Peterborough City Council recognises its responsibilities under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) and is fully committed to taking a robust approach in the prevention of slavery and human trafficking in its corporate activities and to ensuring that its supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking.

Organisation's structure

It is intended that this statement covers the activities of Peterborough City Council in achieving its vision and strategic objectives as determined by its organisational structure.

Our policies

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. We will publish within the financial year 2018/19 an Anti-Slavery Policy reflecting our commitment to:

acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships;
implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains; and
Identifying and meeting any training needs within Peterborough City Council and/or its partners.

Supplier adherence to our values

We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. To ensure all those in our supply chain and contractors comply with our values we are implementing a comprehensive supply chain compliance programme. This begins with ensuring that the elimination of any risk of modern day slavery features in our supplier on-boarding processes and strategic sourcing practices (including sourcing plans and invitations to tender). Where there is deemed to be a potentially significant risk of modern day slavery practices within our supply chain, we will work with partners to conduct supply chain mapping, to enable us to determine, where the risk exists and determine an appropriate course of action.

In addition, the compliance programme consists of updating contractual templates for new procurements to include warranties of compliance with the MSA in agreements for works and services regardless of the contract value. It also includes working with partners to identify and map any high risk supply chains and raising awareness through procurement training for officers. The council has a procurement working group that oversees all procurement related matters from across the council including legal, finance and commissioners.

Due diligence processes

In addition to including clauses in our service contracts which require all our suppliers to warrant their compliance with the MSA, we encourage the contractor to include equivalent clauses in their own contracts with suppliers and sub-contractors, with the aim of enabling enforcement higher up the supply chain.

Whistleblowing

As part of its commitment to ensuring integrity in relation to all aspects of its own working practices, the Council has a clear and comprehensive policy offering protection and support to individuals reporting on any malpractice which may be affecting human rights or otherwise unlawful acts within its own organisation or among its service users.

Community and partnership working

The Council has and will continue to work with its partners and other public and private organisations to raise awareness of and eradicate modern slavery within the community.

Further steps

We are committed to improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking and will review and continue to keep under review the effectiveness of the steps that we are taking to ensure that there is no slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or our community. As part of this we intend to take the following further steps to combat slavery and human trafficking:

Continue to identify and meet any training needs within Peterborough City Council and/or its partners;
Continue to identify ways in which we can work with our partners and other organisations to tackle modern slavery both in our supply chains and the community;
Develop close rapport with the community to enhance prevention of slavery and human trafficking;
Raising awareness within the community and providing information about how to report concerns and/or seek help;
Consolidating and mapping the support services that the Council is able to provide to persons who have been affected by slavery and/or human trafficking.
Ensuring our approach is kept under regular review and updated to take account of changes in the law.

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 2018.

Modern Slavery helpline

You can find out more about Modern Slavery, report a suspicion or get help and advice from the Modern Slavery Helpline website. They provide victims, the public, statutory agencies and businesses access to information and support on a 24/7 basis.