Written evidence submitted by Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Hand car washes inquiry – written evidence submitted by the GLAA
1 The GLAA has been asked to provide evidence to the Environment Audit Committee hand car wash inquiry. The Committee specifically called for evidence in relation to environmental impacts and sustainable employment practices.
2 The GLAA is the foremost agency with responsibility for the investigation of labour market breaches. Since May 2017 its operational remit has enabled it to examine labour market offences[1], and allegations of forced labour across all industries including car washes, with additional police powers[2].
3 The GLAA’s response focuses primarily on employment related aspects, and labour market enforcement, including modern slavery within the labour market. In providing this response we are also conscious of the recommendations in the recently published strategy from the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, that the GLAA should operate a pilot to test licensing of hand car washes. Our prevention activity addresses this point particularly. Key points are:
4 Our response is set out as follows:
Our knowledge
5 The GLAA recently published its annual assessment of the extent and nature of labour market exploitation and modern slavery. This provides our existing evidence base. In the report’s key judgements it says:
“Outside of the regulated sectors, worker exploitation is most frequently reported within car washes.”, and
“The GLAA Intelligence picture suggests Modern slavery and human trafficking (MSHT) occurs across all sectors, but most notably reported in the car wash sector, with increasing reports in the construction and food service industries.”
6 The GLAA assessment provides a profile of the workers that are typical of those found in exploitative situations, which is considered to apply equally within the car wash industry:
“The GLAA intelligence picture suggests victims of modern slavery for labour exploitation are more likely to be male, of Romanian nationality and between the ages of 18-25 years of age. Potential exploiters are more likely to be male, Romanian and between the ages of 26 and 45 years of age. There is a relatively small increase in the number of Albanian exploiters reported, particularly within the car wash sector.” |
7 The Modern Slavery Helpline annual assessment 2017 (page 51) reports that it received 194 calls to the helpline concerning treatment of workers at car washes, representing 27% of all calls it receives, and being the highest work sector recorded. Furthermore, that this position was reflected equally across all 4 countries of the UK. The Helpline concludes that the high volume of car wash referrals “… is likely to coincide with the public awareness of modern slavery highlighting potential exploitation in car washes”.
8 The GLAA has received approximately 297 referrals from the Modern Slavery Helpline (MSHL) during YTD 1st May 2018), of those 80 (27%) of the helpline’s referrals were linked to the car wash sector.
9 The breakdown of all referrals the GLAA has received concerning car wash operations is in Table 1.
Table 1 Referrals regarding Car Wash sector YRD 1st May 2018
Source | % (approx.) |
MSHL | 44.6 |
Partner Agency (including Police, HMRC, IE) | 26.2 |
Crimestoppers | 12.2 |
3rd party | 7.8 |
Potential Victim | 2.7 |
Industry | 2.2 |
10 Overall, the GLAA has received 178 referrals from all sources relating to the car wash sector YTD 1st May 2018.
11 A significant number of referrals come from members of the public (directly or more often through MSHL or Crimestoppers) who may witness what they consider indicators of modern slavery. The public’s awareness of such issues has been raised by a number of articles in the media. The car wash sector is widespread and visible and therefore potential issues are more likely to be spotted and reported by the public than, for example, exploitation of workers employed in the kitchen of a takeaway.
12 The nature of issues within those referrals is set out in Table 2.
Table 2 Car Wash Allegations- 12 months to 1ST May 2018
Allegation | Detail | %* |
No PPE | Mainly from the public reporting workers wearing jeans and t-shirts (particularly in cold weather). No high-vis, boots, gloves or face masks also mentioned. | 26% |
Vague information | Mainly from the public reporting workers who appear unhappy, dejected, not talking to one another or engaging with customers. | 23% |
National Minimum Wage | Information from the public stating workers not being paid NMW, as, for example, there are 4-5 washing one car for £3. Also, some reports from workers and partner agencies with regards to what they are paid. | 13% |
Withheld Wages | Not being paid on time or receiving holiday pay etc. | 6% |
PAYE and Tax |
| 4% |
Physical & mental mistreatment | Includes shouting at workers, threats to family. | 3% |
Sleeping on site | Includes duvets spotted in offices. | 3% |
Substandard accommodation | Includes possible overcrowded houses | 2% |
Excessive working hours | Includes allegations of working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, little or no breaks | 2% |
No contract |
| 1% |
Environmental concerns | Public reporting water not going down the drains and soap being poured into the street. | 1% |
No breaks |
| 1% |
Withheld ID Docs |
| 1% |
Control of movement |
| 1% |
Debt bondage |
| 1% |
No payslips |
| 1% |
Other |
| 11% |
* Approximations due to the way data is recorded.
13 Information received is triaged to identify cases of greatest risk, and relevance to the GLAA’s remit. Often these referrals can be rather vague and relate to workers appearing unhappy and/or not engaging in conversation with customers. Therefore, to date 62% of car wash referrals (from all sources) are recorded as “intelligence only/no further action”. Referrals may also relate to issues concerning partner agencies, predominantly NMW, within this sector. 10.6% were referred to partner agencies, of which 7% went to NMW. Others related to police led investigations into wider criminality.
