Modern Slavery

Modern Slavery is a national priority supported by an Act of Parliament (March 2015). SESPM is working in partnership with organisations across the South East to help battle modern slavery.

The partnership continues to support the region to combat modern slavery. In addition to training films highlighted below, we have been active in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in exploring a Surrey and Sussex approach.

SESPM and SEEC commissioned a brief film aimed at stimulating the professional curiosity of public sector workers to spot and report signs of modern slavery in their everyday work.

The film is supported by accompanying notes, offering guidance on how local authorities could use the film for staff training to raise awareness of slavery. Find out more about how YOU can help in your day-to-day work by being alert to the signs of slavery and reporting them so that together we can put an end to modern slavery.

There are many resources to help you spot the signs of slavery, including information from the national Modern Slavery Helpline.

Local authorities  have a key role to play in tackling modern slavery, including in identifying and supporting victims and working in partnership locally. ‘Modern Slavery – A Council Guide’ has been produced to support councils in raising awareness and provides clarity in the role of councils in tackling this crime.

Further information and resources can are available from the Local Government Association  and  Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioners Office

MSHT Newsletter

Issue 1: July 2024 as follows: MSHT Newsletter Issue 1 FINAL

Issue 2: November 2024 as follows: MSHT Newsletter Issue 2

Issue 3: March 2025 as follows: https://southeastspm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MSHT-Newsletter-Issue-3.pdf

April 2025 Update as follows:

We wanted to share some updates as it’s been a busy few weeks for the Modern Slavery Unit (MSU), including marking the 10-year anniversary since the Modern Slavery Act received Royal Assent! Marking the 10th anniversary highlights both the progress made in fighting modern slavery and the challenges that remain.

Please see our updates below:

10-year Anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act 2015

This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the passing of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Colleagues in MSU attended the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre’s 10th anniversary event on the 5th March. It was great to attend the event which brought stakeholders from across the sector together and to see the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls and the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner give speeches setting out their next steps.

House of Lords and Commons debate

The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls gave a closing speech at the House of Commons debate on the 10-year anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act on the 27th March. The Minister’s speech highlighted important milestones for the government with regards to tackling modern slavery, such as including reducing the backlog, Anti-Slavery Week roundtables & our engagement approach, Transparency in Supply Chains guidance launch, developing & sharing the Action Plan and announcing Assessing Identification Methods (AIM) consultation.

On the 28th March, Lord Moraes responded to the debate on the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Select Committee Report. This debate focused on areas such as the care sector and transparency in supply chains.

International work

We are delighted to share updates on the UK’s upstream response to human trafficking in collaboration with key international partners.

  1. The UK and Vietnam sign agreement to tackle human trafficking

The UK and Vietnam are furthering their current collaboration to address human trafficking by committing to a new Joint Action Plan.

The agreement was signed on the 31st March, at the Border Security Summit on Organised Immigration Crime, by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Vietnam Minister for Public Security General Luong Tam Quang. 

The agreement commits both countries to stop traffickers from exploiting vulnerable people by discouraging dangerous journeys, enhancing information sharing and coordinating efforts to disrupt trafficking. It builds on a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two countries in 2018.  Please see the press release here: UK and Vietnam sign agreement to tackle human trafficking – GOV.UK

Minister for Safeguarding visit to Romania

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, visited Bucharest 10-12 March and met the Deputy PM and Minister of Interior Predoiu, other Government officials, survivors, and NGOs.

The Minister covered both governmental and non-governmental organisations priorities on modern slavery in detail. Her most poignant meeting was with a survivor trafficked to eleven countries over seven years, including in the UK to the Minister’s own constituency: but now re-building her life and training to be a nurse. Throughout the visit the Minister drew from her own vast experience, emphasising the need for sustained political engagement and improved support to survivors.

The centrepiece of the visit celebrated the successes of the Home Office £1m programme through an event in Parliament bringing together NGOs, Government and cross-party parliamentarians with notably positive discussions focussing on what they could do to help victims. The Minister offered practical advice and UK support to address these issues and reaffirmed our own commitment to tackling modern slavery and supporting victims, through the UK-Romania Joint Action Plan agreed in May 2023.

Section 54 guidance launch

Forced labour is the most common form of modern slavery, and the international Labour Organization estimates that there are 27.6 million people – including 3.3 million children – in situations of forced labour on any given day. Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 tries to tackle this by requiring large commercial businesses operating in the UK to report annually on the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. The legislation brought the topic of modern slavery into some board rooms for the very first time, and it has been effective in raising awareness and accountability on modern slavery.

