In August and agreed in September this year and then that's agreed by the strategic task in a coordination group.
And that strategic assessment identifies.
Gaps that we're seeing.
And that informs the sort of priorities for the organisation moving forward over the next year. Next slide please, Laura.
So essentially, what does as I've mentioned, drives this sort of resource allocation for the organisation through our tactical task in coordination meeting and make sure that the things that need resources allocated to them are allocated there. That isn't to say that we ignore other areas that aren't controlled strategy areas, it's just that these these areas will take priority.
In most circumstances.
It also allows a more sort of consistent approach across the organisation, ensures that the enforcement teams are working closely with the compliance teams, and likewise Intel are feeding into that.
Should note that the control strategy priority areas are fluid.
The most recent four will have been agreed at strategic task and in September, but it may be that those will change over the next few months depending on what type of intelligence we receive. Any emerging threats that we see and that kind of thing. So they're they're not a fixed entities, they are fluid and they are subject to change.
And that will be communicated via via our website.
Thank you, Laura. So the newly agreed control strategy areas for from September 23?
Are firstly, the exploitation of seasoned workers in the agriculture sector. This is a hangover from the previous control strategy areas.
Likewise, forcing crossroad labour in the residential care sector.
The GLA has been the lead on sort of care sector related activity.
This is still a focus for us at the moment. I think there's discussions around who owns.
Care sector related activity at the moment, but for us, we're still seeing a lot of Intel coming related to that.
A lot of intelligence around sort of potential forced labour concerns, so that remains a strategic priority for us. Two new ones that have been added for September are mapping operational activity around organised crime groups. That is in particular to relate OC GS where there are potential indicators of forced labour, labour exploitation and then the final one is high risk, non compliant labour providers.
And then if I'll, I'll go into a bit more detail around that in a couple of slides time, Laura, next slide please.
So just breaking these down a little bit in terms of the seasonal work control strategy area, so a lot of the intelligence that we're receiving.
Is related to sort of high extortionate fees being paid by workers to either overseas entities.
Or local entities for securing visas, for example.
And that's potentially leading into debt *******.
So this is a work around this control structure in our previous sort of cycle of control strategy areas was really effective and and we're continuing that now with with this new cycle likewise with forced labour in the care sector.

Robert Stenson   15:05
We've seen a big increase in the amount of intelligence reporting that we're seeing coming in related to the care sector.
Similar issues to what we've seen in the seasonal worker sector in terms of high fees being paid to secure visas and those visas are then used as a means of control.

Robert Stenson   15:24
Threats of deportation and visa revocation are prominent in the intelligence that we're seeing at the moment.
And there's risks to both to workers, both sort of physically and financially with that.
Next slide, please, Laura.
In terms of icgs?
Ocgs have generally been an intelligence gap for the glaa for a number of years, and that's one of the reasons why this has become a control tactic area. Now it's that we can is that we're able to map.
Get a greater intelligence picture around OC GS operating potentially in relation to forced labour and labour exploitation.
As that sort of caption says, their national data shows suggests that sort of 10% of mapped ocgs are involved in facilitating irregular migrants into the UK.
And where there are sort of indicators of potential forced labour and labour exploitation.
And then finally, in terms of high risk labour providers.

Robert Stenson   16:27
Through our on our own intelligence systems and through the intelligence that we're recording.
There's a suggestion that potentially 9% of licenced labour providers have received an allegation of potential sort of an allegation which would equate to a critical non compliance in relation to the GALAAS licencing standards and so again this control strategy has been put in to enable us to build a better intelligence picture around that and act when necessary.
That was a really whistle stop tour of what our control strategies are.
I'll obviously pause for any questions or comments.

David Snowball   17:07
Thanks, Robert. While people are reflecting on that, there's a couple of points in the chat from David. He says I'm aware there have been some staff changes within the glaa. It would be good to have a key contact list populated to all licence holders to start with the investigations team and then a follow up question, it would be a comment rather it would be advantageous to build relationships locally with regional investigators just to can anybody else in the Glaa executive team there comment on has the GLAA routinely in the past made available lists of key contacts within the organisation.
On the website? Or is it? Is it the kind of thing where as soon as you've got a list up that's definitive it it changes and therefore it becomes a bit like painting the 4th row bridge? I mean, can anybody comment on that please?

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   17:50
We have historically put a map with contact details of the senior investigating officers onto the website.
You are right, David, there have been some changes with this.
The new investigation teams actually went live on Sunday.
So we will look to circulate the contact details of those local sios.
We have don't generally tend to post on our website or on social media. The details of the investigation officers as that turnover can cause some problem with keeping it up to date. What I would say is that alongside of those relationships with your local officers, we are always receiving information through the intelligence at GLA Inbox.

