My original inspection reports on the Home Office’s Reporting and Offender Management (ROM) processes and on its management of non-detained Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) were published together in November 2017 since they dealt with various overlapping issues.

The ROMs report made six recommendations, all of which were accepted by the Home Office, and the FNOs inspection made a further eight, six of which were accepted, one partially accepted, and one rejected.

This re-inspection looked again at all 14 recommendations. It found that the Home Office had made significant efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the reporting process, principally through technology-enabled smarter working, and that a good deal of analysis and review work had been done in relation to the management of “out of contact” cases. However, at the time of the inspection, it was unable to evidence that any of the original six recommendations could yet be considered “Closed”. Crucially, Home Office guidance on how to deal with non-compliance with reporting requirements and absconders had not been updated and practice varied across the ROMs and caseworking units. This issue, particularly the tracing of absconders, deserved to be treated with considerably more urgency than the Home Office had shown.

The original FNO report acknowledged that implementation of the recommendations would not change some of the underlying challenges or risks surrounding the monitoring and removal of non-detained FNOs, but it was important that the Home Office was able to demonstrate it was doing as much as it possibly could to manage them. This re-inspection found that five of the eight recommendations could now be considered closed. However, the Home Office had not made the promised improvements in its recording and quality assurance of FNO casework, which raised questions about how well it actually understood and was mitigating the risks.

My report, which was sent to the Home Secretary on 31 January 2019, made four recommendations, the first of which concerned taking the necessary actions to close the original recommendations without further delays. The Home Office has accepted this and set out the actions it has taken or is planning to take. Towards the end of 2019-20, I will look for confirmation that these actions have been completed and have been successful.

Two other recommendations concerned FNO management, including a request for the Home Office to revisit its rejection of my recommendation regarding monitoring re-offending rates for FNOs released to ‘no fixed abode’, which the Home Office has now accepted. Again, this is a matter of demonstrating that it has a grip on the risks.

My final recommendation looked to ensure that the moves towards smarter working at the ROMs do not have the unintended consequence of reducing the Home Office’s ability to safeguard vulnerable individuals. In accepting this recommendation, the Home Office has referenced the commitments it made in response to my earlier report on its identification and safeguarding of (non-detained) vulnerable adults. During 2019-20, I plan to check on its progress in fulfilling those commitments.

The ability of migrants who are not legally entitled to work in the UK to find paid employment is seen by the Home Office as key to why many migrants remain in the UK without leave or work here in breach of the terms of their leave. Equally, the belief that they will be able to find work is seen as a significant “pull factor” for migrants seeking to reach the UK.

Illegal working also raises other issues, for example migrants working illegally in the UK are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by unscrupulous employers, and businesses employing illegal workers can undercut and damage legitimate businesses, deprive HM Government of revenue in the form of taxes and national insurance payments, and adversely affect the employment prospects of others.

For these reasons, tackling illegal working has been a Home Office priority for some years.

Because of its hidden nature, estimating the size of the problem with any confidence has been difficult. However, since at least 2015, when I last inspected this topic, the Home Office has understood it to be “greater than our capacity to enforce it through traditional arrest activity”.

My 2015 report noted a then relatively new shift in emphasis towards encouraging employer compliance through ‘educational visits’ by Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) teams, rather than continuing to rely primarily on enforcement visits to locate and arrest offenders. In this latest inspection, I therefore looked to see how this approach had developed, as well as at the measures introduced since 2015 under the umbrella of the ‘compliant environment’ to strengthen the powers of ICE teams and the penalties for non-compliant employers.

I found that efforts had been made to develop strategies and encourage partnerships and collaborations with other government departments and with large employers and employer groups in particular sectors, but there were no metrics to show what this had achieved. Meanwhile, ‘on the ground’ there was little evidence that the shift of emphasis trailed in 2015 had ‘stuck’, and ICE teams were doing (for the most part professionally and properly from what inspectors observed) what they had always done – deploying in response to ‘allegations’ received from members of the public, in the majority of cases to restaurants and fast food outlets, and with a focus on a handful of ‘removable’ nationalities.

The lessons from the Windrush scandal are the subject of an independent review, due to report shortly, and there is a compensation scheme for those affected. Therefore, I did not look specifically at how Windrush generation individuals had been impacted by Immigration Enforcement’s illegal working measures. However, it was evident that Windrush had had a significant effect on Immigration Enforcement, operationally (as a result of the ‘pausing’ of data sharing with other departments) and psychologically (with IE perceiving that other departments and agencies, employers and the general public were now less supportive, and that having dispensed with removals targets it was no longer clear, at least to ICE teams, what success looked like).

