Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

It is our belief that everyone is entitled to basic rights and freedoms, regardless of the nature of their work or where they live. We oppose modern slavery, trafficking, and child labour, and recognise that we have an obligation to ensure that we both abide by high standards ourselves and that we also endeavour to eliminate poor practice in our supply chain.

Policy Documents

• Recruitment Policy
• Employment Lifecycle Policy
• Supplier Management Policy
• Sickness and Absence policy
• Shared Parental Leave Policy
• Parental Bereavement Policy
• Parental & Paternity Leave Policy
• Maternity & Adoption Leave policy

Recruitment

We are confident that there is no risk of modern slavery within our own organisation, because our structure means that top management retain close contact with, and control over, all recruitment and employment issues.

Through its recruitment procedures, the organisation aims to:

• Protect workers and meet moral, ethical and human rights obligations
• Meet legal and transparency reporting obligations
• Demonstrate due diligence in protecting the business’s reputation with clients and other stakeholders
• Ensure equal treatment of all applicants
• Identify and appoint the best applicants
• Maintain effective and streamlined recruitment and procurement processes which make the best use of time and money

We abide by the four core labour standards as enshrined within the International Labour Organisations (ILO) Conventions:

1. Freedom from forced labour (enshrined in Convention 29 on Forced Labour (1930) and Convention 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labour (1957)).
2. Freedom from child labour (enshrined in Convention 138 on Minimum Age for Entry into Employment (1973) and Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999)).
3. Freedom from discrimination at work (enshrined in Convention 100 on Equal Remuneration (1951) and Convention 111 on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958)).
4. Freedom to form and join a union, and to bargain collectively (enshrined in Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) and Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (1949)).

We prohibit the use of forced labour, bonded labour, prison labour and child labour within our company or those that supply to or sub-contract for us. This includes slavery and abduction, misuse of public and prison works, forced recruitment, debt bondage and domestic workers under forced labour situations, child labour and internal or international trafficking. We ensure that all our employees work voluntarily for us and are not intimidated or threatened to enforce employment. Also that they retain their rights and privileges.

We do not employ any person under the age of 17, except as part of formal work experience schemes organised by recognised schools or colleges. Evidence of date of birth is checked during the recruitment process, during which Baseline Personnel Security Standard checks are carried out.

Modern Slavery in the Supply Chain

However, we are aware that greater vulnerability exists within our supply chain. In particular, we are aware of potential vulnerabilities in the following areas:

• Hotels and accommodation
• Goods purchased (predominantly IT equipment)
• Support services (predominantly IT)
• Provisioning of office space and associated services

We aim to work collaboratively and transparently to lead in bringing an end to modern slavery in supply chains. We select reputable companies as suppliers.

We have recently developed procedures to ensure due diligence when onboarding new suppliers. Checks which are now proportionate to the scale of the supplier relationship are now undertaken, and suppliers which are unable to demonstrate adequate standards are not onboarded.

Further, we now carry out a quarterly audit of existing suppliers.

Staff Training

At present, we use the following online training courses:

• DeltaNet – Tackling Modern Slavery
• DeltaNet – Identifying Modern Slavery in the Supply Chain
• DeltaNet – What is Modern Slavery?

Future Targets and KPIs

We are aware that our greatest vulnerability exists in our supply chain. In order to provide further safeguards, we therefore aim to:

• Identify, evaluate and mitigate any new risks apparent as a result of moving to new premises
• provide anti-slavery training to all Business Support Team staff by Q4 2023 and all staff by Q4 2024