Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act requires all eligible companies with a turnover of £36m or more to report on what steps, if any, they have taken to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains and to publish a statement annually. Section 54 requires that the statement is approved by the board and signed off by a director or equivalent, and accessible via a prominent link on the company homepage.
Please consult with the following government page to check if your business is required by law to publish a Modern Slavery Statement. The page also contains guidance on how to write a Modern Slavery Statement.
How to Write a Statement
“The slavery and human trafficking statement will be a public-facing document. To aid transparency the statement should be written in simple language that is easily understood (the Plain English Campaign is well placed to assist with this). The statement can be succinct but cover all the relevant points and provide appropriate links to relevant publications, documents or policies for the organisation.
The Government has not been prescriptive about the layout or specific content of a slavery and human trafficking statement. It is up to organisations how they present information in the statement and how much detail they provide. However, organisations must include in the statement all the steps they have taken. The information presented in the statement will be determined by the organisation’s sector, the complexity of its structure and supply chains, or the particular sectors and nations its suppliers are working in.”
“The Modern Slavery Act, does not dictate in precise detail what a statement must include or how it should be structured. It does, however, provide a non-exhaustive list of information that may be included.
A statement should aim to include information about:
the organisation’s structure, its business and its supply chains;
its policies in relation to slavery and human trafficking;
its due diligence processes in relation to slavery and human trafficking in its business and supply chains;
the parts of its business and supply chains where there is a risk of slavery and human trafficking taking place, and the steps it has taken to assess and manage that risk;
its effectiveness in ensuring that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in its business or supply chains, measured against such performance indicators as it considers appropriate;
the training and capacity building about slavery and human trafficking available to its staff.
The organisation should paint a detailed picture of all the steps it has taken to address and remedy modern slavery, and the effectiveness of all such steps.”
“The Modern Slavery Act requires a slavery and human trafficking statement to be approved and signed by an appropriate senior person in the business. This ensures senior level accountability, leadership and responsibility for modern slavery and gives it the serious attention it deserves. An organisation’s top management will be best placed to foster a culture in which modern slavery is not tolerated in any form. They need to lead and drive the measures required to address this problem throughout the business.”