David Snowball   18:33
Yeah.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   18:51
I will pop the e-mail address into the chat for everybody.
Whilst it does go centrally.
The emails the information is looked at on a local level on a regional level, just so that we make sure that we've got that insight and that holistic view of everything.

David Snowball   19:13
Alright, that's helpful, Laura. Thank you. I mean on that on that inbox typically what kinds of things is that inbox attracting, is it is it, is it given a specific set of things if you want to raise this with us go to this inbox or or is it one of several inboxes just so people know the difference.

Robert Stenson   19:28
I can jump in on this if that's all right. So the Intel inbox is primarily used for sort of any any information allegation.

David Snowball   19:30
Yes, please.

Robert Stenson   19:39
Related to sort of potential forced labour.
Inside or outside the regulated sector, any allegations in relation to operators within the regulated sector, essentially any information or allegations should go should go to that intelligence inbox. If it's more just questions related to your licence.
Or if you need to change any details that kind of stuff, that information would go to the licencing. I think it's licencing at gla.gov.uk. But yeah the intelligence inbox would be for any any adverse information or intelligence related to potential forced labour, labour exploitation concerns, whether that's insect or out.

David Snowball   20:20
Right. And and just so people are clear, is all of our comms sort of input coming in electronically rather, is there a phone number people can ring or is it all do we try and direct them all to the electronic digital route?

Robert Stenson   20:33
There is an intelligence phone number. I'm sure Laura can post that in the chat as well.

David Snowball   20:35
Right.
OK. Right, right, good. Any any questions for Robert there now you've had a chance to maybe a bit of a bit of reflection. I'm happy to take either in the chat room or if you want to raise your hand, you can use the raise hand function on the top toolbar.

David Snowball   20:55
You can sense the degree of desperation in my voice. Are there any questions? But the fact that there aren't any questions will be testament to the fact that Robert gave a very clear presentation.
Doesn't look like we're getting. Oh, hang on. We've got one. Yes. What have we got here?
That's one person with new activity. Let's have a look.

Robert Stenson   21:11
Thomas.

Thomas Price   21:16
Hi. I just wanted to ask and when you're setting your strategy, how does the director of a labour market enforcement feed into that or is is is there any, is there any input? I just curious about the relationship.

David Snowball   21:27
Oh, that's a good that's a good question, Robert. Do you want to do you want to comment on that or do you want me to comment on that?

Robert Stenson   21:33
Thomas, are you talking about our strategic intelligence assessment or the overall GLA strategy?

Thomas Price   21:41
Oh, good question. I suppose I'm thinking about your overall strategy, and I suppose also how that feeds feeds down into into. You know, when you, when you, when you go down to look at specifics.

Robert Stenson   21:54
David, do you want to take the overall strategy question?

David Snowball   21:56
OK. Yeah. OK. It it's a good question because I think, you know without without sort of going into too much detail that the whole the the position of the DLME in in recent years has been a bit fluid. I think it's the best way to put it that we know we had to ING and froing around the single enforcement body. We've had various government presentations or publications about what the future of a labour market exploitation looks like from a board point of view though.
I mean, the board sat down.
Under the equivalent of wet towels around the heads had a long series of conversations about where the organisation needed to position itself, regardless of what was going on in the outside world. But nodding in the direction of if, if the Seb was resurrected, if the DLME strategy was in a different place, could the could the glaa respond to that and actually going back to the strategy itself, I mean that the first point that that Laura and Robert both made about being a robust and refractive and regulator, the the the only thing that the glaa does.

David Snowball   23:00
In in in one sense, which only it can do is licencing. It's the only body that licences gang masters, so therefore you know it's it's pretty obvious you know if that's what it says on the wrong sealed tin, that's what you have to get right now. That doesn't mean that all the other aspects of labour abuse and labour exploitation are off off the radar. They certainly aren't based on what, on Roberts just described. But when we look at that broader environment in which labour abuse and and stopping labour abuse not not not messing about stopping labour abuse.
Is part of a bigger series of strategies around labour protection, wages, minimum etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The board actually thought you know, we can't constantly be being drifted one way or another according to swim or according to the the relative position of other players in that regulatory sphere. So in a nutshell, the dlme, the Seb, all of those external things going on outside the glaa are relevant, but I would hope that as a board and as an organisation, we've come up with a strategy which is.
Presently clear and and farsighted enough that it is going to be able to weather whatever comes in its direction from the DLMEA possible future SCB, whatever it happens to be, because that that strategic environment, I mean you only have to look at the political landscape at the minute to say there's a there's a fair bit of confusion going on. There's a fair bit of doing and froing on different political views about certain things which may or may not ultimately result in labour abuse. The GLA has to do the job everyday so people have to get up in the morning, go out and do the glaa work.
And part of that about being a robust and effective regulator, there is a there's a sense for me certainly as a board member looking and seeing how the organisation does that.
Just focus on the day job. Some of this stuff will come to pass. It may not come to pass, but focus on the day job and that day job is about stopping labour abuse, making sure a licenced gang masters don't misbehave, and calling to account people that do misbehave.
I sense I've probably said too much or rather rambled on a bit there, but if you want to come back and ask me any more specific about that, I'm happy to take it.

