Modern Slavery Act – Company Statement
Introduction
iBalance is a contractor management company providing temporary contract staffing services for multiple sectors throughout the UK. We are a small / medium sized organisation with our head office based in Bristol. Under the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) and as a responsible employer, iBalance has a duty to act in an ethical manner and operate in a way that helps to identify and eradicate modern slavery and human trafficking.
Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights which is constituted in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It takes various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which are abuses of a person’s freedoms and rights.
iBalance are committed to tackling modern slavery in all our operations. We are dedicated to improving our practices to combat modern slavery to ensure it does not take place in any part of our business. We strive to ensure all operations are conducted in an ethical manner and with integrity. We believe that we can identify and combat slavery and human trafficking by taking well established methods of best practice and by ensuring we respect people and the communities in which they live. Additionally, it is essential that our suppliers understand and appreciate the standards of business conduct that are expected of any company that we do business with and we only seek to engage with reputable organisations.
Our Supply Chains
Our supply chains include the indirect sourcing of candidates for placement with clients / end users. We have direct control over the sourcing of all candidates and have implemented a system of checks to be carried out by our staff when engaging candidates. This includes the monitoring of the clients we work with, the job titles of the contractors we assist, the value of pay, the nature of the work performed by the contractors and the number of hours worked by our contractors.
Our Commitment
iBalance is committed to having effective systems and controls to ensure our working practices meet the required standards of the Modern Slavery Act. As a responsible business, we meet the required standards by acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and by implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere within our business or supply chains.
Due Diligence
We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and expect all those in our supply chain and contractors to comply with our values. We act in a diligent way when working with new suppliers to help us identify if they are a potential risk (i.e. nature of their business, previous breach of legislation). Our due diligence includes checks on ID and Right to Work documentation at the initial registration stage.
This ensures that:
- We have the correct information in place for each worker
- We know that the worker is legally allowed to work in the UK
Training, Monitoring & Compliance
To ensure the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business are understood, we include a training session on modern slavery in our induction for all new staff. We believe that we are in a low-risk position and are confident that there is no slavery or human trafficking taking place directly within our organisation or in the supply chains we work in. Although we may employ some workers that are low paid and low skilled, we believe that our processes will highlight any cases where our workers may be at risk.
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes iBalance’s slavery and human trafficking statement.
Alex Brazier, Director