What’s the reality of your local hand carwash? Would you be surprised if it was exploiting its workers, discharging effluent illegally or not paying business rates? Statistically, at least one or all of these could be happening at an estimated 5,000-plus sites across the UK.
Visiting these sites, you are often presented with workers dressed in tracksuit bottoms and hoodies regardless of the weather, with the (infrequent) wearing of wellies being the only concession to PPE. Closer inspection will probably show filthy toilets and cold, chaotic “rest areas’’ that workers share with chemicals and other detritus.
In some cases, there are also indicators that workers are living on site. Hand carwashes are found at a variety of locations including retail sites, pub car parks, petrol stations, disused plots of land and, in a recent case, a front garden in a residential property. Structural conditions vary, but they are often visibly run down and unsafe.
Other issues include noncompliance such as lack of planning permission, non-payment of business rates, no insurance (employers’ or public), health and safety risks, illegal discharge of trade effluent and noncompliance with trading standards.
The evidence is extensive and provides a compelling argument for meaningful change and raising standards. Why, then, does the sector continue to rank as one of the most problematic in terms of labour exploitation and other forms of criminality?
The answer to this question lies in the fact that there is little fear of oversight or sanction. Our research at the Responsible Car Wash Scheme (RCWS), conducted with Nottingham Trent University’s Work, Informalisation and Place research centre with input from local police, councils and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), confirms this. Operating in plain sight, the rule-breaking has been ignored, tolerated and embedded, and has now become commonplace.
Concerns over worker welfare take precedence when it comes to site visits by enforcement agencies such as the police and the GLAA, and rightly so. New and irregular migrants in the UK are attracted to hand carwashes as they can often start work immediately with no employment checks. This makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The current economic downturn will probably intensify this risk as more people may be willing to accept exploitative practices to secure work. Enforcement visits will not necessarily take into account wider elements of the business operation, missing the opportunity to look at other aspects of non-compliance.
Noncompliance for other issues such as non-payment of business rates or lack of planning permission are implicitly tolerated, with a lack of available resources and other higher priorities frequently quoted as the reasons why agencies do not routinely visit sites. Sanctions against identified noncompliance can also require extensive intelligence gathering over a protracted period.
The RCWS has trialled many different interventions to encourage hand carwashes to engage with the scheme, but with limited success. The RCWS voluntary scheme will close at the end of the month after five years, with only a handful of hand carwashes having achieved accreditation. The body of evidence compiled by ourselves and other parties on poor business practices is a damning indictment of the sector. With no government support for licensing it is hard to see how standards will improve in the future.
The government should implement mandatory licensing of hand carwashes. A licensing scheme means that hand carwashes will need to provide evidence that they have planning permission, that they hold insurance, they have a trade effluent permit, pay business rates, that they comply with health, safety and environmental regulations and that they uphold statutory employment rights. With the burden of proof transferred to the operator, if they can’t provide the evidence they can’t open for business. Too much to ask for? I don’t think so. It’s what all businesses are required to do.
Teresa Sayers is managing director of the Responsible Car Wash Scheme
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