Modern Slavery Compliance Statement

Modern Slavery Act - Compliance Statement 2018

Introduction

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31st March 2018.

Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of human rights. It takes various forms, including slavery, servitude, compulsory labour and human trafficking for exploitation and can have a significant adverse impact on individuals, families and communities across the world.

Organisation Structure

Longhurst Group heads a group of entities undertaking a range of community and social activities, including housing, regeneration, community development, and care and support services. We employ almost 1,300 staff. We operate in more than 45 local authority areas across the Midlands and East of England, we own and manage over 22,000 homes. Our annual turnover is £145.6m.

Compliance

The Group has a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery. Our Modern Slavery Policy is communicated to all employees, suppliers, contractors and business partners.

The Group Board and Executive Leadership team have overall responsibility for ensuring Longhurst Group complies with our legal and ethical obligations and that our Policy is implemented effectively. As we operate solely with the UK we are at a low risk of exposure to slavery and human trafficking. Our key area of risk lies in our relationships with supply chains - suppliers, contractors and business partners. However, we also recognise our responsibilities as an employer of nearly 1,300 permanent, reserve and temporary staff.

As a supplier of services to individuals and communities we recognise slavery and human trafficking as a potential risk and address it through our Safeguarding Policy.

How we manage the risks

Supply chain

This year Longhurst has amended its standard supplier contractual terms to include obligations on suppliers to comply with the Modern Slavery Act.

Staff

We will only use reputable employment agencies and we will always verify the practices of any new agency before engaging staff from it.

Employees are required to avoid any activity that might lead to, or suggest, a breach of this Policy. Employees will be encouraged to raise concerns about any issue or suspicion of modern slavery in any parts of our organisation or supply chains at the earliest possible stage.

All Longhurst’s policies emphasise our commitment to dignity at work and fair treatment of all colleagues. We are in the process of reviewing our Safeguarding and Whistleblowing policies and procedures and Code of Conduct to ensure they are compliant with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Training and awareness

To ensure the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business are understood, we include a training session on modern slavery in our induction for all new staff. Our Modern Slavery Act Policy has been made available to staff to ensure awareness and is also available on our external website.

Next steps

Following a review of the effectiveness of the policy we intend to take the following steps.

We continue to use our risk management systems and framework to manage this area
Continue to encourage, support and provide training and awareness to all employees on our Modern Slavery Policy.

Conclusion

We are proud of the steps we have taken to combat any risk of Modern Slavery and Human trafficking being present within our business and supply chains. We will continue to be vigilant and we remain committed to improving our practices further in this area in future years.