The Home Office published guidance on how to draft modern slavery statements in 2015, but we received strong stakeholder calls to update this guidance with more practical advice on how to tackle modern slavery in supply chains – updating the guidance came out as a key action from a Modern Slavery Engagement Forum that we held in early 2024. Over the last few months, the team have worked hard to update this guidance – adding a huge amount of additional detail and consulting with a wide group of stakeholders to ensure it promotes current best practice and clearly outlines how businesses can comply with both the letter and the spirit of the Act.

On 24th March, the new guidance went live on gov.uk and we held a launch event attended by the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls and over 100 representatives from business, civil society, academia, trade unions and trade associations. Feedback has been really positive so far, and we’ll be working hard to promote the guidance for the next year to capture a whole modern slavery statement reporting cycle.

First responder Forum

We are pleased that the First Responder Forum is now up and running, with the first meeting being held on the 3rd April. This was a great opportunity to bring together first responder organisations where they discussed improvements to the current first responder process.

We have made a number of improvements to the NRM referral form following a consultation that gathered over 450 survey responses and engagement with First Responder Organisations, the Competent Authorities, the Human Trafficking Foundation, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Office, researchers, service designers, and a trauma-informed specialist. These changes were shared at the First Responder Forum held in early April, where we discussed the updates and gathered further feedback. Key improvements include the ability to attach documents within the form, updated prompt sheets for First Responders, improved and more trauma-informed language, additional prompts to support information gathering across all exploitation types, and new fields to help identify linked or duplicate cases, as well as those still in exploitative situations. These updates aim to improve the quality of referrals, support more informed decision-making, and ensure the form better reflects the experiences of potential victims in a trauma-informed way. The updated form will be published on 30 April. Any NRM referrals in progress at the point of transition will be retained and not lost.

We hope the updated form represents meaningful improvement, and we recognise there will be opportunities to do more in the future, so we look forward to working with you to continue refining and enhancing it over time.

Devolved Decision-Making Pilot

The Devolved Decision-Making Pilot is expanding, and the Grant Competition is now live, this will allow up to 10 additional sites to participate. We encourage all interested parties to review the details and consider applying. The closing date for submitting bids is 14 May 2025. 

Please feel free to share this information with any relevant partners, networks, or contacts, in particular your contacts in any Local Authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, or Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland that may be interested in participating in the competition. 

They can find full details of the competition, including how to apply for funding, are available on the government portal here: https://www.find-government-grants.service.gov.uk/grants/piloting-devolved-decision-making-for-child-victims-of-modern-slavery-1#summary

Issue 4: August 2025 as follows: https://southeastspm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/MSHT-Newsletter-Issue-4.pdf

September 2025 Update as follows:

Independent Child Trafficking Guardians (ICTGs)

  • We are pleased to announce that the invitation-to-tender for the national ICTG contract was published on 15th September 2025.
  • The link to the notice can be found here: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/056744-2025.
  • The deadline for submitting a bid for this tender is 30th October 2025, 12:00pm.
  • Please feel free to share this link with any interested parties. Please note, that potential bidders can only access the Jaggaer portal by registering via the link contained within this notice.

Modern Slavery Guidance

Expansion of the devolved decision-making pilot

  • Following a recent grant competition, we are pleased to announce that eight new areas will be joining our devolved decision-making pilot over the coming months.
  • The competition, launched in April this year, was designed to fill gaps within the coverage of the pilot to date and will allow us to test a local model of decision-making for children in a number of new areas.
  • We now have pilot sites in all four nations, with Edinburgh joining our existing pilot site in Scotland, while Northern Ireland, adopting a regional model that will incorporate all six Health and Social Care Trusts.
  • We will also be expanding one of our established sites – Hampshire will be joined by three neighbouring local authorities in Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight to allow us to consider a hub-and-spoke approach to a regional consortium model.
  • Our new pilot sites will be coming aboard over the coming months and anticipate the majority of the new sites will have made their first NRM decisions by the end of the year.

NRM quarterly statistics update

International Reporting on Modern Slavery in Supply Chains Template

  • The Home Office has published a new transparency reporting template in collaboration with the Australian and Canadian governments, which supports businesses produce one modern slavery statement for all 3 countries.
  • This optional template will help reduce the administrative burden for businesses subject to supply chain reporting requirements in all 3 countries. The template is based on the updated Home Office statutory guidance and provides businesses with one clear and consistent message on what good practice reporting looks like.

Temporary Permission to Stay Update

  • On 6th February 2025 VTS decisions for individuals who are being considered for a possible grant of VTS but who are also subject to a deportation order were temporarily paused.
  • The wording of the pause was altered 9th June 2025 to cover deportation proceedings.
  • As of 11th August, the Modern Slavery Statutory Guidance and the Temporary Permission to Stay guidance has been updated, enabling the ending of the pause on VTS decision making for the relevant cohorts.

