Temporary and Migrant Labour Project Group - Points to raise at the AIAC meeting May 2nd 2007.

• Update on activity. The group has achieved its first objective to provide basic generic guidance for employees on their rights and responsibilities under health and safety in agriculture and horticulture. Pocket leaflet produced for distribution in English, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Russian, Romanian and Bulgarian.  Communication strategy agreed to include web based distribution and hard copy distribution. Notable successes include the ports of entry, JobCentre Plus / EURES, Ethical Trading Initiative etc.
• Now working on further objective to develop best practice guidance for small scale labour users i.e. small to medium sized businesses in agriculture and related land-based businesses. This will take the form of a small leaflet giving guidance in such key areas as contractual relationships, risk assessment, information instruction and training, diversity, control measures, record keeping and other related matters.
• The Group therefore is working towards its original aim of reducing the levels of risk, injury and ill health experienced by casual temporary and migrant workers or other vulnerable workers in agriculture, horticulture and related on farm food processing sectors by providing authoritative advice and guidance.
• The group has benefited from partnership involvement including TGWU, Home Office UK Immigration Service, , Young Farmers, National Association of Agricultural Contractors, ASDA (Ethical Trading Initiative), the Association of Labour Providers, NACAB, NFU and Lantra.  This has allowed for extensive support to HSE staff and has extended networking capacity to allow for wider consultation at all stages.

Issues along the way

Protracted time scale. What seemed like a fairy simple task has taken nearly 2 years to achieve the first stage of actually getting guidance out to those that need it most the actual migrant workers.

Many of the hold ups rest internally with the HSE and are linked to:

• lack of clarity about publications policy after the initial aims and objectives of the group had appeared to have been signed off and agreed.
• extensive internal consultations about what could or could not be developed and published and that they were happy with what the group could produce
• Certain resistance from HSE to listen to the advice given by industry stakeholders as to what was considered appropriate for production  (e.g. a leaflet was more appropriate to SMEs than a pocketcard)
• Missed opportunities e.g. not to actually “launch” the first document as it is not seen as a “new” document merely a replacement of an existing one

Subsequent fall out from lack of responsiveness within HSE:

• Frustration from partners about the time lag
• Potential for reduced enthusiasm for the project and therefore a potential for lack of support going forward

However on a positive note:

• Have achieved what we set out to do
• We have a product that is ready to go
• The strength of the partnership brought added value to the group
• The product has already got a good profile as a result of the consultations partners have undertaken on behalf of HSE
• The work of the group helped stimulate the development of the dedicated migrant worker website for the HSE which will concentrate and focus the efforts of the HSE in addressing the needs of migrant workers

Finally want to thank the HSE staff in particular Graeme who has taken on board this work with great enthusiasm and has in many cases developed work for us to evaluate and take forward and has with unstinting enthusiasm taken back to HSE our concerns and ideas and has pushed things forward internally. In addition thanks must go in the later stages of this work to Chris Molde for developing the communications strategy.

We anticipate that our next work with the SME booklet will not take as long as we have ironed out many of the issues on the way.

Madge Moore

Chair Casual Temporary and Migrant Working Group

01 May 2007.