Stakeholder online seminar 15 April 2025

Here you will find a recording of the GLAA Stakeholder webinar held on 15 April 2025 along with related slides.

During the webinar we heard from Corinne Peart from the Better Hiring Institute who spoke about the Better Hiring Toolkits. If you would like to find out more about the organisation please email secretariat@betterhiringinstitute.co.uk or Corinne.Peart@reed.com. 

Stakeholder seminar slide presentation

Transcript

Suzanne   0:03
We're here and we'll be with you in a moment.
For those that have just joined us, I was saying previously that we're going to be starting in about 5 minutes.
So we look forward to beginning at about 11:05.
Those that have just joined us, we're going to be starting in about a minute.
Just waiting for the last people to join the webinar.
Right. Well, welcome everyone to this online seminar, which is expected to last for around 90 minutes. My name is Suzanne McCarthy. I'm going to be the host for the webinar and I am a member of the GLAA board. Now, if there are groups of you who are attending that have logged on to this webinar with one device.
Would you please use the chat function to tell us how many additional people are taking part with you?
For example, if there are three of you taking part as a group, please type 2 in the chat box.
This seminar, for those who may want to look and hear later, is being recorded and will be shared after the event. The information that you're going to be hearing today is correct as of today's date, the 15th of April, but as you probably know, our guidance is guidance is updated regularly.
And you're encouraged to sign up to our bulletin or refer to gla.gov.uk for regular updates.
Now there will be some slides on the screen, so if you've joined by audio only, don't worry. You should know that the slides are for reference only and you will be missing any information.
We very much encourage you to ask questions to do so, please use the chat function.
I will be putting as many of these as possible to the speakers to whom they are addressed. We also have glaa colleagues online to answer your questions during the webinar and we will very much try to answer as many of your questions as possible throughout the session. But to enable us to do this, we ask that you ask your question.
Just once. We are however unable to answer questions.
Individual circumstances. For that reason, please don't post any personal information in the chat function in a moment. I'm going to be handing over to the GLA as chief executive Alicia McCaffrey and she's going to share important news updates from the GLAA and she'll be followed by Rob Stenson, one of our intelligence analysts who will provide you with an overview of the latest GLAA.
The intelligence updates will be then hearing from Andy Brown, who's the head of National Investigations N on the adult social care sector and finish. We are going to be joined by Karen Peart, head of strategic sales and client relationships at read screening, and she's going to talk to us about the usually successful battery, better hiring.
Institute toolkits. So now, without any further delay.
I'm gonna hand over to Elysia.

Elysia McCaffrey   7:52
Good morning. Thank you, Suzanne. And it's good to see so many of you on today, especially given we're in Easter holidays. So I'm sure there will be plenty of folks who are taking a break at the moment and we'll be watching this on catch up later. I was just going to touch on three things this morning before handing over to colleagues who have got lots of interesting things to share.
I wanted to start by just highlighting this month. We are celebrating 20 years since the GLAA formerly GLA was established.
I think that you'll all know that we were set up after the tragedy in Morecambe Bay that saw 23 Chinese cockle pickers lose their lives and the government.
Said that, this kind of thing must not happen again and their response, part of their response was to put the GLA regulation in place and later to expand our remit, given us that those police style powers for modern slavery offences, we're really fortunate that as well as encountering and dealing with some really bad people who actively seek to exploit workers and do.
Some of the most hideous things imaginable that we also have lots of, really excellent partners and excellent licence holders who are focused on doing the best for their workers and some of you.
Have been on this journey where there's quite some time some of you have been on this journey with us since the beginning, so this just felt like a good opportunity for me to say thank you. Thank you for your support and thank you for the positive work that you do. There's a huge amount of change on the horizon with the set up of the Fair Work agency coming, which of course we will be a key part of alongside EAS and NMW colleagues as well. And so really we're kind of looking forward to the next 20 years, which is going to look.
Very different I think with this government's ambition for change.
My second point this morning is that in 2023 we published our three-year strategy and we're now entering the final year of that strategy. Each year we produce a business plan that sets out how we will deliver against the strategy in that year and we're in the process at the moment of signing off with ministers this final year of the strategy and we will make that available on our website when this has happened, when it's been through all the sign off channels with our board and so on.
This year, we're progressing with work to make sure that we continue to be and build upon our approach to being a robust and effective regulator and that we remain an essential enforcement partner in the modern slavery arena. We're also focusing our efforts this year and really making sure that we're extra alive to the issues that face women and girls who were exploited in the workplace, linking our brief to our ministers wider brief.
On tackling violence against women and girls, and if you've got any particular insights on this or?
Sort of something that you see as an issue is when you want to share with us. Please do reach out through our events e-mail address. If there's something that you'd like to share on this topic and then just finally, Suzanne, because everyone else who's following me is a bit more interesting than what I've got to say. Finally, I just want to say that I hope you're all aware that our fees are set to increase on the 28th of April this year. Our fees have been static since 2009.
Obviously, I'm sorry that we're we're unable to continue to maintain that position for you all, but we have needed to make a change to make sure that we're compliant.
With treasury principles and that we're reducing the amount of subsidy that we receive from the Home Office, a number of you engage with this throughout March and submitted questions and and your thoughts to us on this, if it's helpful, I can pop the link to that in the chat. When I hand over to others to speak. So you can see the questions that rest on the answers that we gave.
And then just finally a play, I know there are a couple of people who said that they didn't receive.
The information around this, so I wondered if you could also just a please to check that we've got the right contact details for you, the fact that you're here today probably means we do have the right contact details for you and I maybe need to worry about those who aren't.
But that was all from me. Thank you, Suzanne.

