Modern Slavery Policy

1 Introduction

This policy applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including employees at all levels, directors, officers, agency workers, seconded workers, volunteers, agents, contractors and suppliers. Author Services Technical strictly prohibits the use of modern slavery and human trafficking in our operations and supply chain. We have and will continue to be committed to implementing systems and controls aimed at ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place anywhere within our organisation or in any of our supply chains. We expect that our suppliers will hold their own suppliers to the same high standards.

2 Definitions

• Modern Slavery is a term used to encapsulate both offences in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking
• Slavery is defined as behaviour on the part of an offender as if he/she had a right to legal ownership over a person, which deprives the victim of their freedom
• Servitude is the obligation to provide services that is imposed by the use of coercion and includes the obligation for the individual to live on another person’s property and the impossibility of changing his or her condition
• Forced or compulsory labour is defined as all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered him/ herself voluntarily
• Human Trafficking requires that a person arranges or facilitates the travel of another person with a view to that person being exploited.

3 Commitments

We shall be a company that expects everyone working with us or on our behalf to support and uphold the following measures to safeguard against modern slavery:

• We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in our organisation and our supply chains
• The prevention, detection and reporting of modern slavery in any part of our organisation or supply chain is the responsibility of all those working for us or on our behalf. Workers must not engage in, facilitate or fail to report any activity that might lead to, or suggest, a breach of this policy
• We are committed to engaging with our stakeholders and suppliers to address the risk of modern slavery in our operations and supply chain
• If we find that other individuals or organisations working on our behalf have breached this policy, we will ensure that we take appropriate action
• This may range from considering the possibility of breaches being remediated and whether that might represent the best outcome for those individuals impacted by the breach to terminating such relationships.

4 Risk assessment

On assessment we believe our operations are of low risk to modern slavery, we also do not believe our suppliers carry a material risk in relation to this policy. We will on an on-going basis look for changes in this assessment and the landscape in which we operate for any changes in risk.
We will on a yearly basis reassess the risk to our supply chain.