Robert Stenson   25:09
I think just to add to, sorry Thomas.

Thomas Price   25:10
No, thank.
I was gonna say no. Thanks. Thanks very much. That's very interesting and very, very informative. Thank you.

David Snowball   25:15
OK.

Robert Stenson   25:18
I think just uh, back back on to what David said there in terms of linking that overall strategy to the control strategy areas that being a robust and effective regulator.

David Snowball   25:18
Thank you.

Robert Stenson   25:28
And thinking about one of the control strategies being high risk.
Non compliant labour providers, I think, is a good example of how we're linking that sort of those control strategy areas to to the broader strategy that the GLA is adopting over the next few years.

David Snowball   25:44
Yeah. Good point, Robert. Yeah, OK. Any other points people want to make?
In which case, who's our next our next presenter presenter? Sorry is Jess Clayton and Jess going to talk? Jess is the GLEA victim navigator. So welcome, Jess. And over to you.

Jessica Clayton   26:04
Hello, good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing OK. Sorry I am out and about at the moment. So I am in my car, so I'm just Clayton. I am the victim navigator for the gang Masters and Labour Abuse Authority, so I work with the modern slavery charity called Justice and Care. But I'm actually embedded within the glaa. So I just wanted to give a quick overview about my role and what justice and care is all about.
And before I move on, so we are a small modern slavery charity. We have 12 victim navigators that are spread across 40% of UK police forces now. So our rule, our job is to remain impartial and to support the victims through.
The any investigations, any modern slavery investigations and the prosecution process in court, we're also there to support our law enforcement with any strategic advice around Victim Support and any strategies on how to support the victims moving forwards.
And there's just a list on the right there. Of all the law enforcement's that were embedded with it currently.
Next slide, please, Laura.
So yeah, so there was a gap identified around six years ago.
That the police didn't have the time to commit to, you know, providing support to the victims. You know, the victims we come across tend to be quite complex.
They have complex support needs.
And they do tend to be quite traumatised, so it can be very difficult to navigate whilst doing a full blown investigation as well.
So that's why there were there to plug that gap and to support the victim and the police force or law enforcement as such as GLAA in building that bridge, with the victims gaining their trust and hopefully getting a successful prosecution.
We're there to help with training as well, developing any policies, procedures, processes around victims, increasing cultural knowledge, and we're there as well to support the victims through their recovery journey.
Next slide, please, Laura. And so yeah, today we just wanted to talk about, you know, with Christmas coming up and the demand that is put on to labour providers.
And of course, the demands that is put on to our our labour labour workers as well, so something that we've been talking about quite regularly at the minute is the spectrum of labour exploitation. So that is anything from low level abuse that can be quite minor, things that maybe colleagues or managers.
Are not doing purposefully, but maybe you know struggling to support their work. They might be putting pressure on them to work more hours.
But just here to remind you that GLAAD here to support the workers and to support you in supporting the workers as well and to prevent, you know, the severe labour exploitation from happening and to support you in stopping the minor stuff from happening as well.
So it might be that you have some colleagues that are demonstrating poor practise.
So we've just got some pointers on the next slide. Lara, please.
So yeah, I did have a fancy Christmas light here, but for some reason it wouldn't send over to Laura had all twinkly lights. But yeah, it's coming to that crap time of year where we're all prepping for Christmas. The pressure and demand is there.
And you know, feedback that we've had from workers in the past is that, you know, pressure gets put on to them. So we just wanted to remind.
You all, if you could philtre it in to your colleagues and partners as well.
Just to a reminder about working time rules that workers shouldn't be working longer than 48 hours a week unless they've got a written consent to do so, and there should be a record of that.
And workers must have one day off per week.
Just to make sure that they're getting a break, they're getting the rest and recovery.
And make sure that they're getting the correct breaks for the hours that they put in as well. So if a worker is working for more than six hours, they should have at least a 20 minute break in between.
Ensuring ID cheques are carried out before and during employment, so I was speaking to one of the senior officers.
And the South syndicate. And he was saying last year there was quite a lot of imposters. We kind of call them where there will be a legit worker that's come forward. They're signed up to the role and then they might have got their friend or family or even somebody that they're exploiting to come in on their ID.
So the cheques at the start? Brilliant, but the ID cheques were not being done.
During their employment and it turned out that these people were coming in and out and there was a different person every day.