Suzanne   11:49
Thank you, Elysia. You're going to stay with us. We don't yet have any questions for you as such, but they may appear as we go through the webinar. So we'll move on swiftly to rob Rob Stenson, who's one of our intelligent analysts and he's going to give an intelligence update. So Rob over to you.

Elysia McCaffrey   11:51
Of course.

Robert Stenson   12:08
Susanna. Hi everyone. I've been a couple of these, but I'll just introduce myself again. My name is Rob Stenson. I'm one of their senior intelligence and research analysts here at the GLAA. What I'm going to say is just give a brief overview on some findings from a product that we recently produced into the seasonal worker scheme.
And then Elysia just touched on it, then just give a bit of an oversight over the area of interest around exploitation against women and girls. And then I'll open up to questions.
So next slide please.
So as I said, these are some insights into a product that we produced recently around the seasonal worker scheme. So this is reviewing intelligence and information that we've received in in relation to workers and organisations operating within seasonal work scheme. In terms of the findings that came from that product.
Our caveat with the insights on this slide, generally the data is quite limited and so no sort of.
Meaningful conclusions can be drawn from that data, particularly around the gender of workers.
As you can see there where agenda was noted, it was predominantly male workers.
And that was all. But one report concerned male workers. That's consistent with the previous profile that we did on the seasonal workers scheme and largely consistent with with.
The quarterly intelligence assessment that we that we previously produced as well.
Recording around potential victim demographics is extremely limited.
And we're we're finding ways to to improve that by working with partners, with stakeholders and with sources that we receive information from.
In the reporting nationality of workers was recorded more commonly.
Than than the gender and age of workers.
And nationality appeared in just over just under half of reports.
Overall, there are various nationalities around 8. Most commonly Usbek and Kazakh workers.
In relation to those work is the most common allegations were payment of work, fine fees.
The which suggests more work could be carried out to ensure workers don't pay those fees, and that's commonly in those recruiting countries that we found.
In terms of recruitment methods, again this is an intelligence gap overall for us in the reporting around seasonal work scheme, these methods of recruitment there on the screen were referenced.
And they were most commonly referenced in relation to sort of unlicensed gang mastering.
Fortune ads for work.
And.
Organisations or individuals falsely claiming to be working for operators when they in fact weren't.
This obviously continues to be in the area of interest for the GLAA. Next slide please.
So overall, the most common allegations that came out of this product were related to physical and mental mistreatments.
Things to do with documentation contracts in relation to workers and lack of GLAA licence.
Digging down a bit into complaints around physical mental mistreatment, this included sort of complaints around discrimination.
Working excessive hours, no breaks, verbal abuse, unfair treatment and that kind of stuff.
Other areas of concern also included pay concerns, so lack of national minimum wage, which were almost always linked to the instances where there were excessive hours worked.
Around half of the allegations that concerned these three allegations did progress to investigation a number have since closed without any offences actually being found. So this means that upon further investigation you know, we found that actually the required information was there and there were no complaints to be dealt with, but obviously we continue to monitor that on an ongoing basis in terms of visa applications in relation to the seasonal worker scheme, we've seen an increase compared to the same period the previous year. We're currently investigating a bit why that increase is and it's likely that these are numbers are due to increase again this year.
But again, we'll continue to monitor that.
Next slide please.
Overall intelligence gaps for us, as I mentioned across the products that we produce, the demographics related to potential victims, but also potential exploiters are a big intelligence gap for us age, nationality, gender are key areas that we want to sort of develop our intelligence picture in.
Is there nationality sort of picking up on that? Is there a correlation between the nationality of a victim and the nationality of an exploiter and not just nationality, but the relationships between those as well?
Are there any existing relationships between those?
Recruitment methods for workers, again, is an intelligence, is an ongoing intelligence gap for us, not just in the regulator sectors, but also more widely. When we think about Modern slavery offences.
Where does that recruitment happen? How does that recruitment happen?
And the methods used and then transportation of workers.
Into the UK, how is that facilitated? How is that paid for? What methods are used?
And link to that are if there are payments made.
Around whether that's visa payments or work finding fee payments or transportation payments, how are those payments facilitated? What are the platforms used? Where do those payments ultimately end up? And these are all areas of interest for us moving forwards and obviously, yeah, I've seen the. I've seen the question. Yeah, I've seen that. I'll come back to it at the end.

