Once there is a report, the authorities should be obliged to provide full follow-up over the time frame in question , even if this surpasses one year. But even here, as with the police, it does again depend upon who the report implicates.

Should it be an inconvenient report, the “authorities” send a letter to the employer and then rely on the employer’s statement or absence of statement not the content of the report. Here too there is no follow-up. There is a time restriction in force here since complainants are told by “the authorities” that they can only go back one year.

Why bother reporting in the first place, with such an attitude in place?

Perhaps, although the concept is terribly dated, there should be a workers’ Union that is decidedly not Labour-leaning to protect such workers’ rights.