This ID, so that could be an indicator towards that that person's being exploited, or it could be just that somebody's not got the right to work. So they're acting under somebody else's ID.
So why you do have concerns? Please engage with the workers as much as you can. Get HR removal, try build that trust with them. A lot of victims that we come across don't tend to have trust or positivity around police or law enforcement that can feel.
Quite threatened by them. So if you are thinking of introducing them to us because maybe your concern that there is some labour exploitation going on and they are forced into coming into work and being financially exploited.
Please try put us positive spin on to the glaa so that when our officers come in or if I come in, you know they they understand that we are there to help and that our priority is the worker.
So yeah, education on Glaa and others, any other support agencies as well? So you're more than happy to speak about my role and that I would be there to support them if they did want to provide a witness statement and and something else that the senior officer mentioned is trying to be organised. So again, they had it last year where.
A factory had to left it till the last minute to recruit people for the busy Christmas periods and.
They basically said to work on the shop floor. We need staff. Have you got any friends that are interested in a job? They've got them into the work the next day. They've not completed any ID cheques. And then when they have been completed further down the line, it turns out that they don't actually have the right to work in the UK and it just leaves you open to many other issues that might that might come on further down the line. Next slide please. Laura.
So just some indicators of labour exploitation. I'm sure you'll have seen all these before, but just to reiterate then, and if you wouldn't mind, you know, filtering this down to your colleagues, that would be brilliant.
So working long hours, double shifts, even if they've consented to do so with yourselves, with the employer.
You know, just to ask them why they're working so many hours. Is everything OK at home? Just keeping that relationship there with them because you know, it might be that they do have a lot of Christmas presents to buy. They've got, you know, they've got the pressure as well of Christmas time, but it also might be that somebody is actually financially exploiting them and forcing them to work these extra hours.
Logging on on other workers cards cover that on the previous slide. The individual may lack freedom of movement, so another indicator following on from this might be that they're being transported to work with multiple people. The person transporting them. They might not have a positive relationship with them. They might be quite bossy, quite rude to them.
And again, if other workers point out who I didn't really like that maybe following up on that with a conversation with the worker.
The work could not eat and at meal breaks, a couple of we've had a couple of successful prosecutions in the last year and both of those prosecutions, one of the first indicators, was eating. And so a lot of other workers had realised that they were not eating at lunchtime, they were eating scraps that were being left behind and they were just sat there, quite isolated and didn't speak to her at any other workers.
And this is because they were being forced to work and they were being financially exploited. They didn't have access to their funds or their bank account or their ID.
They were being controlled at home within their accommodation by people they thought were their friends.
But actually they've just exploited them.
Signs of psychological or physical abuse, so they might be withdrawn, intimidated, frightened. Again, they might be isolated from other workers, lack of protective equipment, suitable clothing. Again, another job that we've had is where.
The the victim turned up to work with sliders on when it was snowing outside that were actually your job on it, Laura.
And blasphemy was walking to work with the slides, something that was snowing and that was kind of the final straw.
For the company and HR pulled him in and said, why have you not bought suitable shoes? And he said I don't. I don't have any money and then they showed him his peers slip and yeah, and it all came from that.
So yeah, the individual might not have access to their own documents, so that's a good question to ask. If you do have concerns and you think that they're struggling to open up, maybe ask them where can I see your ID?
Can I see a passport? Where is it? Who's got hold of it? Lack of contracts and paid below national minimum wage are also indicators that Glaa will be looking out for next slide. Please, Laura.
And I just saw this as a brilliant opportunity to plug. So please excuse me, but we have just started a fueled the fight campaign to increase our donations. It is anti slavery day.
On the 18th of October.
So we will always run a campaign to, you know, get our name out there and try and get some donations in. There was an amazing video that embedded in, but we've decided not to play it just in case people are struggling with their. Their Internet might be a bit jumpy and all over the place, but I would please prompt you to have a look.

Jessica Clayton   37:36
At our website the link is there. I'll put it into the chat and if you have got any questions. Oh, thank you, Catherine. If you do have any questions, please feel free. Feel free to e-mail me.
Thank you.
You're on mute, David. Sorry.