Suzanne   18:23
Yeah, there is a question, yes. OK, maybe you answer that now.

Robert Stenson   18:29
Yeah, I can answer that now.
Into I can in terms of this presentation, I don't have it to hand, but I can.
I'll come back to you separately if you'd like, Tom, if you'd like to leave sort of contact address that we can reach you on. We are in the process of trying to make our own products more accessible externally. So we are in the process of reviewing what products we produce.
And putting those on our website sanitised versions of those on our website to make them more available. So we are in the process of doing that.
And we do, we do engage David with the operators.
And I believe we engage with the task force as well. Andy, who's going to who's due to speak after me, I think might be able to say a bit more about our work with the task force and with the operators more generally. So I'll hold that thought until Andy speaks shortly.
Next slide please.
So as Elysia mentioned earlier, we have an area of interest at the moment around labour exploitation against an impacting women and girls. There's a number of aims from that project.
Firstly, obviously to be able to effectively and appropriately support women and girls who are victims of labour exploitation, labour abuse.
Concurrently to that, we're looking to develop our own intelligence and data set relating to that form of exploitation.
And and that will then in turn help inform sort of strategic and operational decision making including policies and procedures.
And it's also about sort of developing processes for internal teams to be able to most effectively deal with those kinds of complaints.
Outcomes from that there'll be a number of outcomes and again, we'll work to assess the ways in which we can make those available externally on our website.
Next slide please. I think it's the final one. Just to remind everyone you know.
The agriculture sector, Labour users, labour providers are a very valuable source of information intelligence.
And I would recommend just continue to report any concerns to contact@gla.gov.uk and that'll be filtered through our various processes.
And I'll end there and open for any questions.

Suzanne   21:14
I don't see any at the moment, Barb, Rob, but I know that you'll stay with us and it has been. You've suggested that Andy might also pick up David Camp's question about the GLAA asking scheme operators and engaging with senior seasonal workers Scheme Task Force. I'm sure he will. And maybe you'll come back on that. We also have another question from Andy York. What about any exploitation being discovered for skilled workers?
Can you respond to that?

Robert Stenson   21:46
Clarify what you mean by exploitation being discovered for skilled workers.

Suzanne   21:51
Andy, do you want to put a bit more in the chat on that?

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   22:01
Again, please. It's a little bit broken up, is it? Regarding the skilled workers on the SWS?

Robert Stenson   22:07
So yeah, this is yeah, this is from.

Suzanne   22:09
People on skilled workers, CIS.

Robert Stenson   22:13
Yeah, so this might actually come under something that you speak about, Andy, in terms of the care sector with skilled worker visas potentially.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   22:24
So we'll go to my section. I will present and then if it doesn't answer the question, I'll, I'll field another one. Probably the best way of doing it I think.

Robert Stenson   22:27
Yeah.
Yeah.

