Walk Free+MSA Impact on Company Behaviour+Whitbread+2018+Discussion

Whilst the report is in strong support of reducing the risks of modern slavery, there is no explicit mention of actions being taken as a direct result of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

"We are pleased to report under the Modern Slavery Act. We have worked hard this year, not only to develop our supply chain due diligence, but also to increase the awareness of these issues across our operations. " p.1

p9 Working alongside our procurement team, we conducted investigations and ethical audits focusing on responsible employment practices at a sample of sites across the country. Whilst not finding any major non-compliances, we did discover the cleaning businesses sometimes lacked the management systems required to ensure the risk of modern slavery situations from occurring are minimised. As a result of this activity we have designed a Responsible Business Guidance Handbook, in partnership with Stop the Traffik, to provide support and information to our smaller suppliers. The handbook provides operational guidance and details of the management systems required to mitigate the risk of modern slavery occurring in operational and recruiting practices. Whitbread takes the risk of modern slavery extremely seriously and wants to support its smaller suppliers by providing best practice guidance. This document will be released to our smaller suppliers (under £36m annual turnover) in 2019/20." Bernadette[https://wikir..