Our Investigations
14 Approximately 20% of referrals received progressed to investigation, or linked to an existing investigation. Over half of all referrals that lead to an investigation came from partner agencies. However, the information received led to 34 GLAA led investigations.
15 Twenty-five investigations into car washes commenced and concluded after the GLAA’s wider remit and powers became operational, between 01/04/2017–14/05/2018, for the reasons set out in Table 3:
Table 3 Investigation closure reasons
No offences disclosed | 10 |
Non GLA Offences Referred to other agency for Investigation | 9 |
Intelligence only | 2 |
No action – Insufficient evidence | 1 |
No GLA value | 1 |
Tasking not progressed – Closed No action | 1 |
Not Progressed Insufficient Resources | 1 |
Whilst investigations are closed as above the case study below illustrates the nature of more serious cases currently investigated.
Case study Joint investigation with Durham Police, led by GLAA into exploitation of Romanian and Latvian workers by Albanian car wash owners.
Allegations – deductions from wages to recover a £300 deposit, at £50/week; victims were told they were self-employed; no payslips or contract of employment provided; only hi-vs jacket for Health and safety. One victim left without notice and was told his deposit was forfeit. He returned to work for the company, and was required to pay another £300 deposit. Victims also reported threats of violence. All workers had been instructed to say they worked 40 hours/week. Despite being told they would receive the rate of £7.05 there was an understanding they would only be paid if “sufficient work was carried out”.
Search warrants were executed, two Albanian suspects arrested, and are currently on bail, and three workers have entered the National Referral Mechanism for formal assessment as victims. |
16 Ongoing investigations where serious offences have been uncovered have resulted in submission of three cases to CPS to consider prosecution. In another case jointly investigated with Derbyshire police 5 individuals are awaiting court hearings.
17 The completed investigations took 1384 working days to reach appropriate investigation outcomes (an average of 55.36 days per completed investigation). These investigations represent a resource cost of £286,685 (£11467/investigation). Recognising that criminal investigations are resource intensive, that serious allegations are increasing, as well as referrals for other labour market breaches, requires the GLAA to also invest in a Prevention approach, to ensure investigation resources are available and focused on modern slavery offences.
Our Prevention activity
18 The GLAA is engaged with a number of stakeholders with concerns regarding the operation of hand car washes. Some of those interests are focused on protecting workers; others from an environmental stance. The GLAA’s engagement seeks to coordinate and ensure activities are complimentary.
Table 4 Key stakeholders
Supermarkets | who allow hand car washes on forecourts, and an integral partner in current prevention proposals |
Petrol Retail Association | Their members also have forecourt hand car wash operations |
Church of England | The Clewer initiative of the Church of England is currently developing an “app” which may assist in mapping car wash locations |
Academia | The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner (IASC) has commissioned research by Nottingham University to examine car wash activity. Nottingham Trent University has also been engaged in examination of the hand car wash business model. The GLAA has established links with the academics at both institutions and is working with them to establish how its activity, and their research can be mutually complimentary |
19 The GLAA’s widened remit has enabled it to consider operational activity concerning allegations of exploitation at hand car washes. However, estimates of the volumes of hand car washes range between 10-20000. The GLAA recognises that though its resources have doubled focus on hand car washes could, itself, potentially utilise all of those resources. Consequently it is necessary to consider a preventative, and education campaign, to segment the market, driving up compliance where other levers could be employed effectively to create a pressure for compliance, whilst enabling operational resources to be available for the high priority allegations of exploitation.
20 The GLAA therefore sought, and obtained, data on locations and activity of hand car washes on the forecourts of supermarkets to commence engagement with supermarkets to develop a prevention and education approach. The GLAA considered the pivotal role supermarkets can play to drive up compliance. This has led to the development of an approach with the supermarkets to create a code of practice, coupled with a regime to test compliance, with the potential for sanctions if a car wash does not meet the standards of the code.
21 The core group of stakeholders in the development of the code are the supermarkets, the Downstream Fuel association (which represents supermarkets), and Waves (a company that franchises hand car washes on Tesco sites). The Code covers legal standards to assess whether workers are exploited, including health and safety and pay issues, as well as environmental and insurance requirements. This holistic approach to hand car washes is designed to test levels of compliance. Where an audit is undertaken against the Code, and identifies significant failures, or continuing lower level failures, it is proposed that this could result in the removal of a hand car wash from a supermarket forecourt. It will also enable the GLAA to be involved in consensual inspections of car washes, separately from criminal investigation. Such inspections may equate to a cost of £517/inspection lasting 2.5 days.
22 This approach will be tested in the three regional areas, which may be expanded, s as a pilot area. Engagement with the Petrol Retail Association has been encouraging with the promise of their data to assist in expanding the pilot to include other petrol retail outlets where hand car washes operate from. Further phased expansion would be considered to include other sites, including recognised gym chains, where hand car washes are also active.
23 The Clewer initiative’s development of an “app” that will record the location of a hand car wash visited, will assist nationwide mapping of locations of hand car washes. This will further assist raising awareness, targeting of potential rogue operators, and application of the code of practice.
