A request was made for documents regarding the recruitment of migrant workers at the Isle of Man Meat Plant since January 2024, resulting in a partial disclosure where some information was sent but parts were exempt.
Key Facts
The Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) responded to the request on 2025-07-03.
The response included 115 pages across 2 documents.
Correspondence reveals plans to deploy two 'VetTrack' Meat Hygiene Inspectors (MHIs) from mid-February.
The recruitment model involves veterinarians working as MHIs for up to 12 months before migrating to Official Veterinarian (OV) roles.
The blanket Temporary Registration facility for routine veterinary recruitment was not utilized from January 2025.
Data Disclosed
01.01.24
2025-07-03
2025-05-06
115 pages
2 documents
18 December 2024
17 December 2024
04 December 2024
mid-February
12 months
2 VetTrack MHIs
Original Request
Please provide the following:
All minutes pertaining to recruitment of migrant, immigrant, non-native, non-EU workers or any noun or variation of the aforementioned descriptors (names redacted of course) since 01.01.24.
All memos, notes, emails and associated correspondence pertaining to recruitment of migrant, immigrant, non-native, non-EU workers or any noun or variation of the aforementioned descriptors (names redacted of course) since 01.01.24. Please treat this and the first request for minutes as separate items.
The number of workers hired under immigration criteria and the countries of origin of same (please provide a total for each nationality).
The number of workers hired that were pending British citizenship at the point of recruitment.
All documents pertaining to how these workers were sourced by DEFA/Meat Plant.
Any relevant policy or guidance on hiring or used to assess applications for such roles within the food processing or meat industry in the Isle of Man.
Data Tables (12)
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
REDACTED
REDACTED
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
REDACTED
REDACTED
REDACTED
REDACTED
REDACTED
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
Essential
or
Desirable
Method of
Assessment
Credibility
Hold a Veterinary Auxiliary qualification with
the Environmental Health Registration Board
(through qualification) or a Royal Institute of
Public Health (RIPH) Level 4 Diploma for
Proficiency in Meat Inspection (or equivalent)
Recent experience of conducting official
controls in Approved slaughterhouses
Dealing with difficult or confrontational
situations or situations requiring sound
judgment and an assertive response.
E
Interview
Proficient in the use of IT with a good
knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of
programs and the ability to become effective
in the use of other utilised programmes such
as ‘Uniform’.
E
Application/ Interview
Numerate with good arithmetic skills.
E
Application
Excellent written communication skills with
theability to articulate information
appropriately effectively and clearly.
E
Application
Has open conversation. Excellent oral and
interpersonal skills with the ability to
effectively communicate and negotiate with
people at different levels.
E
Interview
Able to build supportive relationships. Able to
work as a productive member of the team or
unsupervised on own initiative.
E
Application/Interview
Organised and methodical in approach whilst
being flexible and adaptable to changing
priorities. Skills in effective time and workload
management.
E
Application/Interview
Able to effectively and thoroughly research
and investigate issues. Able to analyse
resultant information and apply sound
judgement in reaching and presenting
considered and balanced conclusions.
E
Application/ Interview
Future focused. Willingness to encourage
innovation and embrace and promote change.
E
Application/Interview
Knowledge of the structures, policies and
workings of IoM Government.
D
Application/Interview
Knowledge of the functions of Environmental
Health and Official Controls.
E
Application/Interview
Character
Has positive energy and drive. Self-disciplined
and motivated with the aptitude and ability to
successfully achieve the CIEH Higher
Certificate in Food Control, successfully
complete the CIEH Competency Development
Portfolio and pass the CIEH Professional
Discussion.
E
Application/Interview
Addresses the issues. Has empathy,
commitment, tenacity, persuasiveness,
personal impact and resilience.
E
Interview
Inspires, motivates and empowers.
E
Interview
Other requirements
Capable and willing to work in potentially dirty
environments.
E
Application/Interview
Full, valid driving licence.
E
Application/Interview
Able and willing to undertake training on and
off the Island.
E
Application/Interview
Must be prepared to work outside normal
office hours to meet operational requirements.
E
Application/Interview
Isle of Man Worker.
D
Application
REDACTED
REDACTED
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
Full Response Text
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
Jon Stanford
Subject:
Accepted: Migrant Workers
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
Jon Stanford; Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA)
Subject:
Catch up Re Meat Inspector Visas
REDACTED
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
Jon Stanford; Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA)
Subject:
Catch up regarding provision of meat inspectors and visa requirements
REDACTED
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA)
Subject:
FW: Follow-up to our meeting
Date:
18 December 2024 12:47:00
Attachments:
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Hi Vicki
What are your thoughts? It seems we have little if any negotiating power. Perhaps we
could ask them to throw in an annual audit for free?
