The UK signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in 2007 and ratified it in December 2008. The UKHTC are currently developing a short DVD to be distributed to police officers in all forces on the National Referral Mechanism which is a core element of the requirements of the Convention.
All police forces in England and Wales have sent officers to the training courses devised and delivered by the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) and this work has been reinforced by the distribution of awareness raising material sent electronically to all police officers. The UKHTC in conjunction with the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) are also in the process of rolling out training modules on human trafficking to be included in mainstream police courses. All of this work involves an element of training specifically on the Convention.
Forces were additionally made aware of the requirements of the convention as part of Operation Pentameter 2 which included a trial of the national referral mechanism to be introduced from 1 April 2009.