UK Modern Slavery Act

Who needs to report

Any organisation which has a business or part of a business in the UK which provides goods and services, and has a turnover of £36 million or more, including turnover of subsidiaries. must produce an MSA statement on an annual basis.

More detail can be found in section 54 of the Act. Even if your business is not captured in this legislation, voluntary MSA reporting is encouraged, and we note that the Act is set to be expanded in future.

In the Government response to the Transparency in Supply Chains consultation, published on 22 September 2020, the Home Office committed to changes to strengthen the reporting requirements under section 54 of the Act, including:

• extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more;
• mandating the specific reporting topics statements must cover;
• setting a shared reporting period (1 April – 31 March) with organisations having up to six months to produce their statements on activity during this period and publishing their statements by a single reporting deadline of 30 September; and
• requiring organisations to publish their statement on the new Government’s Modern Slavery Statement Registry

These changes have not yet been implemented, and will require legislative change. The Home Office has committed to engaging with organisations on when the new reporting requirements will come into effect, and will also publish new guidance to support organisations to meet the new requirements. However, in the meantime organisations may choose to align their current reporting with the future reporting requirements.

Companies can sign up to the contact database for modern slavery reporting guidance and resources (here) to receive updates on the duty to produce modern slavery statements under the Modern Slavery Act.

Required content of a MSA statement

The statement should set out what steps organisations have taken to ensure modern slavery is not taking place in their business or supply chains.

This should include:

Addressing modern slavery risks in timber supply chains

There are various guidance and tools available to the timber industry which are free to use for businesses to assess modern slavery-related risks in their supply chains:

Agency workers

Timber importers and traders may also have to be aware of the potential risks inherent in hiring contracted agency workers, such as warehouse workers, drivers, cleaners.

While these workers are not directly employed by you, they are still covered under the act, and where these employment agencies treat their workers in ways unequal to permanent staff you may find they have breached the Act.

Since the mistreatment of agency staff may occur through the agency rather than the company contracting out to the agency, these abuses may be harder to detect.

Therefore there is an increased need to establish greater due diligence mechanisms which may help identify and mitigate against such risks when scouting out employment agencies for potential partnerships.