The SWS has an impact on tax revenue and spending on public services, which has implications for overall fiscal balance. Workers have access to some public services (such as health and transport) but do not have the same access to public funds that a UK citizen would. While Russian to English translation in the UK is covered (as discussed in Chapter 2), secondary care (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) is usually not free. Workers are not permitted to receive public funds (such as housing benefit, income support or Universal Credit from the UK government).
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- The previous Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner suggested that the long distances involved in SWS recruitment can increase the difficulty of scrutinising recruiters.
- 74% of transfers occur exclusively within England, whilst there are very few transfers from Wales (0.5% of all transfers to and from Wales) or Northern Ireland (3.8% of all transfers to and from Northern Ireland), reflecting the overall small number of Seasonal Workers there.
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If the SWV were to be longer than 6 months, the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), which applies to visas above this length, would also be payable. Both the House of Lords Review and the Independent Review suggest that employers should cover this for workers. As with other additional costs, employers expressed limited appetite/ability to pay the IHS, however, some mostly large organisations expressed willingness to do this as they felt the extra cost would be offset by potential gains in productivity and reduced recruitment fees.
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According to a large scale recent survey of workers, 8% of workers reported regularly or sometimes being expected to go without treatment for an accident or illness that required treatment. Between 1% and less than 1% of all visa holders (who gave a reason) said they had left early due to illness or injury over the last three years (see Table 5.5). While the employers we spoke to said they accepted their duty of care, they commented that it could be hard to find appropriate support services at the weekend and bank holidays. There is also little research into personal issues such as domestic violence or sexual assault between or of workers on farms or of health issues.
While the Just Good Work app provides the facility to get help in any country, it is also crucial that employees feel able to approach supervisors and other managers for help and have on-site contact details for use in an emergency. Workers should be given information on how to get help and on how to contact emergency services while they are in the UK, in their own language. When serious welfare issues such as domestic violence, physical attacks or racial/sexual discrimination happen, the perpetrator should be removed and reported to the police where appropriate. Scheme operators should proactively contact victims to see whether they wish to switch farm through a prioritised transfer process and enable this.
Making this a formal requirement for all employers could, however, have consequences for certain employers’ use of the scheme. Some small non-users indicated that the cost of the scheme had already influenced them not to participate, requiring employers to pay higher costs may further discourage smaller businesses from using the scheme and may make access to seasonal labour unviable for some employers. Employers responding to our CfE reported mixed levels of retention, with some saying workers had stayed the full length of their visa, and others reporting dropout rates of up to 50%. Employers reported across the CfE and interviews that those employees who had left early had done so for a wide range of reasons, including the nature of work or work available, health problems or family sickness, and having earned enough. Employers reported that many employees who chose to leave early do so during their first few weeks of employment or are dismissed at this stage due to lower productivity rates.
Employers said that transfers were more frustrating when they perceived the reasoning to be “minor” or “social”. The network of communication between Seasonal Workers was said to mean that workers chased the locations offering the highest number of hours in that particular week. Employers from Northern Ireland said workers frequently requested transfers to sites based in the mainland UK. These employers said such reasons should be foreseen by workers/scheme operators, and as employers are unable to deny a granted transfer request, some called for the criteria for switching to be tightened. Of the employers responding to our CfE, many said that not being able to recruit the number of Seasonal Workers they wanted would have considerable impact on their business.