In conjunction with the Local Government Association, Nottingham Rights Lab has outlined new guidance for local authority commissioners to help minimise the risk of modern slavery in adult social care settings.
Unseen, the UK anti-slavery charity, saw a 1024 per cent increase in the number of potential victims in care work calling their Modern Slavery helpline in 2022, an increase from 15 cases involving 63 people in 2021 to 708 people in 106 separate cases in 2022.
There is evidence that care workers, including some migrant workers employed on student visas, have faced a variety of issues, including living in sub-standard accommodation and excessive working hours.
Working alongside representatives from East Riding, Nottinghamshire County and Portsmouth City Councils, and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Dr Caroline Emberson from the University of Nottingham Rights Lab has produced new advice to help minimise the risk of modern slavery in the care sector.
This includes establishing risk assessment and due diligence processes in order to ensure employees are working in safe environments, without the risk of exploitation.
Cllr Heather Kidd, Chair of the LGA's Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: "As major procurers and commissioners of adult social care services, local authorities' have a key part to play in the prevention and detection of modern slavery risk. Many local authorities have already taken significant steps to eradicate modern slavery in their physical supply chains. The publication of these guidelines offers important advice about how to extend modern slavery risk assessment and due diligence practices into critical adult social care services."
Dr Caroline Emberson, Nottingham Research Fellow at the Rights Lab, said: "These guidelines advocate a localised, grassroots, approach building upon existing multi-agency structures to the development by local authorities of robust due diligence and risk assessment processes for their adult social care services."
The Rights Lab is therefore recommending that local authority procurers and commissioners of adult social care work to develop due diligence processes built upon a partnership approach which encompasses provider engagement and contract management throughout the commissioning cycle within a prevention-led, data driven and multi-agency framework.
Read the full guidance here.
