Exploitation and illegal practice in the recruitment and employment of international care workers

Cathie Williams, Joint Chief Executive of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) said:

“The majority of care workers are employed by independent providers who take an ethical approach to recruiting overseas care workers. However, we need to urgently stop the exploitation and illegal practice carried out by some unscrupulous companies recruiting care workers from abroad.

“The only way to do that is not provide licences to unscrupulous and criminal organisations in the first place. We’ve recommended three actions to the UK Visa and Immigration Service to achieve this:

• verify with the Directors of Adult Social Services that the provider who is seeking to recruit is a registered care provider;

• ask for evidence that they have care roles vacant in the area where they seek to operate;

• and require that they demonstrate they are committed to ethical practice including accessing decent housing for new recruits, training and support.

“We are pleased that the recent statement on international recruitment from the Government introduced checks to ensure providers are registered with the Care Quality Commission before licences are issued.

“Illegal exploitation has no place in our social care system, and it undermines the work genuine providers have done in the last year to bring in 70,000 care workers from other countries. They have made a huge difference to the lives of thousands of older and disabled people in our communities who would otherwise not benefited from that care. We have more than 150,000 vacancies across adult social care. International recruitment is not a long-term solution to that crisis, but it’s making an important contribution right now and we need to ensure the care workers we’re welcoming from other countries are properly protected so they can continue to do this vital work.”