Engagement
8.1 Co-operative Party Charter Against Modern Slavery
The Council has endorsed the motion to adopt the Co-operative Party Charter Against Modern Slavery. In doing so, the Council will;
- Train its corporate procurement team to understand modern slavery through the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supplies (CIPS) online course on Ethical Procurement and Supply.
- Require its contractors to comply fully with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, wherever it applies, with contract termination as a potential sanction for non-compliance.
- Challenge any abnormally low-cost tenders to ensure they do not rely upon the potential contractor practising modern slavery.
- Highlight to its suppliers that contracted workers are free to join a trade union and are not to be treated unfairly for belonging to one.
- Publicise its system for staff to blow the whistle on any suspected examples of modern slavery.
- Require its tendered contractors to adopt a whistle blowing policy enables their staff to blow the whistle on any suspected examples of modern slavery.
- Review its contractual spending regularly to identify any potential issues with modern slavery.
- Highlight for its suppliers any risks identified concerning modern slavery and refer them to the relevant agencies to be addressed.
- Refer for investigation via the National Referral Mechanism any of its contractors identified as a cause of concern regarding modern slavery.
- Report publicly on the implementation of this policy annually.
8.2 Community Engagement
The Council has established the Coventry Modern Slavery Partnership, a group formed of over 15 Council departments and over 35 organisations. The Partnership oversees the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the Coventry Protocol for Addressing Adult Modern Slavery, promotes best practice, identifies challenges and gaps in provision and works together to improve ways of working.
The Coventry Protocol for Addressing Adult Modern Slavery has been written by several Council departments and over 30 partner organisations. The Protocol sets out the strategic vision for the Coventry Modern Slavery Partnership and the operational pathways that support this vision. The Protocol has the following objectives:
- to present the local modern slavery strategy via the pursue, prevent, protect, prepare approach as set out by the central government
- to illustrate the operational pathways used to respond to modern slavery
- to establish the ongoing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for the strategy and pathways
