Section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act requires a commercial organisation that has a turnover of over £36 million with operations in the UK to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement each year which sets out the steps it has taken to ensure there is no slavery or trafficking in its supply chains or its own business, or states that it has taken no such steps.

The MSA requires that the statements are discussed at senior management level and approved by the Board of Directors, Members, or Partners (who signs it is dependent on the type of company it is). This ensures senior level accountability, leadership and responsibility for modern slavery and gives it the serious attention it deserves.

A board of directors (B of D) is a group of individuals that are elected as, or elected to act as, representatives of the stockholders to establish corporate management related policies and to make decisions on major company issues.

A member must sign when it is a limited liability partnership. A member is a partner in a business who is only liable for the money they invest in the business, not the business or other partners.

A partner must sign when it is a limited partnership, or any other type of organisation. Partners have management control, share the right to use partnership property, share the profits and have joint and liability for debts of the partnership.

For further information on approval of a statement please read the Home Office Guidance, page 13.

This metric assesses:

Where the statement includes an explicit statement that it has been approved by Board of Directors select the "Approved by Board" option.

Approval for the statement can usually be found near the end of the document. If the statement has been explicitly approved by some entity or person other than the board of directors, please select "Approved - not by Board" and add the relevant sentence as a comment on your value. If no explicit approval can be found choose the "Approval not explicit in statement" value.

NOTE: explicit approval is not the same as signature - this is covered under the metric MSA Statement Signed.

* Note on choosing the Year of your answer

Read the MSA Statement carefully to find out what year it covers. For instance, if the statement relates to activities and actions undertaken in the period January - October 2016, choose 2016 as your answer's year.

Companies may report in fiscal years (FY) that include months from two different calendar years. In this case, apply the following rule:

• If the latest calendar year ends in Q1 (January-March) cite the previous calendar year. For example: a statement for FY 2016/17 ending in March should be used for adding data for the year 2016.
• If the latest calendar year ends in Q2 or later (April-December) cite the latest calendar year. For example: a statement for FY2016/17 ending in April should be used for adding data for the year 2017.