Stronger Together

The term Modern Slavery captures a whole range of types of exploitation, many of which occur together. These include but are not limited to:

• Sexual Exploitation This includes but is not limited to sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, forced prostitution and the abuse of children to produce child abuse images/videos.
• Domestic Servitude - This involves a victim being forced to work in usually private households, usually performing domestic chores and childcare duties, working long hours for little or no pay.
• Forced Labour - Victims may be forced to work long hours for little or no pay in poor conditions under verbal or physical threats of violence to them or their families. It can happen in various industries, including construction, manufacturing, laying driveways, hospitality, food packaging, agriculture, maritime and beauty (nail bars). Often victims are housed together in one dwelling.
• Criminal Exploitation - This can be understood as the exploitation of a person to commit a crime, such as pick-pocketing, shop-lifting, cannabis cultivation, drug trafficking and other similar activities that are subject to penalties and imply financial gain for the trafficker.
• Other Forms of Exploitation – Organ removal; forced begging; forced benefit fraud; forced marriage and illegal adoption.

Red Rock Partnership Ltd (RRPL) operates in accordance with UK legislation and is committed to supporting all employees and protecting them from any form of Modern Slavery or exploitation. RRPL are a partner of the Stronger Together Initiative and a member of the GLAA and the ALP.

As a business, all our permanent workers are fully trained in our companies Standard Operating Procedures and regular audits are conducted to ensure they are always followed. We attend regular GLAA, ALP and Stronger Together workshops and feedback any updates/changes to the business.

Key Senior Managers have attended the ‘Investigating Modern Slavery’ training course with all permanent consultants have received the Stronger Together training on ‘Tackling Hidden Labour Exploitation’. Once they have received the training they are asked to sign a copy of the ‘Recruiter Compliance Document’ to ensure they understand the process, and this is held on file at Head Office.

RRPL ensure their permanent consultants receive annual training from the Immigration Enforcement on ‘Right to Work and Document Fraud’.

As part of our recruitment process, RRPL conduct formal face to face interviews with all new prospective employees. This consists of a full check on their ‘Right to Work’ in the UK along a comprehensive application form to be completed by the individual that includes but is not exhaustive of previous work history, any unspent criminal convictions and payment information. There is also a 48 Hour Opt Out agreement which is truly optional for the individual to sign, should they wish to work more that the 48 hours in any one week. 

Along with this the individual is asked to complete an initial questionnaire focusing on potential exploitation. This covers potential internal exploitation by a RRPL employee and externally through any other business or individuals. They are informed that it is against UK law to pay to anyone money to find work within the UK. This also extends to paying money to any persons, company or agency outside of the UK to get work in this country. They are also shown the Stronger Together presentation to ensure they understand fully what exploitation is and know the reporting process should they feel this is happening to them or anyone they know.

All our locations display multilingual posters on their notice boards and handbooks/ leaflets are issued once the individual starts work.

As well as informing new prospective employees, we conduct regular audits on our current work force. This is to ensure whilst employed by RRPL they are not subjected to any forms of harrassment, discrimination or bullying. Every six months we send a percentage of our workforce a confidential anonymous questionaire designed to highlight and root out any potential exploitation. The results of this and subsequent actions will be published at our customers site where possible, on our website and in our branches. In the instance that an employee discloses their personal details, anything highlighted that is a concern would be dealt with individually in the appropriate manner.

Our payroll department conduct weekly checks to look for suggestions of exploitation. This includes multiple use of one contact mobile number, multiple occupancy of addresses and they check to ensure all bank details are in the names of the individual employee. We have open dialogue and communication with the GLAA and in the last twelve months have highlighted potential scenarios to the GLAA where we believe exploitation may be taking place by external parties and these have been investigated formally.