The event in London today (Wednesday 27 March), co-hosted
with the Ethical Trading Initiative and the Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, aimed at driving
change in the public sector of addressing issues of modern
slavery.
As part of the conference, the Home Office launched a free
Modern Slavery Assessment Tool, which will be available
across the UK’s public sector. Developed in partnership
with Ethical Trading Initiative and the technology firm
NQC, it will help public sector organisations identify and
address modern slavery risks in their supply chains.
The tool will provide organisations with a tailored report,
based on an online questionnaire, indicating the risks of
modern slavery being present in their supply chains, and
providing recommendations to reduce those risks.
A new online training course on ethical procurement,
developed with the Chartered Institute of Procurement &
Supply (CIPS), was also launched. The course will be
available to all CIPS members for free, and at a discounted
rate for all civil service commercial staff.
The Cabinet Office will also shortly publish new guidance
on tackling modern slavery in supply chains for commercial
staff across the public sector.
In her speech, Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and
Vulnerability, , highlighted the need for the UK and its
international partners to harness their spending power to
drive change. In the UK alone, central government spends
£47 billion and the wider public-sector spends £220 billion
a year. It has been estimated that there are 25 million
people in forced labour globally.
The Minister added:
We all know that modern slavery, forced labour and human
trafficking are not evils of the past. They are with us
today and their victims are hidden in plain sight.
We are doing more to leverage UK government procurement
spend and take responsibility for the conditions in our
supply chains, but we need the global public and private
sector to do the same if we are to succeed. The best way
we can do this is to work together so we can make more of
an impact.
Minister for Implementation said:
The government is determined to tackle modern slavery
throughout society, so it is only right that we work with
our suppliers to address any traces there may be within
our own supply chains. This is a moral imperative. We
must remember that people are at the heart of this work
and just one victim is one too many.
That is why we will be asking our suppliers to act
quickly and responsibly in identifying and tackling
instances of modern slavery throughout supply chains and
we’re letting them know that they have our backing in
tackling this serious issue.
More than 150 delegates, policy makers, procurement
officials, leading UK businesses, civil society experts and
key international institutions attended to share best
practice and discuss common barriers to addressing modern
slavery in public sector supply chains.
Cindy Berman, Head of Modern Slavery Strategy at ETI, said:
Governments have huge power and leverage. They need to
show political leadership and commitment and push public
sector suppliers to conduct robust human rights due
diligence.
In-house expertise and appropriate procurement policies
and practices are an absolute necessity,
Since the Modern Slavery Act became law in 2015 private
companies of a certain size have been required to produce a
statement setting out what they are doing to identify and
address modern slavery in their supply chains.
The Prime Minister announced at the G20 summit that the
government would be producing its own transparency
statement, setting out the actions being taken across
central government to address these risks.
The UK government also last year launched the Principles to
Combat Human Trafficking in Supply Chains at the UN General
Assembly in partnership with the United States, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.