Suzanne   22:31
OK. And Andy, you've seen David Camp's question as well that Rob is passed over to you also.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   22:39
Yeah, regarding the task force, I know that we do with our leaders, Nev Bradbury, who works with all the operators and is in meetings a lot of times. And I get David's point around if we've got the gaps, why don't we have to scheme up place we do on a regular basis, but the gaps change.

Suzanne   22:42
Yeah.
OK.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   23:00
With different models evolving around the the exploitation, I'll try and answer in a bit more. If I can't do it today David I'll I'll contact you.

Suzanne   23:05
OK. Well then we'll we'll move on to you then, Andy. And I know you're going to give an operational update, but you're conscious of these issues as well. So over to you then.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   23:18
Hi. Yeah. My name's Andy. Andy brown. I'm the head of national investigations north.
Which is a bit of context. I sort of cover in the GLAA from Birmingham upwards, including North Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. So we have sort of tri country remit, but I'm the head national head for the adult social care, which is one of our priorities within the GLAA and that's why I'm speaking. I'm trying to try and give a very quick snapshot of where we are at the moment with some figures.
Some things that we're seeing and some changes or additions to the process around overseas recruitment and what we begin to see or are continuing to see in our referrals to Julie next slide please.
And so it's a very short slide this, but there is a bit of context behind it.
So currently now from Skills, care and skills for careandthe.gov Home Office figures.
April 24th to January 25, there are 131,000 vacancies within adult social care, and the projection is up to 2040, with the ageing population that we will require 540,000.
Care workers now that's a snapshot. I'll try and give a bit of context behind it now.
If you look at the skill worker visa, the health and social care visa between April 2024 and January this year, there were 23,000 applications for health and care social as health and care worker visa from the main applicants. This is a significant decrease compared to the same period last year.
If you're aware.
And the immigration rules and regulations that have changed recently. This is maybe down to the removal of the right to be independence over on the visa for the main applicants. This would have impacted on the numbers.
Again.
It's a snapshot and if you look at the vacancies and the projected vacancies, they're going to be reliance on overseas workers within this sector.
I think there are lots of things that have happened within this case and it's a very fast moving sector at the moment, both from trade bodies, from unions, from the workers themselves, from the government. So things are changing. So as I said, this is a snapshot and I think Suzanne mentioned earlier as of today.
Things are changing quite quickly, but that is the the scale of vacancies on the scale of jobs that will be required, projected for 2040.
The things that might impact will be on the next slide, which will try and explain can I have the next slide please?
OK so.
All supplies provided regulated activities within adult social care must register the CQC in England, which is the Care Quality Commission.
It covers all settings, care homes, home care agencies, support, licences, services and any organisation really providing personal care support. There was a change which was in which was a result of the.
Exploitation that we've seen within this sector.
That I think it was March 2024, if a response to licence holder in the Home Office and you're recruiting within those regulated activities, you must be registered with CQC.
If they carry out those regulated activities again, it's another level of regulation.
Another level of what the sponsor must comply with, so that was brought in.
Recruitment priority for international care works already in England.
Started I believe the 9th of April this this year.
Where if you're a sponsor and you want to bring workers into the UK with an adult social care.
Your first port of call can't be an overseas worker. You must.
Try and recruit from the pool of workers already in England on the visa unfold. I've lost their certificate sponsorship for whatever reason, whether they were given a 60 day.
Notice because the sponsor had their licence revoked or suspended, but from the 9th of April, if you are sponsoring workers, you must show that you've tried to recruit from the pool of workers that are already present in the UK, which is quite significant change. There may well be challenges around.
Compliance with that, but it's it is live. So again it's one of those evolving interventions that we will have to monitor to see whether it does have to the effect that it was designed for.
Into the third one, which is regional hub registration.
The government released some money for regional hubs to be set up within local authorities, whereby they would be almost a safety net for workers who, for no fault of their own.
Were in a position of flux where they could well lose their secret sponsorship and visa because of the reason whether be exploitation or they've been given.
Constructive dismissals, which was quite common.
So money was given. They they not only offer the sort of advice around getting a new certificate sponsor, it finds a new employer help with the recruitment help with interviews.
And but they also develop quite a lot of pastoral care. And I know this because we we refer and signpost a lot of workers that we come across to these hubs because they are there to help.
And they're there to take these workers out of the position they're in and employ them within the care sector. They talk social care, sit which which is where we need, where they are needed.
So there some of the changes and additions that happened to sector around recruitment, they're designed to tighten up compliance. They're designed to support the worker and to make the process better.
So with those in mind, if I can have the.
Next slide please, which is.
I put 1,2,3,4,6 there, five there. They are reappearing allegations that we receive and our referrals. I'll leave the first one for the time being and I'll come back to it because it's a fairly overarching 1.
We are tending to see read.

