Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration introduced a report providing a progress update on the Council’s commitments in its Modern Slavery Charter and an updated Modern Slavery Statement for 2021/22,

The Cabinet Member commented that modern slavery was a significant safeguarding issue for the local community, made worse by the effects of the pandemic not least because many victims lived in appalling conditions and were unable to keep safe from Covid.  Home Office figures indicated that, in the UK, there were up to 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery recorded in 2013 and more than 10,000 cases of human trafficking recorded in 2019, with 27 of those referrals being in Barking and Dagenham.  Modern slavery was hidden, often in plain sight; on high streets, in local businesses, and even suburban streets. Unwittingly, the local community may be using victims of modern slavery to wash their cars, paint their nails and lay their drives.  Children were also victims with many of the more vulnerable being exploited for drug trafficking, sometimes coerced, along so-called “county lines”.

Against that background, the Cabinet Member updated the Cabinet on the considerable progress against the ten commitments in the Co-operative Modern Slavery Charter, which the Council signed up to in May 2018, and spoke on the Council’s updated Modern Slavery Statement for 2021/22.  Concluding her report, the Cabinet Member paid tribute to staff for their work in helping to tackle the difficult issues associated with modern slavery and trafficking, adding that there was still much more to do.

The Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety commented that the issue was a high priority for the Borough’s Community Safety Partnership and also referenced the ‘Step Up Stay Safe’ project, a partnership and cross-service initiative to develop a tiered intervention approach to youth violence.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the progress against the Modern Slavery Charter and the account given of the Council’s approach as set out in the Modern Slavery Statement 2021/22 at Appendix 1 to the report; and

(ii)  Note the brief on the wider direction of travel relating to Modern Slavery in Barking and Dagenham, including the governance update between partnership boards.