Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
1. Introduction
Blakewell Services Ltd is committed to ensuring it operates its business in an ethical and fully compliant manner. This statement reflects our commitment to ensuring that we and the businesses with whom we trade are compliant with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. This statement is published on our main website and represents our approach to compliance.
This statement gives a broad overview of our commitment to deliver a risk-free supply chain compliant with the legislation. It also evidences our deeper commitment to prevent human rights abuses within our wider business network, including all of the businesses with whom we work.
Slavery and human trafficking policies
It is the aim of Blakewell Services Ltd to be compliant with the 2015 Slavery and Human Trafficking Act.
We are confident that our UK business operations are free from practices covered by the act.
We are aware that risks may exist within any large business's wider supply chain and are taking the following steps to ensure that the organisations with whom we work and trade are compliant with the act:
- We ask suppliers to submit their public domain Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking statement URL to us as part of our procurement and tendering process.
- We actively ask our staff to “Whistle-blow” on any risks they may identify within the course of their work in relation to this issue within our entire supply chain.
- We have a formal due diligence procedure for retrospective compliance with those businesses we were contracted with prior to the implementation of the act in 2015.
- Our procurement staff are provided with in-house training to ensure they understand and comply with the legislation.
- All suppliers will be vetted to ensure compliance.
Specifically, we have required existing suppliers to comply with the following instruction:
As part of our commitment to ensure our supply chain is ethically sound and that we are in compliance with the spirit and detail of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we are contacting our suppliers to seek assurances about their own awareness of and compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is a piece of legislation that requires organisations to publish an annual ‘slavery and human trafficking statement’. This requirement came into force in 2016. We have asked our supply chain to undertake the following actions:
Provide a URL link to their own ‘slavery and human trafficking statement’ on their main company website.
OR
In the absence of this statement, provide confirmation that they are working towards providing this statement, including information outlining how they anticipate ensuring compliance across their business and by what date the statement will be in place.
Provide specific indications of:
- Any risk areas within their own business or supply chain that they have identified.
- What they are doing to address them.
- A date by which we can expect an update on any remedial action.
In the absence of any identified risks, we would ask them to state clearly that they have a fully-compliant supply chain based on their own due diligence process.
Blakewell Services Ltd is committed to ensuring our supply chain is free from human rights abuses. We actively welcome comments and suggestions from anyone within our total supply chain about how we can ensure we all work to create a fully risk-free supply chain.
Due diligence and records
As part of our approach to monitoring and controlling risks, we have:
- An actively managed risk register in relation to this due diligence, listing named suppliers and the stage at which their compliance is recorded based on three possible outcomes (compliant, date of compliance shared, risk – action required).
- A named individual within the organization who holds responsibility for this register.
- A controlled contact process for existing suppliers embedded in the main procurement process for the business.
- A newly adopted supplier vetting process.