Anti-Slavery Policy and Human Trafficking

This statement is made on behalf of the Birketts LLP pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the Act) and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 May 2023.

Birketts LLP is constituted as a limited liability partnership in accordance with the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 registered and operating in England under no OC317545 with over 800 employees.

We are a provider of Legal Services, with Birketts LLP the parent company of various non trading subsidiaries, including Birketts Legal Services Ltd and Birketts Nominees Ltd. We consider the risk to modern slavery within our business to be low, given that we only operate in England and given the nature of our business as a professional service provider employing professionally qualified and highly skilled individuals.

Our approach

As a law firm, we always work to the highest professional standards and comply with all laws, regulations and rules relevant to our business. 

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Our anti-slavery policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.

Our risk and compliance team works in conjunction with our support functions to help ensure that our anti-slavery policy is complied with and to manage any concerns or breaches. We also have a clear whistleblowing policy which is published on our intranet site: if there are any genuine concerns about any wrongdoing or breaches of law these concerns can be raised in confidence without fear of disciplinary action. We also ensure that we comply with all applicable employment law, including pay, in relation to our employees.

Supplier due diligence

We have introduced specific measures to ensure that our obligations under the Act are passed through our supply chain. Our procurement process includes vetting every material new supplier and carrying out a risk analysis based on the nature and value of the product or service. 

All our material suppliers are expected to comply with all local and national laws and regulations and we may ask for information about:

Supplier responses are taken into consideration when short-listing and we make any concerns known to the supplier. Should suppliers fail to live up to our expectations or be unwilling to make any changes we may cease to engage with them. We have not identified any risk of modern slavery in our suppliers in the last financial year.

Training

We invest in educating our staff to recognise the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and supply chains. Through our training programmes, key employees are encouraged to identify and report any potential breaches of our anti-slavery and human trafficking policy. Key employees are taught the benefits of stringent measures to tackle slavery and human trafficking, as well as the consequences of failing to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from our business and supply chains. The training is available to all staff but is only compulsory for key staff involved with procurement and contracts.

This statement has been approved by the members of Birketts LLP.

James Austin
Senior Partner and Member
Birketts LLP

UK modern slavery act compliance and  anti-slavery statement central registry
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