Many involved with migrant workers have concerns about standards in employment and housing. Local residents can be concerned about neighbourhoods and anti-social behaviour such as street drinking or rough sleeping; road traffic officers have concerns about vehicle and driving standards. Serious concerns about employment agencies, employers or landlords include illegal practices such as charging for finding a job; paying below the minimum wage; inadequate health and safety arrangements and sub-standard accommodation.
Promotion and encouragement
Strategies should encourage better landlords and employers while taking targeted action against the worst.
Encouraging better landlords
An excellent private sector housing service needs to have a strategic approach to the sector and to work with private landlords to achieve improvement. Positive practice identified in Audit Commission housing inspections includes:
- offering incentives for landlords to join voluntary accreditation schemes
- regular landlords' forum meetings including training and information sessions, and associated newsletters
- advice surgeries for landlords and tenants
- annual advice fairs for landlords
In practice : Housing inspectors identified positive practice in the way that Ashfield District Council provide incentives for landlords; and the London Borough of Islington helps to train landlords as part of a wider strategy of encouraging good houses in multiple occupancy (HMO) accommodation.
Voluntary accreditation, self-regulation and codes of practice resources
Encouraging better employers
Authorities will have links with some local employers through economic development work and their local strategic partnerships (LSPs). They can:
- raise the issue at relevant LSP meetings and engage employers and employment agencies in developing local responses
- organise and/or coordinate training and information, for example on changes to regulations or on the provision of English classes for smaller employers
- promote local examples of good practice, working with relevant groups including trades unions and Business in the Community
- provide local area induction information for employers to give out or use (see the West Lancashire District Council case study)
- promote voluntary codes of practice
In practice: Social Services and Health in Peterborough coordinate training including English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) for smaller care and nursing homes; and Wychavon Council organised training for local employers on the requirements of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.
Recruiting migrant workers directly
Many authorities employ migrant workers directly and through agencies. They can check their own activity against the codes. They can also ask what their own contractors do, especially in areas where many migrant workers are employed such as catering, cleaning and health and social care.
Enforcement
Effective enforcement should be part of a targeted, risk-based strategy. Good working relationships and protocols are needed between key partners within and outside an authority; for example, enforcement of housing or caravan site standards will require internal links with Housing Advice, planning control and building regulation and a council' legal section, as well as external links with fire and rescue and, in some cases, the police. Enforcement can lead to confrontation, short-term crises and difficult legal action, so senior support is critical.
Barriers to successful enforcement include:
- ignorance among some involved about the range of powers available locally and the national agencies who can be asked to take action
- a perceived lack of support from senior officers and councillors, making front line officers unwilling to risk confrontation
- poor coordination between sections and agencies
- a concern that enforcement would merely shift a problem, not remove it
- no clarity about how to deal with those displaced by closure of unfit premises
- a lack of clear targeting and associated enforcement strategy
- no robust private sector or relevant planning strategy to which enforcement could be linked
- inadequate priority and resources
Available enforcement powers
Local authority enforcement powers include parts of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (used by Kerrier District Council); the Housing Act 2004, Planning Acts (used by South Holland) and the Caravan and Control of Development Act 1960. Fire authorities also have powers.
Powers now available for licensing and otherwise improving private rented sector properties under the Housing Act 2004 are outlined by Communities and Local Government (CLG) . One Council is applying for wider licensing specifically to control HMOs being used for migrant workers. A case study will be added if and when permission is granted.
- Since April 2006 landlords of some HMOs have had to apply for a licence, and since July 2006 councils have had the power to prosecute any landlord operating without a necessary licence or who has given false information on the licensing form.
- Local authorities can apply to widen the scope of local HMO licensing if there is a significant problem of poor management. Any such application should be clearly linked to the local housing strategy. Detailed guidance is contained in 'Approval Steps for Additional and Selective Licensing Designation in England', available from CLG.
In practice: South Holland District Council used planning enforcement powers against a gangmaster who built and filled an inappropriate HMO with no permission; and West Lancashire District Council recognised that the change in the rural workforce meant that they needed to amend their planning policy on temporary housing for agricultural workers. Their revised policy has now been included, in an amended form, in their new local plan. Kerrier Council are also consulting on a change to underpin their enforcement strategy.
Referrals to national regulators
In some areas authorities may be able to work directly with key national regulators. Elsewhere, direct referrals may be appropriate. It is now illegal to supply workers to the agriculture, food processing and packaging sectors without a licence. It will be illegal in the shellfish gathering sector from April 2007.
Information for individuals, support for agencies
Advice and information for migrant workers should include information on the standards they can expect and how to complain when these standards are not met. Local partners can provide information for individuals on their rights, for example through libraries, help points, posters and leaflets, and support relevant local advice organisations.
Directgov (external link) provides employment rights and responsibilities for migrant workers. For more information on rights and on support organisations see: Will Somerville ed, 'Working in the UK: Newcomer' Handbook', Second Edition, Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, 2006.
Examples of local advice organisations
Migrant Helpline (external link) run a specialist European Migrant Consultancy (external link) advice service for EU migrants in Kent and Sussex. Cambridge Independent Advice Centre provides telephone advice in eight languages. Advice for Life and the Keystone Trust will soon launch a migrant worker to migrant worker telephone advice service for the East of England, funded by the East of England Development Agency. It will have an out of hours answer phone, a website and internet discussion facility.
Useful national links