People Using the Service
As a care service, we ensure no vulnerable young person or adult in our care is subject to any conditions that meet the Care Act (and similar) definitions of modern slavery. If the service has any suspicions, information or evidence that any of the people using its services are victims of, or at risk of, becoming victims of modern slavery, exploitation or forced labour, it will take immediate protective action by alerting the appropriate safeguarding authority or police and apply all safeguarding procedures that then follow. (See also the care providers’ safeguarding policies.)
Staff
We also do not employ staff under any conditions that might make us vulnerable to accusations or suspicions that we are employing people under conditions that would amount to modern slavery and exploitation as defined. All staff are subject to recruitment procedures that comply with both employment law and registration requirements with pay and conditions of employment that meet all statutory requirements.
If we have evidence that any of our employees are subject to exploitation and forced labour by third parties, we will exercise our duty of care to our employees by reporting our concerns as whistleblowers to the police or local unit responsible for investigating modern slavery to decide on further investigation or action. We will not act or discriminate against the employee if they are meeting all the required employment conditions and had been recruited in line with the service’s recruitment procedures.
Contractors and Suppliers
As a care service we inevitably deal with several outside organisations as suppliers of goods and services. We know that these organisations might form part of a longer supply chain. We make all reasonable efforts to ensure that no link in the supply chain is producing goods and services made under conditions of modern slavery or which might involve human trafficking.
We expect all our contractors and suppliers to have a similar zero-tolerance and due diligence approach to modern slavery and human trafficking and only work with organisations that have robust anti-modern slavery policies that operate in other parts of their supply chain and who comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
We explain in our replies to businesses who respond to tenders and adverts for goods and services that we will check if they employ people under conditions of modern slavery and if they do similar checks with other businesses in their supply chain. In doing so, we expect those businesses to have taken all reasonable efforts to exclude their suppliers from colluding with modern slavery practices.
All staff members, particularly those responsible for procuring goods and services, are expected to report any concerns about any issue or suspicion of modern slavery in any parts of their dealings at the earliest possible stage.
Anyone raising concerns about slavery or human trafficking that affects the care service will be protected by the service’s whistleblowing policy.