Call for Evidence on Identification of Victims of Modern Slavery

  • A reminder that the Call for Evidence on Identification of Victims of Modern Slavery closes on Wednesday 8th October 2025. We would really welcome your views, and would be grateful if you could share this with others: Identification of victims of modern slavery – GOV.UK

Supporting Victims of Modern Slavery

International grant notice

The Home Office’s Modern Slavery Fund seeks to raise global standards to reduce the impact of modern slavery on the UK. The Fund is considering funding grants working with migrant communities to increase identification of victims of modern slavery and reduce vulnerability to modern slavery. 

If your organisation is interested in these potential grant opportunities, please respond to our survey by Monday 29th September at 12.00 GMT. Further details on the potential grants and the survey itself are available at: https://www.homeofficesurveys.homeoffice.gov.uk/s/Z7KZ6O/

Wales

Anti-Slavery Wales will be hosting their annual conference on the 16th October, we encourage you to attend, please sign up using this link: Anti-Slavery Wales 2025 Conference | Business Wales. To note, the in-person tickets are currently sold out, but there is a waiting list and no limit to online virtual tickets. 

Northern Ireland

In June, Northern Ireland launched research into CCE- led by Ulster University and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the United Kingdom, co-funded by the Northern Ireland Department of Justice and the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) at the University of Oxford on ‘Identifying modern slavery and human trafficking in the context of child criminal exploitation in Northern Ireland’.

The full report is available on the PEC’s website.

Scotland

On 30th July, Scotland’s revised Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy was launched by the Minister for Victims and Community Safety. The Strategy was developed in partnership and following an extensive period of stakeholder consultation, including valuable input from people with lived experience.

The Strategy sets out a public health approach to trafficking in Scotland. This means taking an approach that delivers targeted interventions and resources aligned to the specific needs and challenges of those who have experienced trafficking and exploitation. Prevention is a central component of the public health approach, and the vision of the refreshed Strategy is to prevent human trafficking and exploitation in Scotland and to respond effectively when it does occur.

International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) workshops

IOM’s project on Improving Return and Reintegration Outcomes for Survivors of Modern Slavery is continuing for a second phase, running until March 2026. Please see the project information sheet attached to find out more about the expanded project countries and activities.

In March 2025 they launched resources to support and improve the capacities of UK support providers who assist survivors of modern slavery with voluntary return or repatriation to their countries of origin.   

They are kicking off phase 2 of the project with workshops to discuss and review these resources and understand what else frontline support providers would find useful. 

They are inviting you to join them at in-person workshops for modern slavery support workers in Belfast (24th September), Manchester (29th September) and London (6th October). There will also be a shorter online workshop (2nd October).   

This will be a great professional development opportunity for people working with survivors of modern slavery (especially support workers at MSVCC organisations and other NGOs).  

Up to 25 people can register to attend each event, with an initial cap of three attendees per organisation. There will also be an online webinar taking place on 2nd October open to everyone. Please contact Laura Schack (lschack@iom.int) and Aliya Zahin (azahin@iom.int) for further information. 

You can register to the events by clicking the following links which will take you to the Eventbrite pages: 

December 2025 Update as follows:

We are writing to you to provide recent updates from the Modern Slavery Unit, including an update to the TPS guidance that went live today (3rd December). Please see the updates below:

Temporary Permission to Stay

  • The Temporary Permission to Stay (TPS) guidance has been updated as of 3 December 2025 to amend the sections on Reconsiderations. 

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act

  • The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill received Royal Assent on 2 December and is now the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. The Act can be found here.

Modern Slavery Fund

  • Thank you to those who took the time to review and respond to our early market engagement survey on potential grants with migrant communities to increase identification of victims of modern slavery and reduce vulnerability to modern slavery. We truly appreciate your efforts and valuable input. This feedback will play an important role in shaping our future approach.
  • It’s important to note that this survey was solely a market engagement questionnaire to gauge ideas and interest in potential grants within this sector. At present, there is no confirmed grant funding available.
  • As part of the next steps, we will analyse the results and any further information regarding grant opportunities would be first shared via the Find a Grant platform.

January 2026 Update as follows:

Modern Slavery Engagement Forum

  • On Wednesday we held a Modern Slavery Engagement Core Forum meeting with partners from the modern slavery sector. In this meeting we discussed the modern slavery measures in the Restoring Order and Control statement – specifically early identification in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) and credibility of timing of disclosure.
  • We are still in the early stages of this work, but we will send updates as we progress.

Review of the Modern Slavery Fund

  • We are pleased to announce that an internal Review of the Modern Slavery Fund has been published at www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-slavery-fund-internal-review-2022-to-2025
  • The Modern Slavery Fund is a UK government programme which funds grants in the UK and overseas to prevent and respond to modern slavery.
  • This Review assesses impact, captures lessons to inform future programming, and reflects the significant progress delivered through 62 projects from 2022 to 2025.
  • We thank all grant partners, past and present, for their commitment, expertise and collaboration.

