Government has released their Labour Market Enforcement Strategy for 2021-22 and for 2020 to 2021 (‘the Strategy’), which details recommendations to improve state-led enforcement of employment rights. Both were drafted by Matthew Taylor as his final act as Interim Director of Labour Market Enforcement, as he has since been replaced by Margaret Beels. This Strategy explores the unintended consequences of the immigration reform and explores the opportunities of a Single Enforcement Body.
2021/22 Strategy
The 2021-22 Strategy makes seven recommendations addressing the deteriorating labour market, making a series of recommendations to mitigate those risks utilising the three main enforcement bodies – HMRC, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (‘EAS’) and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (‘GLAA’).
The recommendations are;
- Risk modelling – enforcement bodies should continue to develop the risk model to feed into the development of the Single Enforcement Body’s approach to assessment and prioritisation of risk. The assessment should be reviewed every 6 months.
- Sector based approach - enforcement bodies should work with the new Director of Labour Market Enforcement through the Strategic Coordination Group to adopt a more strategic, sector-based joint-working approach to tackle non-compliance in high-risk industries.
- Managing compliance risks in the labour market - both HMRC’s NMW team and EAS should be given the resource and ability to utilise more timely and impactful communication approaches and that they maximise the use of new and alternative data sources (such as the fraud investigations into CJRS) to identify non-compliant employers.
- Managing shared challenges - the heads of HMRC NMW, GLAA and EAS convene, to identify issues of common concern and to find joint solutions wherever possible.
- Online recruitment – the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (‘BEIS’) and EAS should explore how they can use technology to identify fraudulent jobs online. The BEIS should also complete a review of online recruitment.
- Immigration and labour market enforcement – an oversight group should be established to focus on potential implications caused by the new immigration system. The Home Office and BEIS should commit to regular monitoring of the impact of the new immigration system and the Home Office and BEIS should review the interaction between the labour market and immigration enforcement to ensure protections for migrant workers.
- Immigration and labour market enforcement (2) – labour market enforcement bodies should identify sectors with high European Economic Area (‘EEA’) workers and issue communications about immigration changes and ensure they monitor emerging risks from the immigration rules.
Sectors assessed as highest risk due to high levels of impact on worker, including cases of modern slavery, include;
- Food processing and packaging
- Hand car washes
- Agriculture
- Construction
Whereas sectors where potentially the level of harm to individuals is lower but there is the highest level of enforcement activity are;
- Food and beverage service activities
- Manufacture of food products
- Hand car washes
- Retail
- Nail bars
- Hair and beauty
- Services to buildings and landscape activities
The Strategy is split into 7 sections;
- Scale and nature of non-compliance: Risk model
- Improving the evidence base
- COVID-19, economic change and non-compliance
- Future risks related to changes in the immigration system
- Future enforcement with the creation of the Single Enforcement Body
- Director of Labour Market Enforcement workplan 2021/22
Click here to read the full Strategy.
2020/21 Strategy
This Strategy was drafted in winter 2019/20 however it has only been published now due to the pandemic.
The 19 recommendations made can be seen here, as well as the rest of the published Strategy.
The four “at-risk” sectors were named as;
- Care
- Construction
- Hand car washes
- Seasonal workers in horticulture
Aspire Business Partnership ("Aspire") provide WK1 with practical and commercially sound advice in relation to all aspects of compliance, business strategy and conflict resolution. WK1 engage Aspire on a retained basis through which Aspire provide WK1 with advice on an ad-hoc basis.