I would also expect any appointee to be able to hit the ground running.
Kristian
From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: 17 December 2024 18:34
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im; Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA)
Victoria.Corkhill@gov.im
Cc: Sebastian Zorescu sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk; Louise Rhodes
Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk; Alex Westerman Alex.Westerman@eandj.co.uk; Jurgita
Mejeryte Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk; Duncan Garfield duncan.garfield@eandj.co.uk
Subject: RE: Follow-up to our meeting
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any
attachments or following any links.
Hi Kristian
Thanks very much for the confirmation and thanks to both you and Victoria for your
work on creating this facility.
I have delayed responding in the hope that I could give you a concrete deployment
plan but there are still some finer details that we are trying to confirm, so I will give
you an update of where we are with identifying the resource that you need in the
form of a general overview.
We are working on the basis that we will deploy 2 of our new ‘VetTrack’ MHIs to
undertake meat inspection for you with effect from mid-February (as I think we
mentioned on our last call). Now that we and the FSA have agreed with RCVS that
we will not utilise the blanket Temporary Registration facility for routine veterinary
recruitment from January, we have been working to re-establish our previous model
whereby we recruited veterinarians for deployment as MHIs for up to 12 months in
the first instance before they migrate over to an OV role. This is our only current
From: Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA) Victoria.Corkhill@gov.im
Sent: 04 December 2024 17:33
To: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk; Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Sebastian Zorescu sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk; Louise Rhodes
Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk; Alex Westerman Alex.Westerman@eandj.co.uk; Jurgita
Mejeryte Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk
Subject: RE: Follow-up to our meeting
That’s great news Jon – one less hoop to jump through!
From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: 04 December 2024 17:17
To: Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA) Victoria.Corkhill@gov.im; Cowin, Kristian
Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Sebastian Zorescu sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk; Louise Rhodes
Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk; Alex Westerman Alex.Westerman@eandj.co.uk; Jurgita
Mejeryte Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk
Subject: Follow-up to our meeting
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any
attachments or following any links.
Dear Both
Thanks for your time earlier and it was great to hear that we will now have the
option of deploying those working on a UK Skilled Worker visa in the future.
Just to confirm one point of uncertainty, we current pay
via an IoM payroll
(IoM tax and NI) and so this could easily be replicated for any additional members
of the team going forward.
We will revert regarding specific staffing options shortly.
Thanks again
With kind regards
Jon
Jon Stanford
Director of Field Operations
+ 44 (0) 113 2 840 400
REDACTED
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
Corkhill, Victoria (DEFA)
Subject:
Fw: Immigration process - UK skilled worker visa holder to Isle of Man
Date:
17 October 2024 14:00:09
Attachments:
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Hi Vicki
Would you like to join?
Kristian
Sent from Outlook for Android
From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2024 1:23:22 PM
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Alex Westerman Alex.Westerman@eandj.co.uk; Louise Rhodes
Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk
Subject: RE: Immigration process - UK skilled worker visa holder to Isle of Man
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any
attachments or following any links.
Many thanks for this Kristian
Just following on from the guidance document you kindly sent and our previous
conversation I wonder whether you would be able to join a quick call with our
internal immigration specialist so we can talk through some of issues we see in
moving forward via the foreign worker route?
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards
Jon
Jon Stanford
Director of Field Operations
+ 44 (0) 113 2 840 400
07973 341460
jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
eandj.co.uk
Eville & Jones (Group) Limited, registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 10019077. Registered office:
Century House, 1275 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, LS15 8ZB.
On 3 Oct 2024, at 14:38, Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
wrote:
Hi Jon
Are you free for a chat?
Kristian
From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2024 12:08 PM
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Louise Rhodes Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk; Sebastian Zorescu
sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk; Jurgita Mejeryte
Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk
Subject: RE: Immigration process - UK skilled worker visa holder to Isle
of Man
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care
before opening any attachments or following any links.
Hi Kristian
Hope all is well. Just a quick note to ask whether you have
had any thoughts on the below.
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards
Jon
Jon Stanford
Director of Field Operations
+ 44 (0) 113 2 840 400
07973 341460
jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
eandj.co.uk
From: Jon Stanford
Sent: 06 September 2024 15:28
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Louise Rhodes Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk; Sebastian Zorescu
sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk; Jurgita Mejeryte
Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk
Subject: Re: Immigration process - UK skilled worker visa holder to Isle
of Man
Many thanks indeed Kristian
Kind regards
Jon
On 6 Sep 2024, at 15:32, Cowin, Kristian
Kristian.Cowin@gov.im wrote:
Hi Jon
Thank you for the update.