David Snowball   37:59
How embarrassing. So, Robert, one David, one there. OK, sorry about that. First of all, Jess, you've now beaten the John Lewis to be the first person to mention Christmas to a public audience. So that's I think that's a fineable offence really.
Oh, any questions for Jess? I mean, the thing that strikes me listening to that is, you know, it's very easy to forget. You know what it's like at the sharp end and the idea that somebody would suffer in the circumstances that Jess described, I think it's a useful reminder and reinforcement of why we're all here in the first place.
So any hands up, any questions in the chat box or have you just been all been blown away by what Jess just said?
Looks like you're back at the end. Well, I'll, I'll not. I'll. I'll not sort of wet in, in, in suspense. We'll move on to the next to the next president to then. Which is Colin Norton, who works for the glaa. And we've also got DS Joanne Ferguson here today from City of London police. So I don't know. Colin and Joanne, have you worked out how you're going to do this as a double hander? Are you going to do it in, in sequence or how are you going to do it?
He said.

Joanne Ferguson   39:07
Yeah, I'm in your hands. I'm ready to go whenever you are. Colin, do you want to go first? I'll be polite.

Colin Norton   39:13
Well, yeah. I mean I I'll, I'll just. I didn't realise you were dialling in, Joanne. So and apologies for being late, but I I was asked by Laura to sort of come on to this call because what what we appear to be receiving into the GLAA is is we've been getting a large amount of frauds being reported.
So it's it's been the way it's been presented to us is multiple victims are being targeted overseas and in the UK.
And they're either being and it's a it's a, it's a. It's a scam. So if we lay that out initially and they're either receiving messages, emails via WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, various websites or phone calls, and what the the scam caller is doing is they're purporting to be.
A particular employee.
In in the UK, off offering and under the banner of that company offering work out to to people overseas and in the UK.
And they're and. They're basically laying a trap that offers a job in the UK now. Now some of these people are. I mean, they're particularly vulnerable. They're being targeted, in my opinion. And and some of them are actually bringing their whole families over with them, that some of them are selling their belongings and and making the trip as well.
But what the scam person is doing is they're basically once they offer that job and the job doesn't exist is these people are paying money to to the person laying the trap. If you like, and and in some cases they're huge amounts of money and then they're making a trip and what they're doing is we've we've been having reports in from various partners saying, you know, we've had these people arrive and at our gates saying, you know, I'm such and such. I'm here for this job. And and obviously they're being told this awful.
Situation that actually it's a scam. It's it's a fraud and there is no job here for you, which obviously then causes loads of problems for that individual. Now that these are being being reported to us and the route that we, we can't we couldn't deal with them within the GLA because of the circumstances that that the scam was happening.
But obviously I've through a previous contact with Essex Police I've met and and exchanged conversations and emails with Joanne Ferguson and her colleagues, and there's probably something that.
The City of London can can do, and I, I suppose at that point, Joanne, I could probably hand it over to yourself just to just to tell everybody what what you've already told me.

Joanne Ferguson   41:47
Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Colin. So, thank you. First of all for letting me have this opportunity to speak to you all. It's unusual that we get the opportunity to reach out to such a large sector. So thank you for letting me come on to your meeting. I know I gate crashed it quite late notice. As Colin said, he got in touch with my team. So if I just explain, I'm a Detective Sergeant within the City of London police. We host action fraud, which is the front facing side of our service where you can make your reports of fraud.
And behind that sits the national Fraud Intelligence Bureau, which is where myself and my team sit.
And we see the reports that come in. So those reports go through a lot of different mechanisms. And unfortunately, one of the things the police aren't great about is telling the public all the other things we're doing in the background. So when you make your report to action for, there's a whole host of things that we do, apart from the core job of looking at the reports, assessing them and seeing if they're viable for investigation and to send out to local forces. My team, one of our functions is to look at those reports.
And try and disrupt the crime. Try and protect the public and stop the fraud from continuing. So my team are called the prevention and disruption team and we look at those reports as they come in and we look for any websites, emails, phone numbers on recently social media accounts that are used to help that fraud. They're used as a vehicle to keep it going and we will look at those services and we will look at who the service provider is and we will look and see if we can.
Disrupt it.
Down. Take it out of action by taking away a website. It takes away the criminals contact with the public. It stops them from drawing them in. So in very basic terms, we will look at a new website and one of the things Colin raised was potentially UK businesses are being cloned overseas so people don't realise that when they're reporting to action fraud, we may be able to find a suspect. But if they're not in the UK, we're going to struggle to get them back and deal with them, especially if they're in.
Overseas territory.
Hostile to fraud investigations or to the UK police, so one of the misconceptions is just because we have a suspect doesn't mean we can actually go hands on them. But what we can do is close the door, close the gates to the UK so the people within the UK don't fall victim. So our team's main drive is to try and take these entities out of action so that they can't keep getting used, especially when they're being used against the UK and businesses such as yourselves will be affected by this because it's your reputation.
So I'm really interested to speak to you today to see if I can tell you a bit about what we do and to see if there is a time when you might want to use our services and we're happy to open it up to your sector.

