The second item on the agenda is the seventh evidence session in our inquiry into migration and trafficking. This session will focus on trafficking and the committee will hear from two witnesses. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to welcome Detective Sergeant Sandra Jamieson of the human trafficking co-ordination unit, which is part of the Scottish intelligence co-ordination unit of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, and Liam Vernon, the chief executive of the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre.
I will put the role of the UK human trafficking centre in context. The centre sat as an entity under South Yorkshire Police until 1 April 2010, when it was transferred into the Serious Organised Crime Agency, of which I am a member. I am currently the acting head of the centre, but that position will change later in the year. My involvement with the UKHTC began at the end of April this year, but I feel that I have a good knowledge and understanding of what preceded it.
Thank you very much for that comprehensive response. Did you mention the Gangmasters Licensing Authority?
I apologise; I did not. We work closely with key agencies. For example, the GLA is an important member of our operations working group and also sits on the strategic operations group, so our relationship is close. It is fair to say that when there is a crossover on operational work, there is good harmony and when the opportunity exists to develop operational activity or policy, it is taken forward fairly robustly.
Thank you for that.
Mine is a new role with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. The SCDEA did a review of how it dealt with serious and organised crime. Recommendations were made to the Scottish Government and new funding was given to the SCDEA to set up the Scottish intelligence co-ordination unit. The SICU is a new part of the SCDEA that has a human trafficking co-ordination unit, which I head. Prior to that, there was nothing in Scotland with that sort of remit. I am a Lothian and Borders Police officer who, from about 2006 until I went to the SCDEA, examined in my own force human trafficking. In addition, I was seconded to the UKHTC for about 18 months to two years as a tactical adviser, and I still assist the UKHTC in that role.
Thank you. You talked about the e-learning programme, and about trying to explain what trafficking is all about. When we took oral evidence, a couple of witnesses raised concerns about the definition of trafficking in the Palermo protocol, which is tortuous to say the least. Do you have a view on that? Does the fact that the definition is so complicated interfere with your job of getting over what trafficking is about and with raising awareness of trafficking?
It is a complicated definition, but if you break it down into three elements it explains it a bit better, and helps people to understand it. That is what I do when I go to colleges and so on. Rather than giving people the Palermo definition and saying, “That is what trafficking is”, I break it down so that they can see where it sits.
There are two aspects. First, the Palermo protocol is the first international instrument that clearly defines trafficking and is recognised across the piece internationally. That is really useful because, by its very nature, trafficking is an international problem.
Thank you. That was a good setting into context of the two organisations.
Thank you and good morning. In the evidence that we have received so far, there appears to be a mixed message about the scale and nature of the trafficking problem. Scottish Government research identified a total of 79 victims of trafficking in Scotland in 2007-08. Furthermore, a recent mapping exercise conducted by the SCDEA highlighted a minimum of 367 serious organised crime groups in Scotland, of which 10 were thought to be actively involved in human trafficking. There has also been evidence from the Scottish Refugee Council and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. There is not really a clear picture of the scale of the problem in Scotland.
The figures that go around are very confusing, which is why the SCDEA does not give out any figures. The only thing that we can really do is to look to the national referral mechanism, which is where you will get more accurate figures, although you have to take into account the possibility that not every victim goes through the mechanism.
Is the problem increasing or have the numbers been steady over a number of years? Is it too early to say?
The more that people understand what human trafficking is—what the indicators are—the more the numbers will increase. That is my personal view. We are probably still in the early days, when the indicators are not being recognised. I do not know whether Liam Vernon agrees.
Yes, I agree with those sentiments. The national referral mechanism probably gives us our most accurate and reliable empirical data. In the first 12 months, in Scotland there were 49 referrals from 20 countries. Within the UK as a whole, there were 706 referrals in the first year; so, approximately 7 per cent of the referrals across the UK were from Scotland. Of the countries that were represented, the key ones were Nigeria, China and eastern European countries, which is reflective of the pattern right across the UK. At close of play last night, the number of referrals to the national referral mechanism stood at 992. We appear to be there or thereabouts.
Thank you for that comprehensive answer, which also answered the question that I was going to ask on data collection. I will ask a question about international working, which you touched on at the end of your answer. Trafficking is an international issue and problem. I do not seek exact details of the work that is going on, but I would like to gain an understanding of the work that both your organisations undertake with international partners to prevent trafficking and a better understanding why trafficking originates in certain countries. In Scotland and the UK, we have to deal with the effects of trafficking, but the lives of the individuals who are involved are destroyed.
