‘Complaints’ in the agriculture and horticulture sectors

Freedom of Information Act Request

Ref: FOI 21-22 35

Date issued: 7 March 2022

Subject: ‘Complaints’ in the agriculture and horticulture sectors

Question(s):

1)    The total number of complaints (including referrals, reports, emails and phone calls) you have received related to the agriculture and horticulture sectors since 2017 to date, broken down per year. 

2)    If possible, for each year since 2019, can you also provide the number of complaints in the agriculture and horticulture sectors that were related to the seasonal worker visa scheme. 

3)    If possible, for each year, can you also break down the complaints by the types of potential breaches of licensing standards (for example accommodation, pay, working conditions, etc) and/or possible criminal offences they were related to. 

4)    If possible, for each year can you also break down the number of complaints by the local authority where the workplace the complaint is related to is located. If the data is not available per local authority, please provide it per county. If it is unavailable per county, please provide it per region. If it is not available per local authority, county or region please provide it by whichever geographical breakdown is most appropriate or available.

5)    If possible, for 2021, could you also provide a breakdown per type of breach/offence for each specific local authority, county or region. 

Response:

1)    The GLAA does not record ’complaints’, what we do record are ‘general issues’. Therefore, what we can tell you are the number of general issues we have received where a person has made an allegation in the agriculture and horticulture sector. Please find this broken down by year from 2017-2021 below:

2)    The GLAA does not specially record allegations made against SAWS scheme. Therefore, the GLAA does not hold information of the type you have requested. You may wish to submit an FOI request to the Home Office for this information. You can contact them at foirequests@homeoffice.gov.uk.

3)    Please find the general issues we have received linked to an allegation in the agriculture and horticulture sector broken down by the type of allegation. We have provided the top ten most common allegation for each year below.

4)    Please find below general issues we have received where a person has made an allegation in the agriculture and horticulture sector broken down by our syndicate areas. Please note the first full year this data was recorded was 2019. Therefore, we can only provide data for the last three years.

5)    Please find the general issues we received in 2021 linked to an allegation in the agriculture and horticulture sector broken down by the type of allegation cross referenced by our syndicate areas. We have provided the most common type of allegation.