Suzanne   30:21
I think it might be a good idea to read it out because some people may not be able to see the slide.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   30:26
Alright, no problem. OK, so there are five things that I've picked from the allegations that we've seen. So the first one is threat of visa withdrawal.
That is a fairly overarching acts of exploitation, so I'll leave that and I'll come back to it at the end. We are seeing redeployment outside of the adult social care sector.
We're seeing it in agriculture, hospitality and construction.
We're in seeing an increase in certificate of Sponsorship and visa scams.
Quite a few forms, whether it be a third party bad actor overseas or promise of a job in the UK, it does not exist on the arrival in the UK or even where we're having people arrive in the UK with a company and the company are just literally just saying, right, OK, we haven't got a job at the moment. We'll get back to you and they don't.
Might seem really crazy thing, but this is what people are alleging and that we're investigating and we're signposting.
One that we're seeing quite frequently now is a cultural or a community or a faith element to the recruitment from overseas, the cultural side being in some obviously these countries it is fairly.
Accepted for a third party to ask for a lot of money to come to the UK for a job in the future.
We've seen it from the beginning when it first in 2022 when we first got started getting the referrals.
We're having a lot of community.
Connections as well. People will have a community standing in the UK who've lived there for a while. They've become a position of trust almost. So what they say, if a worker comes across, I think now I trust those are for my country.
So that again gives another axis of exploitation regarding that community as well. There's also some in some countries of faith element to it. I think it was a recent one in BBC with a pastor was caught on undercover regarding financial exploitation of workers from his own country.
So it's it's it's something that we're beginning to see.
And finally, and I put the first word continued is 'cause, we are beginning. We're still continuing to get referrals for extortionate fees paid for his certificate sponsorship visa and of course then the job.
This can go from 7 thousand to twenty 25,000 pounds when if you're involved in the sector. The actual cost of getting your own visa is £500.
It's it sometimes ties into the cultural side from the country that coming from that.
That money seems to be a fair amount of money for the dream to come and live and work in the UK, and these bad actors are taking advantage of this, I said. I come back to the threat of fees or withdrawal.
If you look at the amount of money that people are paying, so they get into personal debt.
Travel to the UK, new country.
That sponsor tie in is that you know the if you don't comply with my bad business practises with my exploitation is you know I will just remove the visa.
And therefore you will be removed back to your own country. This, that is beginning to Peter out a bit more now because of the different levels I mentioned before on the previous slide. And also I would suggest it's down to the awareness now of the exploitation within the sector.
It's also down to extra law enforcement involvement, extra regulation, awareness from trade bodies, awareness from unions.
And the interventions that occur now weren't occurring two years ago. It was new. It was something that was down to the individual sponsor now with different levels that are coming in and for the interventions across the board, not just government. Governmental interventions across the board from all sectors is that that threat of visa withdrawal is lessening because they know there is a pool of workers? There are bodies now that can assist and people can go through all the people other than the sponsor.
So I think in a snapshot, which is what it was intended for, that is where we are at with the adult social care as from a GLAS perspective. So any questions?

Suzanne   34:59
OK. Can I bring in? Yes. The two questions that have come in from Joanne and Thomas Price has made a comment in relation to that. Joanne was asking that it would be useful to see some stats evidencing what you're seeing and Thomas Price has said the latest Defra Seasonal Worker survey did identify areas of improvement, but recorded very high levels of overall worker satisfaction.
He thinks there might be a mismatch between glaa info and the Defic survey, and suggests it'd be useful to explore that further.
And hone in on any issues that could help inform stakeholder action to improve the operation of the scheme. Do you want to come back on those two before I give you Andy York's question?

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   35:48
The one from Thomas I would have to defer to the knowledge was the the survey done exclusive with the workers as opposed to.
The operators as well as that a worker survey.