Absolutely. I am happy to give what I hope is a quick résumé from a UKHTC perspective.
I want to go back to the data collection, to ensure that I have understood you correctly. The NRM holds the data on people referred to it but not the data on people not referred to it. Is that information held by individual police forces rather than centrally?
The correct answer to that is that we hold data that we are given. We are one of the two competent authorities to which any police service, a number of NGOs and the UKBA refer people when they identify them as potential victims of trafficking. If those organisations do not identify someone as a victim or they do not know about the national referral mechanism, or if indeed the person is not picked up by anybody as a potential victim, that person will simply not end up on the referral database.
I can understand that the people whom we do not know about are obviously not on the referral database. However, I was wondering about what would happen if people from a particular race, culture or region of the world generally declined to go to national referral for some reason that we did not know. If there was a pattern in the refusals, would anybody pick it up, or would it not be picked up because nobody holds the information centrally?
I think that it is fair to say that we pick up only what is referred to us. In my personal view, much more needs to be done on collating the sort of information that you have identified. We rely on many bodies—the NGOs and police services—providing details to the central body so that we can collate the information. It may well be that not all those who are referred are victims of trafficking or require the support of the Council of Europe convention, but co-ordination has to be an invaluable part of understanding the scale and nature of trafficking in Scotland and across the UK.
Thank you. You have understood exactly the point that I was getting at.
Does Sandra Jamieson want to add anything?
Going back to Stuart McMillan’s question, I should mention that the SCDEA does a lot of work with the UKHTC. The SCDEA also has an officer based in Europol, who—again, for operational reasons, I cannot go into details—assisted in arranging a meeting with the authorities in different countries during a recent incident. Within the SICU, the SOCA officers who work alongside us have access to officers in other countries.
Most of the general public’s engagement with the issue of trafficking is through the more salacious and lurid headlines that one often finds in our newspapers. In general terms, or in specific terms if details are available, are those who are trafficked brought into the country primarily for the purposes of sexual exploitation? Is that the main activity, or is there a different pattern? Are we just being subjected to salacious headlines by people who want to sell newspapers?
Such headlines definitely sell newspapers, which is what the newspapers are looking for. However, as we said earlier, we do not know the scale and nature of the problem. As our understanding evolves, we might find that trafficking relates not so much to sexual exploitation as to labour exploitation, but at this time we do not know. In the NRM stats, sexual exploitation certainly accounts for the largest number of referrals, but referrals for domestic servitude and labour exploitation are starting to come through. However, I think that we have not even lifted the lid on what other types of exploitation take place in this country.
After 15 months, the national referral mechanism could provide us—these are not for Scotland only, unfortunately—with some UK stats: 45 per cent, or some 380 referrals, were for sexual exploitation; 27 per cent, or 227 referrals, were for labour exploitation; and 17 per cent, or 147 referrals, were for domestic servitude. For 11 per cent, the exploitation type was not recorded. That indicates that the main type of exploitation is indeed sexual exploitation. The question that I would ask is whether that is because operational activity and media reporting mean that there is a lot of awareness about it in the public domain and among police and professionals. Perhaps labour exploitation and domestic servitude are less well known about. Certainly, the GLA was keen to point out to me in a recent conversation that labour exploitation might be more of a hidden arena than sexual exploitation.
I have another question about the wider forms of illegality, but I will visit that in a minute.
I can answer your last question, because I remember it most. Gangmasters are not first responders in the national referral mechanism. They might identify potential victims, but those victims’ route into the NRM would be through the police service or the UKBA. That is not to say that gangmasters have not identified victims, but the current data might not capture that in the detail that you seek.
It was about extrapolating figures.
It is easy to say that figures are the be-all and end-all, but they are not—they provide enlightenment and add to the debate, but veracity and quality are needed behind them and effective analysis is required. That must be compared with what is happening on the ground across the piece with a wide range of organisations.
It does. I put to Sandra Jamieson my question about the involvement of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
I ran a senior investigating officers course at the Scottish Police College last year, to which senior officers in every police force were invited. The Crown Office sat with us for the whole week of the course and it was available to all the police officers to answer questions. I was also recently involved in training for procurators fiscal—a pilot course to raise awareness among them about trafficking. We work closely together.
