News: Our work on modern slavery leads to intervention from UK statistics watchdog

The Home Office has been reprimanded by the UK statistics watchdog over its claim that the modern slavery system is “gamed”, following concerns we raised.

In October, we wrote a complaint in collaboration with our friends at After Exploitation, which was signed by more than 20 other researchers and organisations in the modern slavery sector.

The complaint raised concerns about potentially misleading use of data, lack of transparency in Parliament, and data gaps across the modern slavery sector.

We’re pleased to say that the Office for Statistics Regulation has this week agreed with the concerns we raised, and written a formal letter to the Home Office - good news for those of us who care about high-quality public data.

Misleading use of statistics

In early October, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, told Conservative Party Conference that “modern slavery laws are being abused by people gaming the system - we’ve seen a 450% increase in modern slavery claims since 2014”.

But the Office for Statistics Regulation agreed that these figures did not support the claims of abuse - particularly since the proportion of claims deemed by the Home Office itself to be genuine has risen from six in ten in 2016 to nine in ten in 2021. 

The OSR flagged that Home Office officials could not provide any specific evidence for its claims of “gaming”. Instead, it said that rising claims were more likely to indicate growing awareness among organisations like the police. 

The regulator asked the Home Office to clarify its sources in future, to “avoid the risk of misleading people”.

Lack of transparency in Parliament

Our complaint also raised concerns about occasions when the Home Office told MPs that it did not collect data on modern slavery, but it was later shown to hold this data.

For example, we highlighted an occasion in April 2019 where an MP asked how many known modern slavery victims were subsequently removed from the UK under immigration rules, and was told the Home Office did not collate this data.

However, just one month later, the Home Office supplied the same data in response to a Freedom of Information request.

In its response to us, the OSR agreed that "the Home Office could have been more transparent" about why it did not disclose data to Parliament - strong words for a regulator.

Data gaps

And finally, our complaint highlighted concerns about data gaps in the sector, which affect organisations working to support modern slavery victims. Gaps include data on how well victims and survivors can access support.

In response, the OSR has asked Home Office statistics producers to work to close these gaps.

Our response

We’re extremely pleased to see this robust response by the OSR, and we hope the Home Office will now take steps to improve its processes.

Maya Esslemont, director of After Exploitation, said, “We welcome work by the Office of National Statistics’ Regulator, Ed Humpherson, investigating the sector’s concerns around the misuse of modern slavery data. This will act as some modest form of vindication for survivors of modern slavery.”

And Anna Powell-Smith, our director, said “We’re pleased to see the Office for Statistics Regulation shares the sector’s concerns about data quality and the use of statistics. We hope the Home Office will now work with anti-slavery organisations to improve the quality of its data, to strengthen the system and support victims.”

We now hope to do more work with the sector to improve the data available. If you’d like to talk to us about any of the issues here, please get in touch.