Modern Slavery Statement

Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement 2023-24 Holmes Care Group Scotland Ltd. and subsidiary companies (‘Holmes Care Group’)

Celebrating over 40 years in the care industry, Holmes Care Group is a multi-award-winning care group providing nursing, residential and specialist care. We have 23 services across the UK and are recognised in the industry for providing high quality care and innovative facilities. Each resident is as important and individual to us as a loved one is to their family. We carefully select our employees based on their compassion, experience, expertise and, most importantly, their commitment and professionalism for providing the highest levels of care. We continuously invest in our employees to ensure that they are best equipped to provide an outstanding service and we are proud to be finalists in the Employee Benefits Awards 2017 for one of our bespoke employee initiatives.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires commercial organisations operating in the UK, with an annual turnover in excess of £36 million to produce a slavery and human trafficking statement at the end of each financial year. This statement is made in accordance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our Group's slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending August 2022. It demonstrates the steps Holmes Care Group has taken, and will continue to take, to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain.

Holmes Care Group has zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking in all its business dealings. We are also committed to the prevention of slavery and human trafficking, in all its forms. We will not tolerate or condone it within any part of our business or supply chain.

Due diligence of supply chains 

Holmes Care Group relies on local and global supply chains to help support the business. Holmes Care Group ensures that suppliers perform in line with our expectations before being approved to join our preferred supplier list.

We will conduct a supplier review periodically, reviewing information returns and acting on any concerns we have.

Policies and procedures 

We operate a number of internal policies and procedures to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner. All of our policies have been reviewed as of November 2022 to ensure that continue to be aligned with Holmes Care Group’s values and promote a workplace that is fair, open and transparent.

Our Grievance policy details how formal concerns can be raised and how they will be investigated and responded to.

Our Whistleblowing policy details the different whistleblowing pathways open to team members, should they have any concerns. Team members can raise concerns of any nature to their line manager, Quality Team or directly with our CEO.

Our Recruitment Policy ensures we continue to operate a robust recruitment process, including conducting eligibility to work in the UK checks for all staff, to safeguard against human trafficking or individuals being forced to work against their will.

Policies are available to all employees through our benefits app – Hapi, run by Personal Group.

Risk assessment and management 

We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all business dealings and to putting effective systems and controls in place to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain. The risks linked to modern slavery are a topic of conversation in our Executive meetings.

There have been no disclosures or any identified instances of modern slavery within the company to date. We also conduct payroll checks, annually, to ensure, in so far as is possible, that no team member is having their salary paid to someone else, against their wishes.

Owing to the existing systems we have in place and the progress made as highlighted in this statement, we are confident that should disclosures be made, we have appropriate systems and processes in place to ensure corrective action is taken promptly.

Training 

We aim to launch a modern slavery e-learning module. This training will be launched in the 2022/2023 financial year and is aimed at all staff including line managers in the organisation.

This training covers:

• The forms modern slavery can take.
• The relevant legislation.
• The signs line managers should look out for.
• How concerns can be reported.
• Our organisational response to modern slavery

Goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of the organisation's actions and progress over time

We will know the effectiveness of the steps that we are taking to ensure that slavery and/or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain if:

• No reports are received from employees, the public, or law enforcement agencies to indicate that modern slavery practices have been identified.

We identify that we can put in further measures to address the awareness of recognising modern slavery, and therefore we aim to develop additional internal tools and measurements in the next financial year.

Approval of this statement 

This statement was approved by our Board of Directors on: 04/01/24

Name: 
Sharifa Lakhani, Chief Executive Officer 

Signature: