Five tips for producing your Modern Slavery Statement
Since 2015, companies that do business in the UK have had to publish a Modern Slavery Statement when their annual turnover exceeds £36 million. It’s usually one of the first pieces of ESG legislation that companies have to comply with.
What does the Modern Slavery Act require?
The legislation itself (the Modern Slavery Act 2015) is actually quite simple and there are only two things a company needs to do:
Publish a director approved and signed Modern Slavery Statement every year
Display the Modern Slavery Statement prominently on the company website (normally this is done through a link in the footer)
The actual content of the Modern Slavery Statement is defined as a number of "should" cover requirements but no "must" cover requirements, and so technically legal compliance could be met by simply publishing a director approved statement that says, “We have no approach to modern slavery”. This, of course, is not the approach we would recommend.
Why the quality of your Modern Slavery Statement matters
Aside from not being the right thing to do, it won’t impress your stakeholders. We regularly see investors and customers interrogating company Modern Slavery Statement content, either directly through their own questionnaires and assessments or by examining the government registry (more information below). If your company is looking to win a government procurement contract, then under PPN 009 companies of any size may be required to submit a Modern Slavery Statement as part of the Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT).
The Modern Slavery Statement Registry
The government Modern Slavery Statement Registry (Modern slavery statement registry - GOV.UK) is a public database of Modern Slavery Statements. Although it is voluntary to publish your statement in the Registry, it is best practice to do so and encouraged by the government in their modern slavery guidance.
When you publish your statement in the Modern Slavery Statement Registry, there is a basic assessment of the content, with each statement being labelled with a highlighted box that states, “Provided information for X out of 6 recommended topics” (X being the number of topics covered). It's not the most sophisticated of assessments and we believe it's done based on whether keywords are mentioned in the Statement rather than the quality of the detail. Regardless it's fair to say that most companies wouldn't want to be publicly shown as achieving anything less than 6 out of 6. For this reason companies should strive to cover all six modern slavery content recommendations.
What should be included in a Modern Slavery Statement
The six recommended topics of a Modern Slavery Statement are succinct and non-prescriptive in the Modern Slavery Act (see section 54) and cover organisation structure, policies, due diligence, risks, key performance indicators (KPIs) and training. These are expanded on in detail in the statutory modern slavery guidance. The approach in this guidance is comprehensive and although application is helped by the categorisation of contents into different maturity levels (‘level 1’ and ‘level 2’), it can be overwhelming. Our top five tips for producing a robust Modern Slavery Statement are as follows:
Be explicit about your Statement timings. In the Statement introduction explicitly state the financial year (including start and end dates) to which the Statement relates. This should be the financial year that has just ended and not the current year or year ahead. At the end of the Statement include the date of the director's signature and ensure this is within six months of the end of the financial year that the Statement relates to.
Leverage Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index. This index is great for a broad assessment of your company’s modern slavery risk. Look at the countries in which you operate, and those from which you purchase products and services and compare those to the information in the Global Slavery Index. This will give you a good understanding, at least at an operational and tier 1 supply chain level, of the relative size of the modern slavery risk to your business.
Consider the industry that you're in. The government has identified a number of industries they believe to be at higher risk of modern slavery (see PPN009 guidance, page 7). If your company is in one of these industries or you buy services or products from these industries, then this will elevate your risk and you should reference this in your Statement.
You don’t need to produce a Modern Slavery Policy. Where the legislation refers to policies these are policies that support the company's approach to modern slavery and many of your existing people-related policies will do just this. Key policies to reference that are often overlooked are your whistleblowing policy and recruitment-related policies (e.g. checking employees’ right to work, minimum employment age, etc.).
Training doesn’t need to be expansive. There are practical ways to deliver training appropriately and effectively across your organisation, without excessive costs. For many organisations the key training that all employees need is limited to how to spot the signs of modern slavery, and there are many free training resources on this subject. We personally like the short video produced by the Supply Chain Sustainability School, which can be accessed for free here. It's targeted at construction but can be applied to all industries. More detailed training on how to assess, mitigate and manage modern slavery risks can usually be limited to relevant roles in procurement and HR functions.
After explaining your approach to modern slavery remember that your Statement must end with a sentence confirming that the board of directors has reviewed and approved the Statement, and the details of your director sign-off (name, role, date of signature).
Putting your Modern Slavery Statement into practice
As with any policy, your Modern Slavery Statement should be a true reflection of your business for the reporting period it covers. Usually there is no need to get colleagues to acknowledge reading the company's Modern Slavery Statement. Instead focus your employee communications on making sure that everyone knows the signs of modern slavery and how to raise concerns. The latter could be via 999, 101, the modern slavery helpline or webform, or the company whistleblowing process.
For support developing or reviewing your Modern Slavery Statement, contact us.
Authored by: Caroline Johnstone
