Dear Maya and Anna,
Modern slavery data
Thank you for your letter dated 14 June and sharing the new report published by After Exploitation titled ‘A can of worms: Challenges and opportunities in gathering modern slavery evidence’. Your letter and report highlighted concerns raised by practitioners regarding the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) Statistics and the wider state of modern slavery data.
We are grateful for you taking the time to meet with us to discuss the findings of this report. In the interests of transparency, we have set out the steps we have taken in response to your concerns.
Statisticians in the Home Office are working to address and enhance the quality and value points raised in our compliance check of the NRM and Duty to Notify statistics and we will continue to support them to do this. To inform this work, we have shared your report and highlighted the feedback about what practitioners want from the NRM statistics. We have also passed on your contact details so that you are included in their wider user engagement aimed at improving the value of the NRM statistics.
We recognise that you have previously raised concerns about the Home Office’s use and release of data and statistics on modern slavery. We have encouraged statisticians in the Home Office to engage closely with policy and communications colleagues to ensure that public statements are clear on whether they are sourced from official statistics or other forms of evidence.
We will continue to monitor the use of NRM statistics in public discourse and will be willing to intervene where the statistics have been used in a way that undermines confidence in the official statistics.
Yours sincerely,
Ed Humpherson
Related link:
December 2022 – Ed Humpherson to Maya Esslemont and Anna Powell-Smith: Modern slavery data