The peer review was hosted by the Slovak Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family and focused on tools and approaches aimed at tackling undeclared work occurring in chains of economic activity.

The authorities in Slovakia are preparing the adjustment of the current legislation in terms of improving the efficiency of control and prevention of undeclared work in Slovakia. The event focused on undeclared work occurring in complex chains of economic activity, such as:

• when several entities are involved in the employment relationship between the labour service supplier and the labour service receiver. One or more entities that have a contractual relationship with the employee, such as the temporary work agency, and the end employer
• where workers are provided from one employer to other employers, without necessarily an involvement of temporary agency
• situations where chains of activity involve cases of “the letterbox companies”, companies which do not have any official address of settlement and work only through the letterboxes, also often registered and operating from abroad
• the need to differentiate in such complex chains between the contractual relationship of employment and other types of activity, such as providing business services

Lessons learnt and good practices

The Peer Review set the scene for future discussions on national initiatives aimed at developing deterrence and preventative measures to fight undeclared and underdeclared work. The Peer Reviews discussed the lessons learnt from countries experience on how to most effectively regulate the complex chains of activity to prevent undeclared work and thus answer to some specific questions:

• how best define the roles and co-responsibilities for compliance be defined when several employers and temporary work agencies are involved?
• what are lessons learnt to ensure co-responsibility of letterbox companies, especially when they are based abroad?
• how are countries effectively differentiating between employment and provision of business services in the complex chains?
• what are lessons learnt in regulating complex chains specifically when third-country nationals are involved?

To identify best practices it addressed as well the following questions:

• what are the best ways to set up control procedures and preventative approaches in the complex chains involving several entities? Are there lessons learnt for labour inspectorates working with other enforcement authorities?
• what the main lessons learnt on how inspection authorities deal with appeals or comments to the initial inspection protocols?
• what are the best ways to optimise the use of publicly available registers of violators – who, where and for how long should the violators kept in these lists?
• apart from the registration of violators in the central register in a Member State, which other sanctions are showing most effects? (e.g. inability to participate in public procurement)