David Snowball   44:41
Joan, sorry to interrupt. We've got a question there in the chat box, which I think is relevant to take at the moment. The question is, are there particular sectors being targeted at the moment?

Joanne Ferguson   44:41
So yeah.
Well, this is only been recently been reported to us, so it was only because the GLA came forward that we started to look on to the action forward system. The amount of Intel we hold is vast. So what I would say is if people don't report, we can't see the patterns, the crimes, the trains. So if people think there's no point referring to action fraud, nothing happens. Actually a huge amount happens in the background because if a if a bank account is reported, we can go across to the banks and say, look, this is suspicious, suspicious account. Can you review it? We may be able to stop some money in transit sometimes.
We can see the full weight of the data, so at the moment I can't tell you if there's a particular sector, but it's something I've raised this sector as a result of the GLA coming to us. I've asked an analyst to look at the reports coming in around this particular area to see if it's something that we need to focus on and then we also have a protect team which will look at current or emerging trends and then go out to the sector and give advice on how to protect itself. For example, if you're an employer.
And found out that your site is being cloned. You might want to put a message up on your main website saying we are aware reports have come in. We we will only do the following and you can try and educate people going on to your genuine site that this scam is in effect. So there's bits of advice and there's ways we can give you advice to protect yourselves. But really I just want to talk to you today about our service. We have a form which I will ask to be sent out afterwards with a guide on what we can and can't accept.
We don't have a power to tell a service provider to take a website down. We don't have that kind of regulation. But what we do have is the weight of those action fraud reports.
Our reputation as police officers and specialists within this field, we go through the terms and conditions of using that website of creating a domain of creating a phone number, creating an e-mail account and we will show through the evidence that we gather through our own investigation that those terms and conditions are being breached. So our whole goal is to provide the service provider with as much information so that they have to take action by removing that service and and we will get to know the service provider.

Joanne Ferguson   47:05
What they do and don't need, and make our own enquiries open and closed source to give them that evidence to take action and if they still refuse to take action, there's further things we can do. We can appeal to the regulators, such as Ofcom nominee I can. We can also use the domain name blocking so we have.
An agreement with a number of major UK broadband suppliers, where if we notify them of suspicious domains because we've investigated those domains, they know it's a higher level.
They'll block it, so you can't even get onto it. But that only protects the UK and obviously my concern is that we've got people overseas who are vulnerable, who are turning up to work in the UK with no visas, no money in a very vulnerable situation. So firstly, I would ask you to report any, any, any information you're given in relation to this, please put it on to action fraud and then if you want to fill out our form with the reference number for your report, you can e-mail it to our team and we will look at it.
If there's something we can do, we're not here for brand protection. So if we we do need a report of crime to work on because that's the basis of our application to the service provider. So you may find that your company names exists in Afghanistan or China or Russia, and that's going to be a civil issue. If they're taking your brand, then you need to take action.
To remedy that, however, if you have evidence that that brand is being misused for fraud, if it's an e-mail, we need a copy of the e-mail header.
Content and that's because that's what the service provider wants. So without going into too much detail, it is in the guidance that I'll send to you. It's fairly simple. In fairness websites, we just need the website.
Emails, we do need a copy of the header, so if and if somebody comes to you and says look I had this e-mail from someone telling me I had a work visa or telling me I had a job. Please could you get a copy of it and send it through in our e-mail because we will use that to have it taken down.
With phone numbers, if if you're reporting a phone number, can you just ring it to check if it's still live and ask how long it's been in use for? Because phone numbers get sold on quite quickly and they can get cloned, so there's just a couple of extra questions we'd ask you.
To address with somebody reporting it and that gives us the best chance of getting those entities taken out of action and hopefully trying to prevent more people from falling victim to this.
And we've recently got into social media as well, so we have.
An arrangement with Facebook and Instagram and we work very closely with Google as well, but we do need a screenshot of any offending posts and this is fraud based. So if it relates to another type of crime, please feel free to e-mail us and we can guide you on that.
So that's sort of a whistle stop tour of my team. We have myself and seven detectives that work on this full time. Last year we took down 5000 websites.
And as I say, we are terrible at promoting ourselves in policing. We do all this extra work in the background that nobody knows about, but the impact on industry we saved something like £80 million of British money just from the takedowns that we did. So the Home Office have recognised that this is the work that we should be doing and are now looking to invest in that going forward. So that's really just an update for you in terms of where the team's going. We're looking to actually expand this work. So hopefully that will be of interest to you.
As I say, we'll send the information out and I'm open to questions.

David Snowball   50:57
Joanne, that was that was brilliant. New terms not not just the detail, but actually the scariness of it. I just I maybe I haven't sort of teed Robert up about this, but Robert, in what circumstances with what Joanne has just described be a sort of a feedstock for the glaa control strategy or is it, is it too early to say, I mean if it is too early to say, just just confirm please, but how would that sort of emerging crime if you like feed into the glaa control strategy thinking?