I will not go into that because one of my colleagues has some more questions on it. I am interested in hearing whether either of you has evidence that trafficking supports or is supported by other forms of illegality beyond the clearly defined agenda. Do you find the same types of groups and the same criminal organisations in other areas of criminal activity? Can you give us an indication, without breaching any confidences, of any ways in which they cross-fertilise and support one another?
The basic answer to your question is yes. In the small numbers of cases that we have at the moment in Scotland, we have certainly seen that those who traffic people traffic drugs as well.
That reflects the picture throughout the UK. There are clear links to money laundering and drug trafficking. There is also an emerging picture on trafficking for benefit fraud—fiscal fraud. There is a much wider picture and some of those issues are probably more visible to the public than some of the stand-alone trafficking issues.
Are the fairly draconian measures that are being taken on benefit claims—the Atos Healthcare assessments and various other measures—likely to weed out more people who are perhaps being used for benefit fraud purposes? Do you have any evidence that they are beginning to identify people who have been trafficked for the purposes of benefit fraud?
I am by no means an expert on that, nor do I work closely with the departments that have responsibility for it, so it would be wrong of me to go blind and shoot from the hip with an answer to that question. However, it is clearly a topical and important matter, particularly in the current climate. The UKHTC is working closely with partners on the issue as it develops.
Thank you very much for that.
I will move on to the enforcement and prosecution of human trafficking offences. It is a matter of concern to us that there have been no convictions in Scotland. The legislation is all in place, so there is no problem in that direction, but it is striking that there has been a large number of convictions in England and none in Scotland. We raised that with previous witnesses. Do you have any comments on the matter and on the apparent difficulties of securing convictions in Scotland?
I understand that people have concerns about that, but you must consider the nature of trafficking and understand that there could be a variety of reasons why we have never had a conviction. Reports have been submitted to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for trafficking offences—some have been submitted lately—but you would have to ask the COPFS why they did not reach the next stage.
Does Liam Vernon have any comments on that?
I can put a UK perspective on it. We have supported a number of operational investigations within SOCA and undertaken our own in which prosecutions have been successful. The point that we advocate with the support that we give in our tactical advice is that the police service decides on the investigative method in each case, whereas the correct judicial authorities decide on the method of prosecution and the appropriate charges to lay.
One specific example that was given was to do with the powers of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. I do not know, in the light of what has been said, whether it is particularly significant, but I suppose that it is right to ask the question. Apparently, under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, there is a power of arrest for the offence of acting as an unlicensed gangmaster, but that applies to England and not to Scotland. Is that at all significant? I do not know how often that power is used and whether it is an important weapon in England or minor in the scale of things, but there seems to be a difference in the legislation for Scotland and England.
I recognise what you are saying. We work closely with the GLA; in fact, I had a briefing from it last week on some of its powers. That was certainly not raised by the GLA as an issue and as an inhibitor to prosecution for trafficking.
I will take that a little bit further. I, too, was concerned by the information that we got about the lack of convictions. I am trying to understand whether that is to do with the different parts of what these people are doing. They might be convicted on charges of trading in prostitution or for offences under the Identity Cards Act 2006 instead of human trafficking. We talked about how difficult the definition is in itself. Does that have something to do with it? Is it about the approach by prosecutors rather than anything else?
Obviously, you would have to ask the Procurator Fiscal Service a lot of those questions, but I know that guidance is being drafted, if it is not already at the stage of being given out to fiscals. I do not know what is in it, as I have not seen it. From speaking to procurators fiscal, I know that they have not dealt with this type of legislation before, so they, too, are learning. I could not say whether that is why they are not taking trafficking prosecutions ahead.
You said that the training that you were doing was a pilot. Will it be rolled out?
It is being evaluated now. I would like it to be rolled out in the future, not only for procurators fiscal but for all agencies.
Just to clarify, if someone was charged with laundering, the prosecutors would look behind the crime and see whether there was a trafficking element, an element of paedophilia or whatever.
Yes, I think that that is what they are trying to do. I certainly know that they have been looking at other cases. If we make procurators fiscal aware, they should be able to find indicators of something else taking place, so I hope that that is the case.
The committee has been told that there is a lack of support for victims of trafficking. It was suggested to us that people are victimised twice: first they are trafficked and then, when they are found, they can be treated as semi-criminals rather than the victims of crime. John Watson of Amnesty International Scotland told us that TARA does not have enough resources to enable it to cover the whole of Scotland—indeed, it struggles to cover Glasgow. In some instances, victims have to go to England for support, because in Scotland we do not have the support structures that people require. Will the witnesses comment on that?
