Our commitments for the 2021-2022 tax year include the following:
The Council will carry out research on the high-risk supply chain areas identified above and draw up a plan on how we will engage with key suppliers to find out what they are currently doing to eliminate Modern Slavery in their sub-contracts. The Council will also consider how due diligence can be continued throughout the contract as part of good contract management and not just as part of a tender process. A process of auditing of supplier contracts will be developed.
The Council will expand the questionnaire section in the tender documents to include scored questions, where bidders would answer specific questions relating to their supply chains and how susceptible they are to Modern Slavery and the due diligence processes they will adopt to prevent it. We will include the questions in tenders for high-risk categories. We will expand the Code of Conduct to include a section on Modern Slavery.
The Strategic Procurement team will establish how best to tackle any requests in high-risk areas, given the limited resources of the team.
The Strategic Procurement Team will revisit the terms and, liaising with the Legal Services, ensure modern slavery is appropriately covered.
Moving forwards the Strategic Procurement Team will continue to encourage a partnership approach on key, high risk procurement projects. We will share learning on Modern Slavery with these organisations and will keep them informed of any suppliers or contractors where we have concerns.