Staff Training
Home Office First Responder training is completed by Community Safety Officers and the Safeguarding Officer every year.
The CAMS modern slavery and human trafficking training will be delivered to staff across the organisation on an ongoing basis focusing on service areas where staff have an increased chance of encountering modern slavery.
The new packages for mandatory safeguarding training on Learning Pool continue to be developed, with additional training opportunities being identified for wider learning surrounding a variety of topics including modern slavery.
Safeguarding Training includes links to Modern Slavery resources such as GLAA videos on spotting the signs of modern slavery. We will review these throughout the year to ensure they remain up to date and add any new resources as they become available.
Awareness Raising
Internal and External Comms activities prepared for United Nation's World Day Against Trafficking– 30th July 2026, and Anti-Slavery Day – 18th October 2027. The Council supports ongoing awareness raising and education opportunities in the wider community via the CAMS partnership. An online conference is being organised by the CAMS partnership - this will be delivered as part of Anti-slavery week on the 12th October. Titled ‘Unseen Journeys: ending sexual exploitation from childhood to adulthood’, the online conference will focus on present risks relating to the sexual exploitation of older children and young adults within the UK and particularly Essex.
The Council registered with the Modern Slavery Statement Registry in 2020. We will submit the Transparency Statement for 2025 to this site.
Partnership Work
Priorities for CAMS were co-developed by participants towards a slavery-free community. These priorities continue to be investigated and developed by the multi-agency partnership providing opportunities for knowledge sharing and the development of resilience to modern slavery in Colchester. The following areas continue to be highlighted for further discussion and investigation:
‘Governance and Structure’, ‘Awareness Raising’, ‘Training’, ‘Survivor Care, Safeguarding and Referral Pathways’, ‘Data & intelligence gathering / sharing across partners’, and ‘Disruption’.
The CAMS Annual Partnership Plan for 2026 identifies four key objectives for 2026-27.
- Survivor Support and Care
- Funding and Sustainability
- Multi-agency approach to intelligence and disruption
- Partnership profile/awareness
Progress of Plan to be reviewed at each Steering Group meeting and fed into quarterly CAMS Partnership meetings.
Policies and Plans
Colchester City Council will continue to strengthen the reporting pathway for First Responders within the organisation especially for when supporting victims who have been identified outside of office hours. Further guidance will be developed and implemented for First Call Officers (FCOs) to support victims who are identified outside of office hours.
Supply Chain
The Procurement Team and Staff who commission goods/services should complete the designated E-learning Protecting Human Rights in the Supply Chain (Modern Slavery)’. New starters should complete their training upon joining the Council, and existing council officers should retrain every 3 years. Procurement continues to monitor and review their policies and procedures to further strengthen their anti-slavery commitment.
Charter against Modern Slavery
In July 2018 Colchester City Council agreed unanimously to adopt and apply the Co-operative Party’s Charter Against Modern Slavery (as far as is legally possible).
All Suppliers to the Council will be asked to confirm that they/their organisation has, and will, take action to address risks to human rights identified within itself and its supply chain. During tender processes, this action is to include the adoption of a whistleblowing policy that enables staff to blow the whistle on any suspected examples of modern slavery.