In Scotland, we use two main agencies or NGOs: the TARA project, which is based in Glasgow; and Migrant Helpline, which has funding from the Scottish Government. I have used both agencies on numerous occasions. I understand your point about the TARA project, which is limited in numbers, but I can fall back on the Migrant Helpline, which is also good. I work with that organisation almost daily.
That makes sense. We have all come across situations in which people have been transferred to another part of the UK so that they can get away from a centre where crime is taking place.
You will have to speak to the UKBA about how it comes to decisions in the national referral mechanism.
Is the national referral mechanism the right approach? We have been told that it is overcentralised. When it comes to dealing with children, would it be better to co-operate more with social work departments and other people who have expertise in dealing with children in such situations?
It is certainly the case that children are initially assessed by the local authority and referred as the authority sees fit.
Do you think that another look must be taken in order to address the range of vulnerable people who might find themselves in a trafficking situation, such as children and people with learning disabilities?
The types of victims would naturally form part of the whole review process. I would advocate that, in its first year, there have been successes in the NRM, which I hope that I have evidenced today. The NRM is compliant with the Council of Europe convention—the view of the NRM strategic group is clear on that. The Scottish Government, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice put quite a lot of money, time and effort into the NRM, and, as we develop awareness and understanding in this arena, the level of support will continue to be high. All of that sits in the review period at the moment, and the views of others, including NGOs and those who provide services to victims, are clearly welcome. They will fit in with the review process, which has not yet finalised its outcome or recommendations.
Thank you. There is one final element to this. Quite a worrying report came from Amnesty International, which, as you have said, is concerned about a number of aspects of the whole trafficking situation and the NRM. It states:
I am well aware of the report to which you refer and have read it in detail. That report, along with the organisations that were responsible for writing it, form part of the current NRM review. Is there a disparity? The NRM was nine months old at that time, but it is now closer to 18 months old, and that question will form part of the process. The UKBA is working closely with NGOs and the strategic monitoring group to raise awareness within its own organisation and to provide more robust training to the competent authorities. I guess that the UKBA would be in a stronger position that I am to discuss the processes that it has put in place.
Sure. The review is looking to train those who make the decisions and give them a wider knowledge of the issues surrounding those whom they are dealing with.
I am not in a strong position to give you the right answer. The UKBA will be in a position to do that.
DS Jamieson referred to the training with which she is involved, especially of police—the senior police officers who are using the e-learning package that you described. However, it seems to me that we are still at the beginning of the process. I am concerned about that, given the evidence that we received on the urgency of rolling out training. I know that this is not your responsibility, but can you comment on the level of training that is currently available to front-line staff in key organisations across Scotland, not just in Glasgow?
Not really. I do not know what many of them do. However, in two weeks’ time we will conduct a multi-agency table-top exercise in central Scotland involving health, education, the fire service and the police, to name a few agencies, to get them to look at their practices and procedures for identifying victims of trafficking. The City of Edinburgh Council has approached me and would like to conduct a similar exercise. We believe that such training could be rolled out throughout Scotland. The table-top exercise may need to be tweaked once we have conducted it for the first time and have seen how it works, but it will go on a training website, with education, so anyone will be able to access it. That is a start. Following the exercise, we want people to start looking at their organisations, to see what training is needed.
Will the exercise take account of victims of different forms of trafficking, such as forced labour?
Yes. I will not go into the details now, but it is based on a specific operation that happened. The aim is to get people to see whether they can pick out the indicators as the day progresses; there will then be general discussions. Central Scotland Police has put together a protocol with its local authorities on what they will do if they come across a victim of trafficking. The City of Edinburgh Council already has such a protocol, which Central Scotland Police has taken on board. That is the reason for the exercise that we are conducting.
Will your responsibilities spread out to the rest of Scotland? I represent North East Scotland, so I know that there is a problem there.
We want the table-top exercise to be available to anyone, if they want to use it to provide training in their organisations and in multi-organisational situations. It could go anywhere in Scotland.
I am concerned about a lack of spread. Perhaps the committee should push for greater spread, to ensure that other agencies are aware of what you are doing and take it up properly.
We will use the working group on human trafficking that we have set up as a platform for involving other agencies. At the moment, only police officers sit on the group, but we intend to invite partner agencies to it. That will progress initiatives of the type that we are discussing.
