MODERN SLAVERY STATEMENT

Modern slavery statement for financial year 2020/2021

This statement is made pursuant to s.54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps that AFS Scotland Ltd has taken and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain.

Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. AFS Scotland Ltd has a zero tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all business dealings and to putting effective systems and controls in place to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain.

Our business

We operate in Scotland, we are an installer of Render, Cladding, and Facades systems.

Our high risk areas

We do not have high risk areas within our operations, we source materials from major UK suppliers.
Our labour, labour only subcontractors, and subcontractors are aware of rules regarding the eligibility to work within the UK, and we have controls in place to ensure there is low risk.

Our policies

We operate a number of internal policies to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner.
These include:

• Anti-slavery policy. This policy sets out the organisation’s stance on modern slavery and explains how employees can identify any instances of this and where they can go for help.
• Recruitment policy. We operate a robust recruitment policy, including conducting eligibility to work in the UK checks for all employees, and labour only subcontractors to safeguard against human trafficking or individuals being forced to work against their will.
• Whistleblowing policy. We operate a whistleblowing policy so that all employees know that they can raise concerns about how colleagues are being treated, or practices within our business or supply chain, without fear of reprisals. This is included within our grievance procedure.

Our direct employees

• Our direct employees are issued with a contract of employment on commencement. This details their wage, holidays, and other statutory rights. We include a grievance and disciplinary procedure, and a voluntary 48 hour working time regulation section 2 opt out.
• We pay above the national living wage.
• We have controls in place to ensure their eligibility to work in the UK.

Our Labour only subcontractors

• Our labour only subcontractors are required to provide evidence of their eligibility to work in the UK before they commence.
• We issue rates of measured work before each contract commences.

Our subcontractors

• We require evidence that our subcontractors have controls in place to ensure that their workers are eligible to work in the UK.
• We issue purchase orders in advance of any contract before it commences.

Our suppliers

AFS Scotland Ltd operates a supplier policy and maintains a preferred supplier list. We source materials from major UK suppliers only, this means there is little or no risk of their being issues with modern slavery in our supply chain.

Training

We regularly conduct training for our procurement/buying teams so that they understand the signs of modern slavery and what to do if they suspect that it is taking place within our supply chain.

Our performance indicators

We will know the effectiveness of the steps that we are taking to ensure that slavery and/or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain if:

• No reports are received from employees, the public, or law enforcement agencies to indicate that modern slavery practices have been identified.

Approval for this statement

This statement was approved by the Director on 1st June 2020

Stephen Avery
1st June 2020