Modern Slavery & Ethical Employment
Anti-Slavery Annual Statement 2019-20
Ceredigion County Council will not tolerate modern slavery or human trafficking in our organisation or in our supply chains. We will also work to ensure that we have systems in place to achieve ethical employment in our supply chains.
We adopted our first Modern Slavery Policy at a meeting of Full Council in December 2017. This statement sets out the steps that we have taken to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking and to promote ethical employment and transparency in our supply chains. Our Action Plan on ‘Anti-Slavery and Ethical Employment in Supply Chains’ sets out how we will do this. We have also appointed Cllr Lyndon Lloyd as our Modern Slavery Champion.
Who we are and what we do
Ceredigion County Council delivers value for money sustainable bilingual public services that support a strong economy and healthy environment while promoting well-being in our people and our communities, (Ceredigion CC Corporate Strategy).
Our Policy on Modern Slavery
Ceredigion County Council’s Modern Slavery Policy adopts an integrated approach bringing together key areas of safeguarding, policy support, human resources, procurement and civil contingencies. Ceredigion County Council’s Anti-Slavery Policy covers the 12 commitments of the Welsh Government’s ‘Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains,’ and also refers to safeguarding processes and responsibilities under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We have informed the Welsh Government that we are fully committed to comply with the Code.
Our Processes for Tackling Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking and Providing Support for Survivors
We have processes in place to support survivors of Modern Slavery.
- We will notify the Home Office of potential victims.
- As a First Responder under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we will refer potential victims to the National Referral Mechanism, (NRM).
- We will refer all child victims to Independent Child Trafficking Advocates, (ICTAs).
Our Supply Chains
We will include a copy of our Modern Slavery Policy and question sets on ethical employment in all tenders.
We will identify high risk areas in existing contracts and send on the Code of Ethical Employment to our partners.
We will expect our suppliers to sign up to the Code
Our Employment Practices
We have adopted the National Living Wage.
We will ensure that false self-employment is not undertaken and that zero hours contracts are not used unfairly.
Our policies ensure that staff can freely join trade unions.
Training
We will make training available to staff. In 2017/18 we ran two Modern Slavery Awareness Raising Sessions for our staff.