Suzanne   36:03
It says worker satisfaction and it says a worker, even a worker survey in the in his first line.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   36:09
Yeah, I think I think you're right, Thomas. I think that we need to take all sides of it on which if we get an allegation of exploitation anywhere, but we're talking now about the SWS is that we will investigate, we'll speak to the the person making a complaint and everything that's around it.
But we do get a lot of referrals from workers, from different surveys, different organisations and.
You probably do need to do a little bit more around.
That involvement with our stakeholders, with Defra around what they're seeing, if we could have the information a lot, I know from a lot of my triaging of a lot of the allegations that come in is that a lot of the time initially they're anonymous because a lot of surveys are otherwise you don't get the engagement as much as anything, which becomes a little bit of a problem for us to investigate.
Doesn't stop US compliance wise. Far from it.
It would give U.S. intelligence and information to, you know, start looking at the allegations, the worker, the types of allegations and the operators on the, on the Labour users where we could export from a compliance side, what was the other question?

Suzanne   37:25
Elysia, I'm going to bring Elysia in if she wants to add to any of this.

Elysia McCaffrey   37:30
I did. Thanks, Suzanne. Thanks, Andy. I think I'm just having a look at the the questions in the chat as a whole. I think there's a request here that we meet with David and with seasonal worker operators as well to have a conversation which I think we can pick up as an action. I'm happy for us to pick that up also.
Where was I on the other one there is, Joanna said, useful to see what stats we we're seeing. We're happy to share whatever we've got a lot of that comes through in our intelligence profiles. But Joanne, I'm happy for us to have a separate chat about what else you might find useful.
And also Andy York has very kindly put his e-mail address in there saying they've seen lots of evidence around workers being poached from existing additional certificate of sponsorship sponsors. So it'd be good actually to pick that up with you. And I wonder, I think our Andy will reach out to you, Andy for a conversation about that. Thanks Suzanne.

Suzanne   38:25
Thank you. Elysia, I wonder if you might also picked up David Camp further comment, which was he'd noted that 50% of the issues raised by senior workers was progressed to investigation, but no offences were found.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   38:25
Yeah, I will do. And then.

Suzanne   38:41
Can you comment on that, Andy?

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   38:41
I can't.
Can't really comment on or don't where that figure's from. I'm not disputing it, but again, without knowing why on on on specifics, it would difficult me to comment. There are lots of reasons why investigations aren't progressed. It would be unfair for me to say generally why? Because I don't really know.

Suzanne   39:01
OK, that's fine. I don't know if Elysia wants to add anything.

Elysia McCaffrey   39:02
So let's make sure we.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   39:03
But.

Elysia McCaffrey   39:05
Just let's let's make sure that we pick that up when we have our conversation.

Suzanne   39:10
OK. That's good. I think that probably brings to an end the the flux of of questions we've had for you, Andy. But you'll stay with us for the moment if other things come in and I can draw you back in.

Andrew Brown (GLAA)   39:22
Yeah, no problem at all.

Suzanne   39:23
Excellent. Thank you. Well, we'll move on to Corinne then and as I said, Corinne is head of strategic sales and client relationships at Reed screening and she's going to talk to us about the better Hiring Institute to kids. So, Corinne, over to you.

