There are a growing number of concerns that the government’s seasonal worker visa is becoming increasingly vulnerable to abuse by criminals, which leads to labour exploitation across the supply chain.

“There is infiltration into recruitment at various levels by third parties who are not involved [in the process] at all,” said David Camp, CEO of the Association of Labour Providers. “They have no connection to any recruiter, but they advertise as if they do, and they take money from individuals.”

Camp added that these third parties typically offered training courses and help with job application admin for a fee. However, such services were “complete shams where they don’t do anything, they just take the money”, he claimed.

Kate Roberts, head of policy at research organisation Focus on Labour Exploitation, said “We had been concerned there are risks of exploitation in the scheme generally but also, with the expansion of the scheme, [there had been] an increase in people being charged illegal recruitment fees”

The UK has previously recruited the majority of seasonal labour workers from Ukraine, but due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, recruitment companies gave had to rapidly expand into new markets in Asia.

Roberts also added that “the UK’s labour enforcement agencies are not resourced to cover this significant expansion. Previously, when the scheme was operating from fewer countries, it was more feasible for them to put agreements in place”,

A recent investigation by The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that some workers were paying thousands of pounds extra to overseas agents to secure UK seasonal worker visas.

There is now work being done to improve the conditions for seasonal workers. With supermarkets, scheme operators, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the ALP (among others) launching the Just Good Work app, it provides advice and guidance for workers in their native language In a bid to increase transparency in the recruitment and employment process.