Modern slavery statement

In accordance with Section 54, Part 6 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, this statement sets out the steps that Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL) has taken to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in our supply chains or in any part of our business.

Overview

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires commercial organisations supplying goods or services with a turnover of more than £36 million to prepare and publish an annual 'Slavery and human trafficking statement'.  The statement must set out the steps an organisation has taken, if any, during its financial year to ensure that slavery or human trafficking is not taking place in its supply chain.

What is modern slavery?

Modern slavery is an international crime, affecting an estimated 29.8 million slaves around the world - a growing global issue that transcends age, gender and ethnicities. Sadly, vulnerable people from overseas as well as across the UK, are forced to work illegally against their will across many different sectors from agriculture, construction, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and more.

Our policy

GTIL is working towards establishing a zero-tolerance position on violations to the UK’s anti-human trafficking and anti-modern slavery laws. If we find breaches of these laws within our supply chain, we will look to support companies in their efforts to comply with the legislation. We will actively consider how we support legislative compliance as well as how we conduct business with organisations involved in slavery, human trafficking, forced, or child labour.

Our CLEARR values of Collaboration, Leadership, Excellence, Agility, Respect, and Responsibility, are the pillars of our culture. They embody everything that we do at GTIL and how we do business. They outline the expectation of our people’s behaviour with colleagues, clients and people around the world.

We seek to treat everyone fairly and consistently, creating a workplace and business environment that is open, transparent and trusted. Our policies and procedures relating to the Modern Slavery Act are in line with our culture and values.

Our structure

GTIL is a private company limited by guarantee, incorporated in England and Wales. It is the coordinating entity for a network of independently owned and managed accounting and consulting firms based in more than 130 countries. Each member firm is a separate legal entity and membership in the global organisation does not make GTIL or any of its member firms responsible for the services or activities of other member firms.

Our procedures

GTIL has a number of procedures to address modern slavery risk:

• a ‘Modern slavery policy’ for our people, which sets out the key issues and how we should respond including a process for raising concerns internally as well as to the external hotline
• a ‘Procurement policy’ for how we deal with suppliers
• a ‘Supplier code of conduct’ for use by our suppliers making clear the standards we expect.

If you would like to find out more about the above email gti.legal@gti.gt.com.

Our business and supply chains: assessment and management of risk

Our business largely uses professionally qualified people employed directly by GTIL or seconded from our member firms in a limited number of countries. Our people policies ensure fair treatment of our people around the world. 

Our suppliers are mostly UK and US based companies in low risk sectors (such as professional services). However, our most significant risk area is when we use hotel and conference facilities in other countries. To mitigate against this, we use our procurement policy to assess all suppliers that we deal with.

When we admit a new member firm to the Grant Thornton network, a thorough due diligence process happens to ensure that the firm has a good reputation with appropriate practices in a number of areas including people and culture. Once admitted as member firms, they must comply with global policies as a condition of membership. Some of those member firms provide services to GTIL and, as such, they are subject to our procurement policies.

Our training

GTIL provides training on the subject of modern slavery and our policies to address the risks to help increase education and awareness. We run this on an annual basis to ensure everyone know how to respond.