Robert Stenson   51:28
In terms of people reporting in and how it would feed in.

David Snowball   51:32
Well, a combination. You know, if all of a sudden you know, people become more aware of this. And Joanne's team and Colin in particular seeing a surge in the number of times this is being mentioned, how would it sort of then figure in glaa priorities if we not not where would we put it? But how would we respond to that? Would we start considering that that was more valuable than something else? How would we go about doing that just to give people a flavour of the internal kind of glaa thinking and approach to that.

Robert Stenson   51:58
Yeah. So we consistently review the intelligence that comes in so that we have a sort of overarching picture of the stuff that we're logging. If we start to see.
A trend emerging whereby we're receiving a lot of intelligence related to a very specific thing over a sort of sustained period of time then that might be something that we raise in the various internal meetings that we have.

Robert Stenson   52:22
That might, depending on the severity, depending on the amount of intelligence that we're receiving, that might then feed into further discussions around control strategy areas.
More broadly, but yeah, that intelligence is being constantly reviewed by by US analysts.

David Snowball   52:32
Right.
Right.

Robert Stenson   52:39
So any trends that do emerge will will be will be noted.

David Snowball   52:42
Thanks, Robert. What was the figure you quoted there and and how did you it was it £80 million, did you say?

Joanne Ferguson   52:49
Yeah. So one of the things we struggled with on the team is we know it's like policing a High Street on a Saturday night. You could have officers in uniform and you never know quite how much crime they've deterred just by being there in uniform. Was there one less sexual assault, one less rowdy punch up? You don't know, you just know it works. And one of the problems with our team is we know that taking down fraudulent websites is the right thing to do. It's in. It's an important thing to do because unfortunately, somebody has fallen victim to it by the time we're told of it.

David Snowball   52:57
Yes.
Exactly.

Joanne Ferguson   53:21
But one of the things we can do is get hold of it, see where it's registered and see if the suspect has registered a load more. So another thing that we do.
Is yesterday. For example, we had one investment fraud report for an address in the city with a website. We looked at the website. Had it taken down, spoke to the service provider and found they had 13 more lined up and ready to go. So we had those taken down. So we've already stopped. We've already been a major inconvenience for whoever's registered them because they're going to have to redo that. We can't stop them doing it because the Internet is too open. It's too wide. We can't shut that door. But we can make it difficult and expensive for them and.

David Snowball   53:46
Right.

Joanne Ferguson   54:02
Hopefully they'll go elsewhere. We need to my my view on this work is that we need to make the UKA hostile place for fraudsters. We want them to go. They're not going to stop because that's their job. That's, you know, they are very highly organised and intelligent. This is what they've chosen to do with their life and short of banging them up and throwing away the key, we're not going to stop it. But what we can do is close down our systems and work together to be as strong as we can to spot it, raise it and deal with it.

David Snowball   54:09
Yes.
Yeah.
Is, is is the City of London police, the only police force doing this or is it done across the country?

Joanne Ferguson   54:36
So no, so one of the things I should have said actually is our team represents UK policing. So we do it on behalf of UK policing. We've got a special relationship with nominee the UK Registrar where we're allowed into their system to look for newly registered sites and to see who's registered websites in the UK and they don't want every force doing that because it's too much to manage. So we will do that on behalf of UK policing and we do it on behalf of government agencies, charities. One of the sector's we we work with.

David Snowball   54:43
Right.
Yeah.

Joanne Ferguson   55:08
And rent students are very vulnerable to rental crime, rental fraud and different types of frauds will impact different sectors. So the wealthier end of society will be impacted by investment fraud.
People on the breadline will be be affected by phishing scams for cheap energy, electricity, the job market, they they all focus on different areas of the public, so we need to make sure that we can represent all of those and do work across.
All of it.

David Snowball   55:42
Right. That's really interesting, Robert. Sorry, not Robert. Colin, did you want to come back and say anything more about the glaa take on this and what glaa is doing alongside Joanne and her team?
No. If I've spoken into spice.

Colin Norton   56:03
Again, it's my microphone. I think I think.

David Snowball   56:05
That's OK.

Colin Norton   56:08
The next part really is to try and push this out to have many as many different.
Partners that have got these people turning up at their front doors and it's because because I think the ones that Darrell Dixon found along his travels to to all the various countries that he, he's been to recently, I think it was it was that we didn't it not through anybody's fault with their own but the the activity that was needed for Joanne to to team to do their work didn't happen. So victims had left and and there were multiple victims turning up at slight Concordia.
And and and pro force and things like that. So I think I think there's a big, big piece of prevent where but for the you know the the partners to to be aware of it and and once aware of it if they get these people turning up to report in as much detail and in a timely fashion and obviously all the extra parts that you know that the e-mail header is the mobile phone still still active all those extra things that Joanna and her team need but we we overseas we have started and we we only looked at about four countries the most recent scans that have been.

