Corporate reporting – updated guidance on modern slavery

The Home Office has published updated guidance in relation to how organisations should comply with their obligations under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA).

Under section 54, in-scope organisations are required to produce a slavery and human trafficking statement (MSA statement) each financial year, which sets out the steps they have taken to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any part of their business or in any of their supply chains. The MSA provides that the Secretary of State may publish guidance in relation to these requirements. The Home Office has published, and updated, such guidance since 2015.

The new version of the guidance reflects learnings since the requirements were introduced and aims to provide practical advice to organisations and to support meaningful action to address modern slavery.

The MSA lists six categories of information which may be included in a MSA statement (including organisational policies, training, and due diligence processes) and in relation to each category the guidance more clearly sets out:

• the information which could be included in the MSA statement (ranging from more basic, level 1 information for organisations drafting MSA statements for the first time, to more detailed, level 2 information for organisations which are more familiar with the regime);
• the importance of disclosing the information;
• key actions to consider; and
• case studies.

The guidance also discusses how to determine if an organisation falls in-scope of the obligations (and in particular how “carrying on business in the UK” should be interpreted), how the disclosures should be approached in a group context and how the MSA statement should be approved and published.

For an overview of the modern slavery reporting regime, and potential future developments, see our Corporate Governance Fundamentals: Periodic reporting outside the annual report and accounts.

For more detail on the updated guidance, see our ESG blog post.