I’ll make some enquiries and get back to you.
Kind Regards
Kristian
From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: Friday, September 6, 2024 11:00 AM
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Louise Rhodes Louise.Rhodes@eandj.co.uk;
Sebastian Zorescu sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk;
Jurgita Mejeryte Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk
Subject: Immigration process - UK skilled worker visa
holder to Isle of Man
Caution: This email is from an external sender.
Please take care before opening any attachments or
following any links.
Hi Kristian
I hope this email finds you well.
The reason I am writing is to ask whether you
know of anyone who might be able to help us, or
ideally have any internal support which could
assist in resolving an issue that is really causing
us problems.
As you will imagine, we have been working really
hard on trying to identify suitable candidates to fill
the two meat inspector positions that we have
been discussing for some time now. You will
appreciate that we tend to recruit our operational
staff from outside the UK and (post-Brexit)
engage them on UK skilled worker visas.
The process of obtaining the necessary permit to
work on the island for someone on such a visa is
complex and we are really struggling to find
someone who can give us advice on how to
approach this and achieve the required outcome
in a manner that does not make the process
financially prohibitive.
Unless we can find a way of deploying one of our
skilled worker visa staff we are limited to those
that already have right to work in the UK and
those individuals by definition are more settled
and are less open to temporary relocation. Our
available pool is therefore seriously limited, thus
the delay in us finding a solution to this for which
I would like to apologies.
Any assistance you can provided or any
suggested contacts would be greatly appreciated.
I am copying our Head of Global Talent, Louise,
who is leading on this from a recruitment
perspective. If you think it would be useful to set
up a quick call to discuss further, please let me
know.
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards
Jon
Jon Stanford
Director of Field Operations
+ 44 (0) 113 2 840 400
07973 341460
jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
eandj.co.uk
Isle of Man. Giving you freedom to flourish
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peiagh ny possan erbee lesh post-l er son Rheynn ny Boayrd Slattyssagh
erbee jeh Reiltys Ellan Vannin dyn co-niartaghey scruit leayr veih Reireyder y
Rheynn ny Boayrd Slattyssagh t’eh bentyn rish.
From:
Cowin, Kristian
To:
McLauchlan, Victoria (DEFA)
Subject:
FW: Meat Inspection Service
Date:
09 July 2024 16:21:00
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Hi Vicki
Please see Jon’s latest email in the thread below.
This would allow us to engage a contract meat inspector to replace him on a more
permanent basis, i.e. a 6 month placement. As per Jon’s email the cost would be as
follows, plus 5%:
“Additional ‘permanent’ Meat Inspector placements:
If you were looking at more long-term solutions to increase meat inspection
capacity, in addition to the hybrid OV/meat inspector role quoted above, we
would be able to provide you with additional meat inspectors to supplement your
permanent team. Our rates for such a service are as follows and are based on a
minimum placement period of 6 months.
• Standard Weekly Fee -
(for up to 37 hours in-plant work).
• Time worked in excess of 37 hours per week -
per hour
• Weekend and Bank Holiday work -
per hour
The standard weekly fees quoted for this meat inspection work are inclusive of
any expenses.”
This would be a big saving on the circa
week we have been paying.
If it’s OK with you I’d like to ask E&J to provide 6 months of Meat Inspection cover
starting in August. This would give us uninterrupted cover at a lower cost and provide
time for us to go through the procurement process to outsource the function.
What do you think?
Kristian
Mr. Kristian Cowin MCIEH CEnvH
Head of Environmental Health
Environmental Health Unit, Regulation Directorate
Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture
Thie Slieau Whallian, Foxdale Road, St Johns, Isle of Man,IM4 3AS
Tel: +44(0)1624 685894 Email: kristian.cowin@gov.im
P Please don't print this email unless you really need to
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From: Jon Stanford jon.stanford@eandj.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2024 1:52 PM
To: Cowin, Kristian Kristian.Cowin@gov.im
Cc: Beckett, Amy Amy.Beckett@gov.im; Duncan Garfield duncan.garfield@eandj.co.uk;
Jurgita Mejeryte Jurgita.Mejeryte@eandj.co.uk; Sebastian Zorescu
sebastian.zorescu@eandj.co.uk
Subject: FW: Meat Inspection Service
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any
attachments or following any links.
Hi Kristian
Good to talk earlier.
As promis
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