Home Office Report on the National Referral Mechanism 2025

Sophie Blanchard is the Violence Prevention Partnership's Project and Impact Manager. For the last three years, she has summarised the Home Office Report on the National Referral Mechanism, and today, she provides a follow-up analysis for 2024.  

New statistics have been released, summarising information on people who have been identified as potential victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2024. The statistical bulletin provides a breakdown of the number of potential victims that were referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) or via the Duty to Notify process. It breaks down the data in several ways, including via the victims’ nationalities, gender, type of exploitation they experienced, and whether they were adults or children (under 18) at the time of exploitation.

The term ‘potential victims’ denote that these are the figures relating to individuals referred into the NRM, or via the Duty to Notify process. These figures are likely to be significantly lower once individuals have been through the NRM’s two-tier-decision-making process to determine that, on the balance of probabilities, a competent authority believes them to meet the definition of being victims of modern slavery.

The NRM, which was established in 2009, is the framework used in the UK to identify and support potential victims of modern slavery who have been identified by a set list of First Responders¹. The Duty to Notify process collects data on adults who do not consent to be referred to the NRM (children are not required to give consent). Combined, these figures give an estimate of the picture of modern slavery in the UK.

How many people have been identified?

In 2024, 19,125 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK were referred to the Home Office, which is a 13% increase to the 17,004 potential victims who were referred into the NRM in 2023. The number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK shows a pattern of yearly increases as illustrated in the table below (apart from a slight decrease in 2020, commonly noted to be a result of the national lockdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic).

The number of referrals received in 2024 has been the highest since the NRM began in 2009. However, the increase in referrals does not necessarily correlate with there being more victims but could indicate that First Responders are improving at identifying potential victims. Reports via the Duty to Notify process alone have increased from 4,929 reports in 2023 to 5,598 reports of potential victims in 2024, which indicates a better awareness of this system amongst professionals.

Are the victims adults or children?

Of the potential victims identified in 2024, 26 (1%) were of unknown age, 13,100 (68%) were adults which shows an increase from the previous 65% in 2023, and 5,999 (31%) were children (minors under the age of 18), which shows a decrease from the 35% in the previous year.

In October 2019, criminal exploitation was set as a separate category of exploitation (instead of being counted within labour exploitation), which made it easier to identify the different types of exploitation to which potential victims were being subjected. Following this change, referrals indicated that labour exploitation was the most common form of exploitation suffered by adults, while minors (under 18) were more likely to be victims of criminal exploitation. The statistics from 2024, continue this trend, with these still being the most common forms of exploitation for adult and child victims of modern slavery, respectively. In 2024, labour exploitation was the most reported form of exploitation amongst adult potential victims with 5,360 examples (41%), whereas child potential victims were most often referred for criminal exploitation with 2,891 examples (48%)^2.

What is the gender of the victims?

Of those 19,125 identified in 2024, 14,157 (74%) were male and 4,937 (26%) were female. This is the highest annual number of potential female victims since the NRM began. The remaining 31 are categorised under ‘not specified or unknown’ or ‘other’. Male referrals had been gradually increasing each year since the NRM began but have fallen slightly between 2022 and 2024. In 2024, 72% of adult potential victims (9,459) and 78% of child potential victims (4,677) were male, whilst 28% of adult potential victims (3,626) and 22% of child potential victims (1,306) were female. The majority of female potential victims, both adults and children, were victims of sexual exploitation.

What are the nationalities of the victim?

The most common nationality of potential victims identified in the UK in 2024, were UK, Albanian and Vietnamese respectively. UK nationals accounted for 4,441 (23%) of potential victims; a 2% decrease since 2023. In 2024, Albanian nationals accounted for 2,492 (13%) of potential victims referred into the NRM which marks a large decrease from the previous years, where Albanian nationals accounted for 24% of 2023’s victims and 27% of 2022’s victims. Vietnamese nationals made up 2,153 (11%) of potential victims in 2024. The number of referrals for Vietnamese nationals is the highest in a year for this nationality since the NRM began.

What types of exploitation have the victims experienced?

The data tables which provide a breakdown of information on referrals also include a summary of the types of exploitation of those suffered by those identified as potential victims. The include criminal exploitation, labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and organ harvesting. The data summarises the number of referrals for each category of exploitation, including where multiple forms of exploitation were experienced (please see above for more detail on the differences in exploitation type by adults/children).

Looking at cases where only one form of exploitation was experienced, the most common form of exploitation identified in 2024 was labour exploitation, with 6,153 referrals. In 2023, however, criminal exploitation was the most common form of exploitation identified. In 2024, criminal exploitation made up 4,548 of the referrals, and sexual exploitation made up 1,898 of the referrals made. However, a large number of referrals, 2,166 cases, were referred under ‘not specified or unknown’ exploitation, which raises concerns over the level of detail provided within the referral forms.

Where did the exploitation take place?

In 2024, 43% (8,268) of the potential victims claimed that they were exploited in the UK only, which has decreased in comparison to the 49% in the previous year. 44% (8,372) claimed they were exploited overseas which has increased from the 36% in 2023. This was the first year that overseas exploitation has overtaken the number of potential victims claiming exploitation exclusively in the UK.

The decision-making process

Of those 19,125 identified in 2024, 77% of those potential victims (14,790) were sent to the Single Competent Authority (SCA) for consideration of their case and 23% (4,335) were sent to the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (IECA).

In 2024, 20,090 reasonable grounds (RG) and 17,304 conclusive grounds (CG) decisions were made. 53% of RG and 56% of CG decisions were positive. There is a represented increase of 78% compared to 2023, of the number of CG decisions being made.

For the 9,501 negative reasonable grounds decisions issued this year, the most common reason for issuing negative decisions was that the referral had insufficient information to meet the standard of proof required (52%; 4,954). The second most common reason was that the referral did not meet the definition of modern slavery (41%; 3,934) and the third was that the referral was not credible (5%; 528).

The backlog of CG decisions is increasing every year which is causing potential victims to be in a state of limbo whilst they await their decision. The average (median) time potential victims have had to wait for a CG decision (across both competent authorities) is 637 days.

In October 2024, the Minister for Safeguarding, Jess Phillips, has pledged that tackling modern slavery is one of her top priorities and to eradicate the back log of CG decisions within 2 years. To do this, 200 additional Home Office staff have been hired, starting their roles in early 2025, to process cases to deplete the number of potential victims from waiting for their decision.

If you have any questions, contact Sophie Blanchard. 

Find out more about how the NRM works . 

¹ First Responders are a list of professionals identified by the Home Office who have the responsibility of referring potential victims into the NRM. 

² In 2023, the figure for adult labour exploitation was 2,902 (34%), and the figure for child criminal exploitation was 3,123 (42%).  

³ Read the news story here Modern slavery victims to be supported in fresh measures - GOV.UK