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Modern slavery is a crime and violation of fundamental human rights. It can take various forms such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.
The Birchwood Group has a zero tolerance approach to modern slavery and we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing appropriate and effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our own business or in our supply chains.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 introduced changes in UK law focused on increasing transparency in supply chains. Specifically, large businesses are required to disclose the steps they have taken to ensure their business and supply chains are free from modern slavery.
This statement sets out the steps we have and are taking to ensure that slavery and human tracking are not taking place in any of our supply chains or businesses and is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Act.
Birchwood Group (the Group) is the holding company of a number of trading subsidiaries whose principal activities are the sales of cars, motorbikes and commercial vehicles, vehicle and motorbike servicing and associated activites.
All of the Group’s operations are based in the United Kingdom and the Group employees over 200 employees across its businesses.
The Group’s principal suppliers are global vehicle manufacturers which supply the Group vehicles and parts for onward sale to customers and under whose franchise agreements the Group operates its motor and motorbike dealership business. In addition, the Group has commercial arrangements with vehicles finance and insurance providers which provide finance and insurance products to the Group’s customers.
The Group also engages with other providers of goods and ancillary services (including oil and consumables, supply, valeting services etc)
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or any parts of our business. We have adopted an Anti-slavery policy which 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.
As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk, we are putting in place systems to:
We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. We are reviewing our supply chain management process to ensure all those in our supply chain and contractors comply with our values and their legal obligations. This includes seeking confirmation from key suppliers of the Group that they have implemented contractual arrangements which prohibit modern slavery and trafficking and seeking confirmation that they have adopted their own anti-slavery and human trafficking policies. We are also introducing changes to our standard terms and conditions of trading to require suppliers to comply with the applicable anti-slavery and human trafficking laws. A number of our key commercial supply arrangements already contain specific provisions regarding slavery and human trafficking and contractual arrangements will be updated, where necessary, upon renewal.
To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, we will be providing appropriate training to our staff to raise awareness and highlight any areas of concern they may have.
We have not identified any instances or indications that either slavery or human trafficking occurs in our supply chain. As such, we have not considered it necessary to adopt any formal performance indicators to measure how effective we have been to ensure that slavery and human tracking is not taking place in any part of our business or supply chains. We intend to keep this under review on an annual basis.
As set out in the above statement, the Group is in the process of taking a variety of further steps to ensure that neither slavery or human trafficking occurs either in our business or in our supply chain.
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 December 2020.
Birchwood Group
Date – 1 March 2020