Slavery Act

Slavery Act

What we do

We are a provider of property, building and construction services in the real estate sector.

Our Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement 2018

Modern slavery and human trafficking are grave forms of human rights abuses. Woodbourne Group recognises the importance of respecting human rights and has a zero tolerance to modern slavery. We are committed to taking steps to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and our supply chain. Employees are expected to report concerns using the appropriate reporting channels and management are expected to deal with them.

This Statement sets out the steps we have taken as well as the activities we have started to take, to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and our supply chains. This Statement is on behalf Woodbourne Group, it’s Group of Companies, whether wholly owned subsidiaries and/or those joint ventures and funds managed by us. 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.

Our supply chains

Our supply chains include suppliers of building and construction materials, those who work in the building and construction sector, as well as professional advisers.

Our policies on slavery and human trafficking

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our organisation. Our policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.

Due diligence processes for slavery and human trafficking

As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk we have in place systems to:

  • Identify and assess potential risk areas in our supply chains;
  • Mitigate the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our supply chains; and
  • Monitor potential risk areas in our supply chains.

Our risks and how we manage this

We have identified our building and construction arm as an area of risk. We ensure, as far as we can, that we appoint reputable suppliers, who are appointed following a rigorous appointment process.

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 have in place a supply chain compliance programme. This consists of a rigorous appointment programme which includes supplier self-certification of compliance, together with standard clauses in contracts.
We are committed as an organisation to tackling modern slavery and human trafficking and want to work with suppliers who share our values. We also have a dedicated compliance team which consists of involvement from the legal, department.

Our effectiveness in combating slavery and human trafficking

In order to assess the effectiveness of the measures taken by us we will be reviewing the following key performance indicators:

  • Staff training levels;
  • Actions taken to strengthen supply chain auditing and verification;
  • Steps taken to upskill our high-risk suppliers; and
  • Investigations undertaken into reports of modern slavery and remedial actions taken in response.

Training

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our organisation and our supply chains, we intend to roll out training to our staff on this. All staff will be encouraged to attend training in this area to better understand the risks and how we as an organisation are working to manage this.