Care Outlook is committed to preventing modern slavery in all of its activities, including those of any agency with which it engages.
Care Outlook provides home care, extra care and reablement services to a wide range of vulnerable adults in the UK, including older people, people with health and mobility issues, people with mental health issues, learning disabilities and physical and sensory disabilities.
Most of our services are delivered through local authority contracts, although we also support people who fund their own support.
As a responsible employer, currently employing in excess of 1,000 people, Care Outlook recognises that modern slavery is a serious issue with grave consequences for those affected.
We seek to address the problem through our robust, recruitment checks, including proof-of-identity, right-to-work, references and employment history checks.
However, we are never complacent and recognise that there is always some risk.
We recognise that the risk has increased in 2022 and 2023 as an increasing number of our employees are recruited from overseas through the Government Visa Scheme. We are aware that this constitutes an increased risk of exploitation of migrant workers.
This year, we have introduced a comprehensive tracking system for all overseas recruits to ensure visa approval, passport checks, proof-of-identity, right-to-work and visual checks of original documentation have been carried out.
Although, we minimise the use of UK-based agency workers, we do access agency staff as a contingency, and this reliance on recruitment agencies presents a further risk.
We counter this by ensuring that every agency we engage undergoes thorough due diligence checks, including confirmation that the organisation is compliant with the Modern Slavery Act and that the robust recruitment and checks we carry out for our own staff are undertaken by an agency we engage.
We also regularly update our supporting polices, including our Recruitment Policy, Safeguarding Policy, Whistleblowing Policy and Modern Slavery Policy and Procedure.
Review Date: January 2024
