Agenda Item 14Executive Board Meetingmemo No 17/168 June 2016

Tackling Modern Slavery

Agenda Item 14Executive Board MeetingMemo No 17/168 June 2016

Status: OFFICIAL

TACKLING MODERN SLAVERY

Purpose

1. This paper seeks the Executive Board’s approval of the proposed Modern Slavery statement for financial year 2015-16. The Board are also asked to agree who will have the responsibility for signing the statement on behalf of the Forestry Commission.

Background

2. Modern Slavery is a term used to cover the offences of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. The Government introduced a provision in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 which requires any commercial businesses in the UK with a turnover above £36m to produce an annual statement setting out the steps they have taken during the financial year to ensure there is no modern slavery in their own business and their supply chains. Businesses must publish their statements on their websites. Legal advice has been obtained confirming that the Forestry Commissioners will be required to comply with this provision in the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Details of Proposals

3. The Procurement teams in England and Scotland have worked together to produce a draft statement for Financial Year 2015-16. This is set out in Appendix A. It is proposed that the statement is published on the “Corporate Reports and Policies” page of the Forestry Commission website.

Resource Implications

4. There will be an annual resource requirement to draft the Forestry Commission’s modern slavery statement, agree this with the EB and publish on the Forestry Commission website. The greater resource implications are the actions required to improve the Forestry Commission’s response to tackling modern slavery in its own business and its supply chain. These are likely to impact upon the areas of procurement, HR, contract management, operations and internal audit; other areas may also be affected due to the corporate nature of the requirement.

Risk Assessment

5. Failure to comply with the Act poses legal, reputational and financial risks. If a business fails to produce a slavery statement for a particular financial year the Secretary of State may seek an injunction through the High Court requiring the organisation to comply. If the organisation fails to comply with the injunction, they will be in contempt of a court order, which is punishable by unlimited fine. In practice non-compliance would show a lack of transparency and recognition of the serious nature of crimes associated with modern slavery. This would have a significant reputational impact.

Communications Issues

6. HR Central Services have confirmed they will communicate the statement to staff once it is signed off by the Executive Board. In addition to this, they will create training for managers involved in tenders and procurement, addressing the issues associated with modern slavery and human trafficking; they will also update the whistleblowing policy.

Implementation and Evaluation Proposals

7. The intention of the legislation is that organisations will build on what they are doing year on year. In drawing up the statement the Procurement teams have identified a number of areas where further actions can be taken. These include establishing a Code of Conduct for our supply chain, embedding the Code of Conduct in our sourcing of new suppliers, communication and training, supplier self-assessments and audits. It is proposed that the Procurement teams agree these policies and action plans for each country during 2016-17 which are signed off by country management boards, given the corporate implications of any such policies.

Taxation Impact Assessment

8. There are no tax implications of this proposal.

Recommendation(s)

9. The Board is asked to endorse the draft statement and agree the appropriate signatory. We also request that the Board consider future ownership of the statement and associated policies and actions plans given the corporate nature of the requirement and the many business areas which are impacted.

Appendix A

Modern Slavery – Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

The Forestry Commission is a provider of timber. We sustainably harvest almost four million tonnes of wood every year from England and Scotland's public forests. That’s more than a third of total domestic production. This reduces our dependency on imported wood and provides low-carbon materials for the domestic wood-using industries, and for fuel and energy. The income from timberhelps tooffset the costs of managing the forests in our care. Further details of what the Forestry Commission does and how it is structured can be found on our website:

Our supply chain is made up of a large number of third party providers, many of which are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). We procure a large and varied range of goods, works and services from corporate clothing and tree shelters, through to operation services such as harvesting, planting and forest road building.

We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking and are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business.

The steps that we have taken to reduce the risk of modern slavery in our business are:

1. We pay all our employees above the National Living Wage.
2. The FC’s Grievance, Bullying and Harassment, and Whistleblowing policies give a platform for our employees to raise concerns and ‘blow the whistle’ on any wrong-doing within the Organisation and to raise concerns about poor working practices.
3. We follow the European Public Contracts Directive which governs good practice in procurement.
4. Within Invitation to Tender documents issued within 15/16, covering England or on a GB Wide basis, we have included discretionary exclusion criteria relating to breach of environmental, social and labour law.

Following a review of the effectiveness of the steps we have taken to ensure that there is no slavery or human trafficking in our business or supply chains, we intend to take further steps and develop policies and processes to identify, assess and monitor potential risk areas in our supply chains.

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 2016.

Signed

1 | Modern Slavery | Procurement | 24/05/2016