Recommendation 11

HM Government Not Addressed

The Government partially accepts these recommendations and is taking forward action to strengthen the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and reporting obligations. To improve the quality and detail of reporting and accelerate action to prevent modern slavery, in September 2020 the Government committed to strengthen the reporting requirements on businesses under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, including: • extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more; • radically enhancing the transparency and accessibility of modern slavery statements by requiring organisations to publish their statements on a new Government digital reporting service; • improving the quality of statements by requiring organisations to report against specific topics, including how they risk assess their supply chains and the due diligence they have undertaken, and to clearly state if they have omitted a topic; • driving greater accountability by setting a single reporting deadline on which all modern slavery statements must be published; and • developing options for civil penalties for non-compliance in line with the ongoing work to establish a single labour market enforcement body. Building on this, in January 2021, the Government announced that it will introduce financial penalties for organisations who fail to meet their statutory obligations to publish annual modern slavery statements under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Further details on the size of the penalties and how they will be administered will be announced in due course. The above measures, including the introduction of financial penalties, require amendments to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Government is committed to amending the legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. In March 2021, the UK Government launched an online modern slavery statement registry. The Government is now encouraging all organisations in scope of the legislation to submit their statement to the registry, to demonstrate that they have reported under section 54 of Modern Slavery Act 2015. Since launch, over 3,500 statements covering over 11,000 organisations have been submitted to the registry on a voluntary basis. In future, we will mandate organisations in scope of section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to submit their statement to the registry, as part of the planned changes to strengthen the legislation. The registry will be a key tool for the Government and others to monitor and drive compliance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The ultimate goal of the registry is to bring all modern slavery statements in one place and radically enhance transparency by enabling investors, consumers, NGOs and others to scrutinise the action that different organisations are taking to prevent modern slavery. Extending the reporting requirement under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to large public bodies, with an annual budget of £36 million or more, is a natural step towards increasing transparency. The UK public sector accounts for around £290 billion of annual expenditure and we have an unparalleled opportunity to harness this spending power to eradicate modern slavery in public sector supply chains. Many public bodies already publish modern slavery statements on a voluntary basis and on 26 March 2020, the UK became the first country to publish a Government Modern Slavery Statement setting out the steps we have taken to identify and prevent modern slavery in our own supply chains. From September 2021 onwards, Ministerial departments will publish their own annual statements. The Government is committed to amending the Modern Slavery Act 2015 as soon as parliamentary time allows to extend the reporting requirement to public bodies, alongside the other measure to strengthen the legislation, including the introduction of financial penalties and mandating that organisations publish their modern slavery statements on the Government’s modern slavery statement registry.