Corinne Peart   39:41
Thank you very much Suzanne. So my role with the Better Hiring Institute or BHI for short, which is much easier.
I'm the head of strategic engagement there where we're on a mission to make UK hiring faster, fairer and safer, and we work with around 15,000 organisations across the UK. We gain insights across many different sectors and we've got strategic partnerships with UK government to drive change.
Worth me noting here, it's free to join and there are lots of ways to get involved. I'll cover some of those today, but we also created and run the modernising employment all party, parliamentary group or mode APPG for short. There's a theme here and that is a group of people who explore various hiring topics to drive actionable change at industry level. I'll come on to that a little bit later.
So if we move on to our to my next slide, then I'll cover the next one. Again. Sorry, Suzanne. I'll cover our story so far. In terms of our guidance. So our outputs either fall as change at government level or best practise guidance, you'll hear me say that a lot today, which is released free as part of our national hiring framework, which is sort of Auk first sovereign repository where loads and loads of best practise guidance is held.
To our work with government continues to support the need.
Positive change in hiring a little example as we worked with Home Office on halting the revert back to face to face, right to work cheques following the pandemic.
We released better hiring toolkits. We call them in partnership with, believe it or believe it, not the GLAA, the DBS and industry, with the aim of improving hiring for a particular sector or across the the whole of the UK. So in addition to that we release standalone guidance.
You can see some of the examples here with tackling hiring fraud, which has been mentioned already today in terms of fraudulent activity, but it's one of the biggest trends that I would advise you to really be aware of in your day-to-day hiring practises. Like I said, it's been mentioned already a few times today, but just to note with my read screening hat on, we've seen the rise specifically of reference houses. We see lots of disparity between.
What people say on their CV and what the reality actually is.
As many as one in four CDs contain falsehoods, misstatements or just outright lies, and that's only one example of the wide range of fraud that we see at the minute. So if you want any more information, I'm happy to pick that up. But also we've got on the right hand side, you can see the better hiring charter that is a set of 10 principles. I would invite you to pledge your support. It's essentially demonstrating your organisation commitment to.
Making the UK hiring faster, fairer and safer.
There's ten points that were developed alongside experts and government, with the ultimate aim of helping more people into work, boosting the economy and making hiring better for everyone, essentially. So if we now move on to our next slide, I'll delve into a bit more detail about how about our collaborative work with the GLA and the better Hiring Tool kit specifically. So what you can see here on this slide and apologies if you are just listening in but.
We're looking to cover 80% of the UK workforce with our better hiring tool kit.
As I've mentioned, we partner with the GLAADBS disclosure Scotland on every single one and then we collaborate with industry through our sector, specific subcommittees and relevant bodies for that particular sector too. So an example of that is our most recently launched toolkit was in hospitality and we worked with the Institute of Hospitality on that one. The purpose of the toolkits is to improve hiring practises again. There's a theme here in which.
So we're covering and we have so far released 6 and they've been downloaded by just over 25,000 organisations in the last 12 months, which is amazing.
Because it's intended to be best practise in hiring for that particular sector, it what they walk an individual through the whole hiring journey and it's really important as our Members tell us regularly that where there isn't a tool kit that hiring practises can be hit and miss, shall we say.
And the risks that are associated with that can be huge for organisations. So just to confirm the toolkits they exist to give organisations in a particular industry guidance on best practise in hiring standards to ensure the prevention of hiring dishonest staff provides handy templates throughout for use within an organisation, all free to download and utilise. But just to get into a bit of the detail, I'll move on to my next slide and then I'll cover.
Tool kits include So what you can see here is essentially it's the index. This runs through all of the toolkits it walks an individual or an organisation through the process of best practise. Hiring at each stage so that, as I've mentioned, handy templates, everything from a template application form through to a reference request template letter.
To an employee exit form like I say, they're free to access and download.
You can literally just pop them into your process, easy as that, but we also within the toolkits include things like hey studies to show businesses what can go wrong if you don't carry out safe hiring practises and onboarding practises, and you can see one example here on the right hand side which is to do with modern slavery.
Now, the fact that the toolkits are being utilised across so many businesses, it means that we are, thankfully, slowly but surely improving how people are being hired and reducing risk for everyone involved too, so organisations and workers as well. Of course they contain information on modern slavery that includes spotting reporting. But from what I've seen in the chat, sounds like I don't need to tell you all about that. You will seem very, very aware, which is great.
But there are also sections on what to do if you outsource any part of your hiring process. Your legal responsibilities, interview best practise, you know removing bias in in the whole process, and of course pre employment vetting. I could go on about it all day, but I won't in the interest of time. But if you don't utilise the toolkits that we've got so far created and you sit on one of the in one of the industries where there is one already.
Please do go and take a look.
And you can find them. You can see along the bottom of the cyber for those listening, the website is better hiring institute.co.uk and have a look under the national hiring framework. That's where you'll find all the tool kits and we are continuing to create and release the toolkits collaboratively. And Next up, we've got retail. And then after that health and there's no no plan to stop here. We're going to continue and we go through review processes as well.
But if we move on to my next slide, I'll cover our guidance collaborators. So just really have put this in here to show you the breadth of organisations that we collaborate collaborated with so far.
Across the guidance that we've released and it's really important that we get as many experts involved where we're working to provide organisations with guidance as because that way we've got as many expert voices as possible to create and release something that is useful and provides all of the information people might need. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point if it's not useful, succinct, nobody would use it. So I won't go into calling out who all of these are, but hopefully you can see the expansive insights.
That we've been able to bring to this point, as I've mentioned, I don't plan on stopping collaborating or spreading positive hiring practise as far as I can with our collaborative partners, they're growing you know, week on week and it's it's incredible to see and have so many so much involvement with such different organisations. But as we move on to my next slide then.
I've put this in here. I've already mentioned the modernising employment APPG mentioned at the beginning.
This is just a continuation of our collaborative work, so for context, we host around eight or nine events in Parliament. They're all to do with hiring, believe it or believe it not every parliamentary calendar, the events, they're all relevant to hiring and essentially we bring parliamentarians, industry, academics and experts together to discuss whatever subject matter the event is on.
We then hear from as many people during the sessions on what's currently happening and how we can make improvements to hiring practises.
And at that point we create, you guessed it, best practise guidance, which always includes tangible recommendations for businesses that they can implement to make improvements. So there is this QR code on the screen that you can scan if you are. If you are watching and you can register there to attend our remaining upcoming sessions, they do run up until July when parliamentary research recess happens.
But our upcoming events we've got 3.
They include improving furnace for people from minority facing backgrounds. That one is our next event that's on the 28th of April.
And that's in person in Parliament, so if anyone would like to join us, you can come have your voice heard, you know, give your insights your organisational insights and wider. Please do just register to attend and we'll be in touch following that one. And this one's obviously relevant to you guys. We've got how HR can stop the worker exploitation crisis on the 9th of June.
So I'm delighted to say that we've got glaa speaking coming and joining us at that session alongside Minister Phillips and our final event before recess on the APPG calendar is removing barriers in work for neurodiverse people. So if you are interested in attending any of these, please do please do follow the link or you know, I'm happy to share details after after today.
Just to come and have your voice heard and make positive change do do register to attend. It's worth noting that seats are limited so, run, don't walk kind of situation here, but we also have a really exciting event happening in Parliament that's on the 16th of May and that's this in the House of Commons, which is the launch of the UK's hiring Task force, which is different to the task force that's been mentioned already during today's session.
That event is bringing together parliamentarians, leading experts, employers and tech firms all to hear about plans to revolutionise the way that UK hire staff. The task force is going to begin its work following the launch event with its objectives to deliver a policy, regulatory and legislative reforms paper to government and to develop a blueprint for a new way for the UK to hire in the future.
So if anyone would like to register their interest to attend, please do feel free to contact me or you can do so on the BHI website.
And then on my final slide, you can see some of the quotes from MPs just about the work that we do collaboratively. And again, I won't read these out, but I just wanted to show even further how our work is really being recognised now, which hopefully can only continue to result in positive change and just to finish up and say that our aim at the Better Hiring Institute and with our collaborative partners.
Is to make UK hiring the fastest globally, the fairest in the world and the safest it can be so.
Please do feel free to ask any questions you might have. Join the bhi for free to really get involved, but as I say, you can also get in touch with me. For more information on anything that I've covered today on our hand back over to you, Suzanne.

