1. Modern Slavery Act 2015

 

This statement is made under section 54 (1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It is made on behalf of SMSO Education Ltd. It was approved by the Managing Director of SMSO Education on 1 September 2021. It is signed by the Managing Director on behalf of the aforementioned companies. It constitutes the Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement for the financial year ended 28 February 2022.

 

2. Policy Statement

 

SMSO Education (we, us) is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking within any part of SMSO Education or in our supply chains. We operate employment policies and procedures that are designed to treat all individuals who work within SMSO Education with dignity and respect, to reward them fairly for their work and not to exploit them. We comply with all applicable employment legislation, including laws relating to minimum wages and the working time directive. We only wish to work with organisations that have a similar commitment and are not involved in modern slavery or human trafficking. While it is the obligation of those organisations to operate their own policies and procedures to achieve that objective, we take reasonable steps to verify compliance where appropriate.

As part of our wider commitment to promoting ethical business practices, we have in place a variety of policies and procedures that together address our stance on this including our Code of Business Ethics, Anti-Bribery policy, Fraud policy and a range of business practice policies, including our Whistle Blowing policy.

 

3. Services

 

The services we provide to our customers are predominantly from our offices or site-based at customers’ premises. The majority of our work is undertaken by our own staff. Our view is that this represents a very low risk of our services being involved in slavery and / or human trafficking. As such, SMSO Education has not identified a need to take any additional action with regard to such relationships.

The majority of services supplied to SMSO Education are from suppliers based in the UK and we consider them to be in relation to very low risk areas of activity such as the provision of IT, distribution and marketing services. Given our assessment of the very low risk nature of these activities, we therefore take no additional steps other than our usual supplier due diligence.

 

4. Goods

 

The majority of goods supplied to SMSO Education are in relation to the running of our offices, our IT network, the production of our products and the equipments for our staff. We believe that there is a very low risk that anyone providing us with these goods will be involved in slavery and / or human trafficking and therefore rely on our normal supplier due diligence during the approval or renewal process.

 

5. Further steps

 

We will continue to review this statement on an on-going basis and will adapt our review and assessment accordingly should any material changes take place within our business.

We will also take the following further steps:

  • Carry out a risk assessment of our supply chains
  • Work with suppliers that are identified to be high risk to ask for confirmation of compliance
  • Take steps to raise awareness within the business of the Modern Slavery Act

 

Signed by Son Nguyen

Founder and Managing Director of SMSO Education Ltd.

Dated: 01 September 2020