1. First Responder Organisations (including the police, local authorities and certain non-governmental organisations) have a responsibility to identify potential victims of modern slavery and refer them into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM is the UK’s framework for identifying potential victims and connecting them with appropriate support. 

2. In October 2017, a package of reforms to the NRM were announced, which in April 2019 led to the transfer of NRM decision-making from competent authorities within the National Crime Agency and UK Visas & Immigration into the Single Competent Authority within the Home Office. Additionally, a new digital system has been built to help support the NRM process and to make it easier for first responders to refer victims for support. Further information on NRM reforms. 

3. Since April 2019, the responsibility for publishing quarterly and annual statistical publications on the NRM lies with the Home Office. Previous NRM statistical bulletins were published by the National Crime Agency and can be found on the NCA website. 

4. The next NRM statistical bulletins will be released on 2 April 2020. These will present NRM statistics from quarter 4, as well as an End of Year summary of 2019 NRM statistics. 

5. We have already implemented some changes to the format and content of the NRM statistical releases, aiming to improve the readability of the bulletin and usefulness of the data provided within the data tables. For example, we have moved data tables from the PDF bulletins and introduced new visual representations of the data. 

6. We are now looking to gather views and opinions from stakeholders and users of the NRM statistics as to how we can make the NRM statistical bulletins as useful as possible. We are particularly interested in which NRM data you find most useful, whether the current breakdowns are sufficient for your needs and what changes you would like to see to future bulletins. 

7. We ask users to note that following the move of the NRM dataset to a digital system with improved recording practices, some changes to data recording have occurred from 1 October 2019. These changes include a new criminal exploitation type category (previously categorised under labour exploitation), the recording of dual-nationalities and the introduction of an unknown age at exploitation category. 

Response requested 

8. We are asking interested parties to provide feedback on the statistics by following the link below to a SmartSurvey. 

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/8I5RWM/ 

9. If you have any other comments, please direct them to [email protected] 

Timetable 

10. The survey will be open until the 1st of May 2020. 

11. We aim to publish a summary of the comments made, alongside our responses in the quarter 1 2020 NRM statistical bulletin.