SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATEMENT
Artic Building Services Limited are committed to running our business responsibly. We strive to maintain high ethical principles and to respect human life. As part of our mission statement, we undertake all elements of our work safely, responsibly and sustainably.
In this statement we describe our business and supply chain and how we operate. We explain our current practices and the plans we must enhance these in light of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Artic Building Services Limited is a privately owned limited company within the Facilities Management industry, currently employing more than 100 members of staff.
Employees of the company, either at interview stage or as part of the induction process, will be asked to produce their passport or other photographic proof of identity, plus work permits for the UK, if relevant. This ensures that we are satisfied that the employee has the legal right to live and work in the UK. We will never demand deposits from our workers or hold on to their identity papers.
Employees are made aware of the company’s Mission Statement and Values, which include Respectfulness, Honesty and Fairness, and we expect them to support these values, not only at work, but also in their private lives.
As an organisation, we have a chain of immediate suppliers, many of whom in turn have their suppliers, making our total supply chain very large and complex.
As a supplier of services within the industry, the organisation subcontracts some of its work out to subcontractors, who are assessed, prior to being issued with a purchase order. The principal method of assessing our subcontractors is to see if they are registered with Constructionline, a government backed organisation, used for procurement of suppliers and subcontractors across the nation. Constructionline assesses the organisation’s health & safety and all other areas of compliance, including requesting sight of their Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement, if they have one. If a company is registered with Constructionline, works to similar values of our own and pass a financial assessment then they are deemed to be approved for Artic Building Services supply chain.
Should a company not be registered with Constructionline, Artic Building Services will issue an evaluation form for satisfactory completion, prior to placing an order. This form will ask whether the company has a Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement in place and to be given a copy of the statement. We look to ensure, as far as possible, that our supply chain accords with legislation.
Furthermore, Artic Building Services will never subcontract any work out to any subcontractor who is not registered under the government’s Construction Industry Scheme.
With these initial checks, we believe that we are working with ethical and likeminded companies.
The Future
We recognise that the steps we currently take are small and that some of our suppliers and subcontractors may not act in as ethical a way as Artic Building Services does. We also recognise that the Construction Industry is a high risk area for slavery and human trafficking and so we must be extra vigilant in assessing our subcontractors.
We therefore needed to invest time and resources on deeper evaluation of our suppliers and subcontractors, and their supply chain, to identify the highest risk companies and take appropriate action with them. This additional evaluation is under way and resources are in place within the organisation to achieve this.
Staff training for our direct employees will be essential in the coming year, to enable them to understand what human trafficking is, how to recognise it and explain how they can report any concerns, in total confidence.
We will begin to look at the effectiveness of these measures currently in place and those planned for the future and develop ways in which this can be measured.
All progress will be reported in our next annual statement.
This statement covers 1st May 2022 to 30th April 2023 and has been approved by the Board of Directors.
Paul Lucas
Managing Director
Colin Trowell
Managing Director