Call for Evidence

  • We’re still analysing the responses to the Call for Evidence. W, we don’t yet have a date for publication, but we hope this will be in the coming weeks.
  • The responses from the call for evidence will inform wider reform work involving as part of the modern slavery measures in the Restoring Order and Control policy statement.
  • We are working through options to ensure the survivor voice meaningful survivor engagement is also fed into our policy development and will keep you updated as we progress.

Transition to Adulthood

  • As you will know, young people who turn 18 without a Conclusive Grounds decision must consent to remain in or withdraw from the NRM.
  • The updated policy will allow verbal or written consent for 18-year-olds, making the process smoother and more accessible.
  • We have also developed information booklets to help young people, and the professionals supporting them, understand the NRM transition process.
  • These materials will help encourage early conversations about transition. The booklet for young people will be available on gov.uk.
  • Additionally, we are introducing the option for consenting young people to receive a call from The Salvation Army in the weeks preceding their 18th birthday. This will enable them to hear more about the support available to potential adult victims in the NRM through the MSVCC.

Information Packs for Children Entering the NRM

  • As well as the transitional packs, we have developed two child friendly information packs to support children’s understanding of the NRM and what it means for them at the point of referral.
  • These resources aim to support First Responders to have conversations with children in a consistent, age appropriate and trauma-informed manner. These leaflets will be available on gov.uk.

Devolved Decision-Making Pilots

  • Following a grant competition in spring 2025, a further seven pilot sites have now joined the pilot.
  • This includes Edinburgh City Council, joining the pilot as our second Scottish site, and an expansion into Northern Ireland where we will be testing a regional model that encompasses all Health and Social Care Trusts.
  • Our new pilot sites went live in autumn 2025 and began making decisions shortly afterwards.
  • Work is continuing to review and evaluate the pilot to inform our longer-term approach to NRM decision-making for children.
  • Over the coming months, this will include engagement with local authorities, police and health services both within and outside the current pilot.

Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract 45-day ‘move-on period’

  • On 24 December 2025 paragraph 7.12 of the statutory guidance was updated to clarify that the 45-day ‘move-on period’ following a positive Conclusive Grounds decision:
    • is only provided to confirmed victims receiving support from the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract, to help them safely exit the service; and 
    • is not a barrier to being detained in an Immigration Removal Centre, or HM prison, or to removal from the UK.

Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract Recovery Needs Assessment Information Sheet

  • At the end of last year, we began issuing a Recovery Needs Assessment (RNA) information sheet alongside positive Conclusive Grounds (CG) decision letters for individuals currently receiving MSVCC support. The factsheet is designed to provide greater clarity at what can be a complex and transitional point in a person’s recovery journey, and to help victims better understand:
    • How their support changes as they move into the move‑on period.
    • What the RNA involves and why it is important.
    • The implications of non‑engagement with transition planning and the overall process.
  • On the 22nd of January 2026, the information sheet was published online as part of the modern slavery collection and is available in the top 10 languages most used by individuals in the NRM to support accessibility.

Modern Slavery Statement Registry – Data Dashboard

Modern Slavery Commitments in the Homelessness Strategy

  • On the 11th of December 2025, the National Plan to End Homelessness was published, setting out the long-term vision to end Homelessness and Rough Sleeping.
  • Informed by engagement with sector stakeholders, the Targeted Prevention section includes commitments to strengthen councils’ awareness of exploitation and trafficking, helping frontline services to better recognise victims and assess their vulnerabilities within the context of homelessness, by updating the Homelessness Code of Guidance chapter on modern slavery, promoting Modern Slavery Coordinators in local authority practice toolkits, and reviewing the Modern Slavery Statutory Guidance to improve local practice.
  • We will continue working with MHCLG throughout 2026 to support implementation of these commitments.

The Employment Rights Act 2025

  • On 18 December 2025, The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent. The Act forms a key part of the government’s Plan to Make Work Pay, modernising employment protections.
  • A major element of the Act is the creation of the Fair Work Agency (the FWA), launching in April 2026.
  • The FWA will bring together the enforcement of domestic agency rules, the National Minimum Wage, licensing of gangmasters, and action against serious labour exploitation.
  • It will also take on additional functions (such as the enforcement of holiday pay) and creates the flexibility to bring in additional legislation to respond to future challenges.
  • The Act will give the FWA the tools it needs to do its job, including an expanded civil penalty regime, clear gateways for sharing information and the power to bring tribunal cases on behalf of workers.

Resources

A number of organisations produce information and resources on Modern Slavery with some also providing training packages:

Last Updated: 3rd February 2026