My report, which was sent to the Home Secretary on 6 February 2019, made six recommendations. The majority focus on improving the mechanics of illegal working compliance and enforcement but, while important and necessary, these are not enough by themselves to answer the criticism that the Home Office’s efforts are not really working and may have had the unintended consequence of enabling exploitation and discrimination by some employers.

My first two recommendations are pivotal to changing this. I recommended that the Home Office should publish as soon as possible an updated (post-Windrush) strategy and Action Plan for tackling illegal working, supported by clear external and internal communications to ensure maximum buy-in cross-government, by employers and representative organisations, by the general public, and within the Home Office itself. I also recommended that it should capture, analyse and report the quantitative and qualitative data and information that demonstrates the strategy and actions are not just effective in reducing illegal working and tackling non-compliant employers but that they are sensitive to and deal appropriately with instances of exploitation and abuse.

The Home Office has accepted all six recommendations. However, it seems that implementation of the key recommendations remains some way off and, while it is entirely sensible for it to look to the various reviews of the immigration system, including of Windrush Lessons Learned, to inform the updated illegal working strategy, in the meantime the problems identified in my report persist, with little clarity about the Home Office’s thinking or intentions.

After helping deliver record numbers of people into work, Amber Rudd, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will call for a new government focus on helping people better themselves in work, moving to higher paid, higher skilled roles.

Of those workers on low pay in 2006, just one in 6 had escaped that earnings bracket a decade later.

To tackle this, Rudd announced 2 new projects for jobcentres:

1. Building the ability to help claimants make good decisions about job switching. With evidence that changing jobs is often the best way to open up new opportunities and take on more responsibility, this project will help DWP staff assist workers to make informed decisions about new opportunities.

2. Boosting the capability of DWP’s employer-facing staff to have effective conversations with local employers about progression and good quality flexible working.

Rudd also announced that the length of the maximum single sanction any benefit claimant could face will be reduced to 6 months.

After committing in February to publishing an evaluation into how the sanctions system supports people into work, Rudd expressed concern at the impact of the longest sanctions on some claimants’ ability to support themselves.

While under 3% of eligible Universal Credit claimants are currently undergoing a sanction, where they have failed to meet their obligations like attending meetings and interviews without good reason, and with the average lasting only a month, the change will help to prevent claimants from facing long sanctions.

Acknowledging the growing role of automation in the workplace, Amber Rudd said:

Automation is driving the decline of banal and repetitive tasks.

So the jobs of the future are increasingly likely to be those that need human sensibilities: with personal relationships, qualitative judgement and creativity coming to the fore.

And there is a clear role for government to help people take advantages of these changes, and to help businesses create high-quality jobs.

I don’t underestimate the challenges ahead. Jobs are being made, remade and reshaped every day, as we find new ways to be useful to one another.

But I remain incredibly optimistic about what we can achieve.

Changing career, perhaps several times, in the midst of working life can be daunting – particularly if you have a family to look after. I know – that’s the path I took.

The work we are doing across government, and particularly in my department, is designed to support people through this.

We want every person, no matter their background, to progress in the workplace and outperform what society says they should be able to do.

These values are at the heart of what I will do at the DWP.

While necessary for the integrity of the system, I believe long financial sanctions become much less valuable over time, and ultimately undermine our aim to help people into work. 

That is why we will reduce the length of the maximum sanction to 6 months to make them more proportionate, and why I have already launched an evaluation to consider further improvements we can make.

Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), Neil Carberry said:

We are delighted to welcome Amber Rudd today. REC is all about brilliant recruitment, because it offers people opportunity and generates economic growth and prosperity. Building a progression nation is a vital part of this – addressing skills needs, gender gaps and regional disparities.

Recruiters across the country change people’s lives every day by helping them develop their career. And the vast majority of people tell REC it is the most important life decision they make.

It is good to see the Secretary of State acknowledge this through her choice of venue today. We look forward to working with the government on these new pilots, ensuring that people get the opportunities they need to build their future.

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The government needs to help every worker outperform what society says they should be able to do, no matter their background, says Work and Pensions Secretary at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Secretary of State Steve Barclay’s speech at the Future of Europe Conference at Sibiu, Romania