This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps we have taken to ensure that our business as well as our supply chains are free from slavery and human trafficking during the financial year ending June 2021.
Introduction
Microlise is committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking occurring in any of its corporate activities, as well as seeking to ensure that our supply chains are also free from such practices.
Our organisational structure and operations
Microlise is a provider of hardware, software and professional services to vehicle manufacturers, as well as organisations operating road transport fleets or with a requirement to track mobile assets.
We employ approximately 475 people worldwide and operate in the UK, Eire, Europe, Dubai, India and Australia through our customers use of our products and services in their vehicle fleets.
We have a total annual turnover of £50 million.
Nature of our supply chains
Our key supply chains involve electrical hardware manufacturing, sub assembly in the UK, and raw material components from the Far East. Other general business use suppliers include publishing and printing services, IT services, conference and venue suppliers, training providers and consultants, legal consultants, and marketing and PR services.
Risk assessment and due diligence
We have reviewed the risks that these supply chains can present and will seek to continually review the operations of existing suppliers in relation to the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking. We do this by asking our suppliers to complete a supplier questionnaire detailing our corporate social responsibility requirements, to which all suppliers must conform.
We expect our suppliers and contractors to demonstrate a zero tolerance approach to exploitation. To this end, all new contracts and those renewing, include a clause requiring that our suppliers, and their subcontractors, comply with the Act, and include Microlise’s right to terminate in the instance of any breach of this obligation.
As part of our procurement process, we will only engage with supplier and contractors who confirm their compliance with the Act. We consider our exposure to modern slavery to be limited. We monitor and manage the risk of our supply chain by pre-appraising new vendors and continually monitoring existing vendors. We will seek specific assurances from those suppliers carrying the highest exposure to risk.
We are committed to implementing and enforcing effective procedures and controls to minimise the risk of human trafficking and other modern slavery practices infiltrating our business operations or supply chains, and to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business activities and relationships. We expect our employees to fully comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and our associated procedures. Any non-compliance would result in facing disciplinary procedures. No incidents of non-compliance with applicable laws and policies have currently been reported.
Staff training
We provide training to key staff to ensure that they understand the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking infiltrating our business or supply chains and effectively operate our policies and procedures aimed at mitigating this risk.
Future action
This year we plan to:
- Audit our key suppliers to ensure their compliance with corporate social responsibilities and legislation
- Introduce a whistle blowing policy to ensure a transparent approach for reporting any non-compliant incidents
- Conduct awareness training for staff who are working at risk of encountering modern slavery to assist in identification and reporting of any suspicious incidents
Nadeem Raza
Chief Executive Officer
Microlise