You referred specifically to education, which so far has seemed to be out of the equation. Education is not thought of as one of the first services to identify victims of trafficking, but there is no doubt that further education colleges and universities have people who are here under that banner. Is the issue being considered actively? We automatically think of the health service and voluntary organisations, but not the education service, as agencies that will identify people victims of trafficking.
Next week the UK human trafficking centre will launch “My Dangerous Loverboy”, which is a DVD relating to the grooming of children. A colleague from the interventions unit at SCDEA and I are going to that launch. Along with the UKHTC, we are going to bring the DVD back to Scotland, look at how we can roll it out in Scotland and use it in education. Things are being done.
That is encouraging. It is a huge area that has not yet been tapped into.
I invite the witnesses to comment on whether the hosting of the London 2012 Olympic games and the Commonwealth games in Glasgow in 2014 is likely to result in increased trafficking to Scotland and the UK. What evidence is there for that? We know from the answer to a parliamentary question from Diane Abbott in Westminster that no increase is suggested at the moment and that research does not show any link. Do you agree?
I can speak about the Commonwealth games. We have no information or indication that trafficking will increase as a result of the games. I have been working closely with the organisation—its name has just escaped me, although it might be McAlpine—that is doing a lot of the construction for the games. Strathclyde Police is taking the lead on that and has a lot of links with such organisations as well as with the Olympic games.
We also work closely with the Metropolitan Police and numerous other organisations, including NGOs and community workers in London who are assessing the very issue that Marlyn Glen identified. Structures are in place to assess the situation, including the formation of an intelligence cell in the Metropolitan Police to which we contribute whenever information or intelligence comes across our desks at the UK human trafficking centre. As you identified clearly, the Metropolitan Police takes an evidence-based approach. My latest understanding is that there is not a strong intelligence case at this stage in the Metropolitan Police to say that there will be an increase in trafficking because of the Olympics in 2012. That said, I know that the head of SCD9 in the Metropolitan Police certainly is not resting on his laurels in that respect and that an awful lot of work is going on. The issue is also a standing agenda item for the working groups that the UKHTC chairs. The groups are more representative of the UK and include Scotland because we have to recognise that the games are not just London-centric—there are different places all over the UK where there will be athletes’ camps and events. A lot of hard work is going on throughout the UK to understand that.
Thanks very much; that is reassuring.
I have a quick question on the same theme and it is probably directed at Sandra Jamieson. Have you had an opportunity to look at the potential impact of changes in UKBA staffing levels at Scottish ports and whether that will facilitate more trafficking or have no impact? As I understand it, there have been changes. Have you done any analysis of the impact of those changes?
I am aware that there have been some changes, but at this point, I have not done any analysis of them. I work closely with UKBA and I can monitor the situation, but at this moment, I have no information.
Would it be reasonable for me to assume that the changes might leave a loophole?
Possibly.
Thank you; that is fine.
The evidence that we have heard from you has been extremely worth while, and it is obvious that awareness raising is key. Does the UK human trafficking centre offer a helpline? It seems that all the work that we are hearing about is to do with training agencies and people on the front line who you think might be in contact with the victims. What about going direct to individuals? You could advertise the helpline number for the UK human trafficking centre, so that people could phone anonymously for advice as the first step in beginning to access their rights. Do you envisage doing anything like that?
There are some sensible ideas in there that we can review. The common ground is around the capacity and capability of a victim of crime to make themselves known to the authorities to get the support that they need and to be moved away from the horrendous situation that they are in, and the UKHTC has a vital role to play in that regard. However, more often than not, we find that victims are identified and rescued through local means, and it is important not to lose those local contacts.
I understand that there is a strength there, but there is also a weakness. Who should people phone? Should they phone Crimestoppers or one of the other organisations that you listed at length? Although having the trafficking unit within the intelligence unit of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency is such an encouraging move forward, it is also a problem to have an organisation within another organisation. We should keep things as simple as possible.
Certainly, and I do not dismiss it. However, if that route were taken, the UKHTC would be undertaking an additional responsibility for which we are neither funded nor resourced. There are many alternative opportunities. I have talked about the NSPCC. There is also the child exploitation and online protection centre. There are a lot of helplines out there.
Hopefully, earlier intervention saves in the long run.
Yes.
That completes our lines of questioning. Do the witnesses have anything to say in closing?
No.
No.
Thank you for attending committee. The session has been very worth while. I hope that it will play a little bit of a part in awareness raising, about which you spoke at length.