Modern Slavery Act 2015 Transparency Statement 2024

Staff Training

Home Office First Responder Training is completed by Community Safety Team Officers and Council Safeguarding Leads on an annual basis.

The new CAMS modern slavery and human trafficking training will be delivered to Councillors and frontline staff in person or via Microsoft Teams.

The new packages for mandatory safeguarding training on Learning Pool are being further developed, with additional training opportunities being identified for wider learning, including modern slavery.

To meet the needs of colleagues, operational requirements, and access in some Council services, an ‘Introduction to Safeguarding’ video course has been created. This contains information about modern slavery and human trafficking and will be launched in April 2024.

The Safeguarding Training Plan includes links to modern slavery resources such as GLAA videos on spotting the signs of modern slavery. These resources will be reviewed throughout the year to ensure they remain up to date, and new resources will be added as they become available.

An e-learning course for the Procurement Team and staff who commission goods/services was launched in May 2021, titled ‘Protecting Human Rights in the Supply Chain (Modern Slavery)’. 46 staff members who work in procurement/hold budgets have since passed this training. This course will be reviewed and updated for Learning Pool. Completion rates will be monitored and reported, with continued promotion as appropriate.

Awareness Raising

Internal and external communications activities have been prepared for the United Nations' World Day Against Trafficking – 30th July 2024, and Anti-Slavery Day – 18th October 2024. The Council supports ongoing awareness raising and education opportunities in the wider community via the CAMS partnership. A conference for the three local partnerships, Colchester, Southend, and Chelmsford, is being organised for October 2024.

The Council registered with the Modern Slavery Statement Registry in 2020. We will submit the Transparency Statement for 2024 to this site.

Partnership Work

Priorities for CAMS were co-developed by participants towards a slavery-free community. These priorities continue to be investigated and developed by the multi-agency partnership, providing opportunities for knowledge sharing and the development of resilience to modern slavery in Colchester. The following areas continue to be highlighted for further discussion and investigation: Governance and Structure, Awareness Raising, Training, Survivor Care, Safeguarding and Referral Pathways, Data & Intelligence Gathering/Sharing Across Partners, and Disruption.

Supply Chain

The Procurement Team and staff who commission goods/services should continue to complete the additional training provided, ‘Protecting Human Rights in the Supply Chain (Modern Slavery)’. New starters should complete their training upon joining the Council, and existing council officers should retrain every three years. Procurement continues to monitor and review policies and procedures to further strengthen their anti-slavery commitment.

Contractors

Following a review of how we ensure contractors have received relevant Safeguarding training (including Modern Slavery), our Level 2 Safeguarding E-learning course was developed and tailored for Contractors. This will be updated for Learning Pool.

Charter Against Modern Slavery

In July 2018, Colchester City Council unanimously agreed to adopt and apply the Co-operative Party’s Charter Against Modern Slavery (as far as is legally possible).

All suppliers to the Council will be asked to confirm that they and their organisation have, and will continue to, take action to address risks to human rights identified within themselves and their supply chain. During tender processes, this action includes the adoption of a whistleblowing policy that enables staff to report any suspected examples of modern slavery.