Suzanne   52:12
Thank you. Corinne. Can I just say, I'm sure there'll be a rush to join from those that happened and and possibly those that want to attend. I see there's applause already in the chat.
And so I'm just, I see I've got a new message, which is from Elysia to thank you very much for that and for the help. And another person Andy York has said brilliant presentation. So you've obviously made an impact and I do hope that people will look on the BHI website that you've got there and and actually get involved or unload the two kits that you've mentioned.

Corinne Peart   52:49
Just pop in the chat. Suzanne and I'll pop the link to the BHI website in the chat.

Suzanne   52:54
OK. If you do that and I see it there already, excellent.
Well, we have come to the end of this webinar. I'm not seeing any more questions coming through. What I have seen is there are a lot of e-mail that's gone between the glaa and others who have been on the chat arranging to have talks afterward. And I think that's part of this webinars objective is to continue discussion and not just for it to be the hour or so that we get together to hear updates from analysts and our intelligence team and others, so I'm going to be bringing the webinar to an end now. We do have our next one on Wednesday the 16th of July. I hope you'll be able to join us even if you're on holiday, you can join in on our link and we will look forward to seeing you then. So thank you for joining us today and it's now.
Just for me to say that the webinar will now be recorded and distributed and you can read it at your leisure. Thank you very much.