“Exploitation, abuse and no prosecutions – Leicester’s sweatshop scandal continues one year on”, 5 August 2021

…The reality, says Dominique Muller, policy director of campaign group Labour Behind the Label…is that…the abuses are just “more hidden”...

Operation Tacit – which unites the GLAA, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Leicestershire Police and Immigration Enforcement – has had some success... The GLAA has visited more than 250 factories since July 2020, HMRC has been to more than 100 and between mid-May and mid-July this year the HSE carried out 94 inspections and 25 complaint follow-up visits...

The results of the increased focus, however, have been disappointing for those demanding action. There have been no prosecutions under Operation Tacit for modern slavery, health and safety or minimum wage offences...

A source within the GLAA says the situation in Leicester is frustrating...while people in the industry are willing to complain anonymously to journalists, firm evidence which could lead to prosecutions is often elusive, says the source...

...while [the GLAA] investigates all aspects of work exploitation, it only has serious powers in modern slavery cases. Others are passed on to partners, such as wage abuses to HMRC or dangerous workplaces to the HSE.

...the Modern Slavery Act 2015’s definition of [modern slavery]...is stricter than many people understand. While things “are not what they should be” in Leicester, "we haven’t seen widespread modern slavery offences”.

A GLAA source claims that many of its slavery cases get “stuck in the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] quagmire”, because prosecutors think they have a higher chance of success using laws covering less serious offences. This may partly explain why in the past two years the GLAA has identified more than 22,000 potential victims of exploitation in the UK but has made only 22 arrests...

Boohoo said…“We met with Ian Waterfield, the chair of Operation Tacit, in July 2020 and committed to working closely together to eradicate any instance of worker exploitation. Since that time we have spoken on a regular basis, we have shared all relevant information with his team and just last month we convened a round table for the enforcement agencies,”…