“Think Laterally to Halt Care Sector Exploitation”

Dame Sara Thornton, Consultant on Modern Slavery at CCLA IM and former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, says investors can help to protect workers.

Over the last year there has been growing evidence of exploitation in the UK care sector. Unscrupulous opportunists here and overseas have exploited the desire of workers to obtain social care visas and have either abandoned them in the UK or subjected them to awful working conditions…

… It would be easy to be very pessimistic. Investors will usually focus their stewardship efforts on listed companies but there are no listed care companies in the UK. The market is extremely fragmented with many small businesses providing residential care, domiciliary care and specialist care.

Investors need to think laterally about their influence. Some care providers are funded through private equity – have investors in turn funded that private equity? Some care homes are owned by real estate investment trusts – these may well make up part of an alternatives portfolio. And do investors hold equity in labour agencies which provide staff?

Many international investors have also supported the UNI Global Union’s statement to raise overall standards in the care sector – staffing levels, health and safety, wages, freedom of association and quality of care…