The EU position
24 The GLAA works closely with its EU counterparts to tackle labour exploitation, and has sought information from those contacts to assist the Committee with information on the existence of hand car washes in other European economies.
Table 5 EU partner responses
Country | Response (including nationalities where known) |
Belgium | Most hand car washes operate from disused garages, warehouses disused petrol stations or empty parts of an existing petrol station. Most hand car washes are located along a major road. Most are single site operations. 351 localized hand car washes belong to 304 companies. Identified infringements: not declaring employment, illegal employment of foreign workers, or as self-employed persons, labour exploitation and no insurance against accidents at work. Afghan, Pakistan or Indian employees are often dependant on the employer for accommodation. The employer provides a place to sleep and live, either at the workplace itself or in another building nearby the workplace. The accommodation is often in a very poor condition (no water, no or bad electricity) Such accommodation can be declared uninhabitable following investigation. When the employees live in the building of the hand car wash, they are always available to work. As a result they work (too) many hours, often without being paid for it. In 2014, the city of Antwerp drew up a police regulation on hand carwashes. In particular conditions are imposed for establishing a hand car wash in a residential area (e.g. at least 500 meters between different locations) |
Croatia | Hand car washes are as equally found as jet washes/ mechanical car washes. Croatian citizens are used. Accommodation is not provided. The nature of labour breaches is the same type and level as in other industries inspected. |
Czech Republic | Commonly, people wash their cars at home, or use the automatic car washes. The car washes are predominantly of the manual unattended variety with no employees present or doing the washing. In two inspections a Ukrainian and a Ugandan were identified. No further information exists regarding hand car washes. |
Finland | The number of hand car washes has been rapidly increasing in the largest cities in Finland during the last three years. The owners are usually migrant people who have residence permits in Finland and they own one or two car washes. The employees are mostly asylum seekers from Iran and Iraq (Kurds) in our area. Exploitation has not been identified in 20 inspections by the labour inspectorate. |
Germany | Hand car washes have not been identified as a problem in Germany. In general washing of vehicles on private land is only permitted if the resulting wastewater does not enter the sewage system or an open adjacent water body, but seeps off on the property itself. Chemical cleaning agents are prohibited, and vehicle washing in water protection areas is generally prohibited. |
Lithuania | This is not an identified issue, but recognising the issue in other EU countries the Lithuanian authorities commencing work to establish whether there is any evidence of a growing industry. |
Netherlands | In the Netherlands hand car washes is a phenomenon that hardly exists. Our criminal investigation department had one criminal investigation concerning hand car washes. Local town halls are extremely active in the application of environmental legislation. We expect the waste water problem of hand car washes is serious enough to act for a local town hall. |
Poland | There are few hand car washes operating in Poland, because drivers more often use car washes owned by oil and gas companies (Automatic, self-service car washes are also quite popular). We have not noticed a significant increase in the number of hand car washes, employing individual workers. Such car washes may be established in response to the slowly rising number of purchased expensive/luxury cars, and expanding road networks. We have noticed an increase in the number of employed foreigners in other economic sectors (e.g. Ukrainian). |
Portugal | It has increased moderately. The price for such service is higher compared with the mechanical car washes so the demand hasn’t increased. There are no legal barriers. Breaches often relate to health and safety and employment contracts. |
Republic of Ireland | Hand car washes are an increasing phenomenon but still a minor element in the overall sector, they operate from all sites but there is a correlation between the condition and location of the site and the degree of risk of non-compliance. They appear to be both independent operators and sites connected to particular persons (but with claimed different owners). Mostly operated by Romanian nationals and workers, with other Eastern European nationals working in them to lesser extent. A number have been prosecuted for law breaches. Investigations are being carried out in relation to forced labour legislation. Anecdotally some owners provide accommodation and transport to workers. Workers are transported between different sites during the week |
Slovenia | Car washes are supervised in the same way as all other companies in Slovenia. In Slovenia, car washes are mainly on petrol stations and mechanical workshops and services. There are also car washes where customers clean their cars personally. In the period from 2012 to August 2014, fewer cases of undeclared work were found. In the period from 2012 to 2018 we inspected approximately 48 companies involved in car washing. The violations found were mainly related to the payment of wages, annual holiday leave, violations of working hours and to violations in the field of occupational health and safety (for example: workers do not have adequate work clothes, no medical examinations, no proper training for safe work). |
Spain | No investigations have been conducted by the Guadia Civil. The hand car washes are not popular, because they are expensive. Also they are heavily regulated by local/municipal ordinance, because of environmental reasons (the use and disposal of the water). In almost all the cities or towns in Spain, it is completely forbidden to hand wash your own car in the street, and the local police would fine anyone who washes a car outside an appropriate facility. Workers are frequently South American. |
Sweden | The Swedish authorities believe that it is a growing market and the border police have cases where the employees do not have a work permit |
Switzerland | No hand car washes; strict regulation |
25 The GLAA will be happy to answer any questions in relation to this submission if the Committee would find that helpful.
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[1] See Section 3(3) of the Immigration Act 2016
[2] See Section 12 of the Immigration Act 2016