David Snowball   57:00
Yeah.

Colin Norton   57:18
Highlighted sewers so we have gone to. I have to the NCA. Fano. The ilos are. So we've now got ILO.
Emails that has been fed back into Laura so that, and I think there's another bit of prevent work there for linking in with that. Those those people sitting in those embassies coming up with some sort of media.
Strategy, if you like, but keeping it simple so that people know you know if. If this does happen, this is this is what you need to do before you hand any money over. So there's a there's a whole.
Larger piece of work and then and then the thing that we that we find is or that we found is you know they'll they'll probably do as many as they can. They'll probably be a team of them or it might just be you know they'll they'll do as many as they can in one country and many as they can in one country and it and if we catch on to it they'll just change tactic and try a different country because there's lots of vulnerable people in lots of you know different countries different areas. So I think it's trying to keep that message going and you know as they change we you know the partners.

David Snowball   58:13
Yeah.

Colin Norton   58:24
Who are getting these people from different nationalities and backgrounds that they change with it and just keep keep reporting it in as much detail as possible? I I just see it as being an ongoing thing, you know, until they get fed up, but they'll never get fed up because there's there's always vulnerable people. There's always a chance that they'll get money and and it's an easy it's an easy scam to to try and to try and do so.

David Snowball   58:38
No.
Yeah. No, that, that's helpful. Colin, I've got a comment in the in the in the box there from Andrew being you to glaa all this is new. Is there a resource to help understand that we are following correct guidelines? I I'm tempted to say that the website ww.glaa.gov.uk, but Laura or anybody else any other sort of olive olive suggestions you can sort of point in the direction of Andrew there?

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   59:13
I think the question falls imperfectly to our earlier request, so we've got lots of information on the website. I've put the link into the chat.

David Snowball   59:19
Hmm.

Laura Thomas (GLAA)   59:26
Being you to the glaa Andrew, it would be really useful to get an honest opinion from you of how easy you do find it to get the information that you need.
So please, once you have had a look, if you have some time to spare to get in touch, that would be extremely helpful.

David Snowball   59:44
Yeah. Thanks, Laura. Joanna, I think you you've basically scared the pants off everybody with that presentation that, I mean that, I mean it was.
You know, you never cease to be amazed by the by the wickedness of people, do you? I mean, you must see it every day, but there don't seem to be any questions coming here. Oh, there's another comment in the in the box. ALP. That's the association of labour providers. So I guess they've got a website as well. And we're getting sort of comments about. Thank you. It said, which is, which is lovely to have. But Joanne, I mean, is this, I mean you mentioned I think you got 7 in your team, is that right?

Joanne Ferguson   1:00:19
Yes, that's right.

David Snowball   1:00:19
I mean, if if you had the magic wand, how big A-Team would you like? Just out of curiosity?

Joanne Ferguson   1:00:25
Well, I've been told that we've got the potential to double our team not with detectives because they're in short supply. They're like gold dust at the moment. But with some training investigators. So we're looking to expand and we're looking to go more proactive. There's, it's got the government's attention fraud this year. They're really there's a big drive to improve.
Policing's response to fraud, and we're being offered some more money to do that and disruption is definitely the way to go.
And just picking up on Colleen, actually, you mentioned about getting a a message out via.
The overseas the government overseas decks, I think it's the international liaison desk at the Home Office. I might be if you don't have a contact, I might still have one if that helps, but yeah, hopefully I haven't scared everybody. That's not the that's not my intention. I specialise in fraud in all its different variations. And it's a constant drive, unfortunately, to to try and protect people.

David Snowball   1:01:20
Yes.
No, I agree. No, I I know what you mean. Joanne. And I mean, it's just it's another aspect of that constantly be on your toes, isn't it? The stuff that we get every day.

Joanne Ferguson   1:01:29
Yes, life. Yeah, it's life. And as people get poorer, they look to get more creative in how they generate their income.

David Snowball   1:01:35
Yes. OK. So getting positive comments in the chat box, I'm not seeing any hands raised. So I'm guessing that that there aren't. I'm not going to milk this if it's not there. But I'm Joanna. I was really interesting. Thank you to Colin. Thank you to Joanne. Thank you, Jess. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Catherine, for driving the slides. If there are any other questions, here's your last chance to stick your hand up. I'm not seeing any hands go up so.
I'll close the meeting at that point and say thank you all for your contributions and we'll see you next time. Thanks very much indeed everybody.