Statutory Documents

Modern slavery is a criminal offence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. We aim to prevent opportunities for modern slavery to occur. This applies to all individuals working for or with Thomas Keble in any form, including our supply chain, contractors, employees and all other business partners.

The following key policies and documentation detail our approach to protecting our pupils and staff from modern slavery and ensuring our supply chains are free from modern slavery. These include:

• Employee Quick Guide;
• Equality & Diversity Policy;
• Safeguarding Children in Education Policy;
• Safer Recruitment Policy;
• Whistle blowing Policy;
• Procurement and Contracts;
• Supplier Terms and Conditions.

We recognise as a school that there are two main avenues of risk through which modern slavery could impact the organisation. The first is through matters of a safeguarding nature which covers child sexual exploitation or human trafficking which can directly impact our pupils. This also potentially affects the staff of our contractors. The second is our supply chain and the vendors we contract.

Procurement and supply chain

We are committed to ensuring that there is transparency in our business and our approach to tackling modern slavery is consistent with our obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We expect the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners and we are evolving and updating our procurement and contracting processes to include specific prohibitions against the use of forced, compulsory and trafficked labour, or anyone held in slavery or servitude, whether adults or children. We expect our suppliers to hold their own suppliers to the same high standards. The biggest risk to our organisation of falling foul of the Modern Slavery Act is through our procurement of goods and services. Whilst we cannot 100% guarantee supplier adherence with the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act we will endeavour to eliminate the risks as much as possible. We will do this by ensuring that our procurement processes, supplier code of conduct and contractual terms include specific provision relating to the Modern Slavery Act.

Safeguarding

Modern Slavery and trafficking are both forms of abuse and therefore our safeguarding policies and procedures should be followed. All frontline employees receive multi-agency Safeguarding Children training which incorporates modern slavery. These employees have an individual responsibility for ensuring that they are familiar with the signs and indicators and that they are aware of our Safeguarding policies and procedures so that they are able to respond appropriately. Line managers must ensure that safeguarding training is kept up to date

Trade union reps are entitled to paid time off to get training and do their work as reps (as shop stewards, health and safety or union learning reps or other trade union officials).

Reps are entitled to reasonable paid time off to do their union work as long as the union is:

• independent
• officially recognised by the employer to represent union members in negotiations on things like pay and terms and conditions

Examples of trade union duties reps have the right to paid time off for are:

• negotiating pay, terms and conditions
• helping union members with disciplinary or grievance procedures including meetings to hear their cases
• going with union members to meetings with their line manager to discuss flexible working requests
• discussing issues that affect union members like redundancies or the sale of the business

Union learning reps have the right to paid time off to:

• analyse the learning or training needs of union members
• give information and advice about learning or training
• arrange or encourage learning or training
• discuss their activities as a learning representative with their employer
• train as a learning representative

For the year 2021-22, neither of the 2 Union Reps at Thomas Keble have taken time off from their roles at Thomas Keble to fulfil their Union work.