The Home Office has 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 can provide users with a report, based on an online questionnaire, indicating the risks of modern slavery being present in their supply chains, and providing recommendations.
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 free, and at a discounted rate for 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.
Home Office Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins, gave a speech to a conference co-hosted by the Home Office with the Ethical Trading Initiative and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She raised the need for the UK and others 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.
She said: “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.”
Under the Modern Slavery Act became law in 2015, large private companies have been required to produce a statement setting out what they are doing to identify and address modern slavery in their supply chains.
