Modern Day Slavery Statement

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
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
Other Forms of Exploitation – Organ removal; forced begging; forced benefit fraud; forced marriage and illegal adoption.

Initiative

Red Rock Partnership Ltd (RRPL) operates in accordance with UK legislation and is committed to supporting all workers 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 Association of Labour Providers.

As a business, all our permanent employees 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 and 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 Awareness’ with the latest session being delivered in March 2022.

As part of our recruitment process, RRPL conduct formal face to face interviews with all new prospective workers. This consists of a full online or manual check on their ‘Right to Work’ in the UK along a comprehensive application form to be completed by the individual. This 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 than 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 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 Tackling Hidden Labour Exploitation multilingual posters on their notice boards and the same handbooks/ leaflets are issued once the individual starts work.

As well as informing new prospective workers, we conduct regular audits on our current work force. This is to ensure whilst employed by RRPL they are not subjected to any form of harassment, discrimination, or bullying. Every six months we send a percentage of our workforce a confidential anonymous questionnaire 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 worker 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 worker. We have open dialogue and communication with the GLAA, and over previous years have highlighted potential scenarios to the GLAA where we believe exploitation may be taking place by external parties and these have been investigated formally.

Against Exploitation

2023 Thus Far

No incidents of exploitation have been flagged this year.

2022

Multi occupancy in a 1-bedroom flat in Boston. This was picked up on our weekly duplicate addresses check which we conduct at Head Office. We contacted all the individuals and after investigation it was deemed that new address details had not been given to RRPL by the workers. Once new addresses had been added it was found that there was no longer multi occupancy at this address.

Potential physical threats of violence, control, and financial exploitation of a vulnerable worker in Wakefield. In this situation we had reason to believe that the safety of one of our workers was at risk. He attended our office with a friend requesting to change his bank details to his friends. We informed the worker, these bank details had to be in his own name. The worker’s friend got very abusive to both RRPL and our worker. The following day our worker advised us that he could not attend work due to falling down the stairs and when he did return, he had two black eyes. We reported our findings to the GLAA who acted immediately. We then worked with them throughout the investigation along with one of our clients. On completion of the investigation, it was found by the GLAA that there was no exploitation taking place.

2020 – 2021

Multi occupancy in Essex
Financial exploitation of vulnerable worker in Scotland
Multi occupancy in Coventry
Control and financial exploitation of vulnerable workers in the Peterborough and Cambridgeshire area
Third party impersonating a Red Rock Partnership Ltd temporary worker and attempting to introduce other workers to us
Signs of third-party control during the recruitment process in

Please see below further details around the Leicester incident which took place through the second half of 2020 and into 2021.

And Beyond

We are confident that our business, with the processes we have in place is doing everything possible to support our workers and ensure none of the above exploitation is taking place either within our current workforce or those expressing an interest to work with us. We will strive to continue to review and improve, where necessary with the help of our governing bodies.

If you feel that any of the above applies to you or anyone you know then you must seek help immediately. You can do this by talking with your RRPL Manager or contact our Head Office on 01246 575250; all information provided will be treated with the strictest of confidence.

Should you need to report an act of slavery contact the Gangmasters & Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) on 0800 432 0804 or the Modern Slavery Helpline on 0800 0121 700.