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Modern Slavery Statement 2023

Introduction

This is the modern slavery statement of the Reed Group (“Reed”) covering, in particular, Reed Global Limited (“RGL”), Reed Specialist Recruitment Limited and its subsidiary, Reed Staffing Services Limited (referred to together as “RSR”), Reed Online Limited (“ROL”), and Reed in Partnership Limited (“RinP”). Reed was founded by Sir Alec Reed in 1960 to provide a range of recruitment related services to both individuals and organisations. Reed is still owned by the Reed family and it is committed to the following values:

  1. We are fair, open and honest;

  2. We take ownership; and

  3. We work together

These values are directly relevant to the issues associated with eradicating modern slavery and Reed is committed to developing and improving its processes to combat slavery and human trafficking.

Structure

Reed Global Limited is the ultimate holding company of the Reed Group, and RSR, ROL and RinP are its principal subsidiaries. These subsidiary companies operate in the UK, and provide a wide range of recruitment, employment, consultancy, and related services.

Business

RSR

RSR is a specialist provider of permanent, contract, temporary and outsourced recruitment solutions, with over 20 divisions dealing with a wide variety of specialisms, such as finance, technology, education and social care. RSR also provide HR consultancy work, project delivery and screening services.

ROL

ROL operates Reed.co.uk, a jobs and careers site which provides a full online recruitment service. ROL advertises vacancies on behalf of employers and recruitment agencies. Candidates can also upload profiles and CVs and elect to make them available to recruiters through both the Reed.co.uk website and mobile app.

Reed.co.uk also offers a wide range of online and distance learning courses, classroom-based courses, and career advice.

RinP

RinP provides public service contracts on behalf of government departments and other public bodies (e.g. Department for Work & Pensions, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency). RinP’s public services are designed to (i) support disadvantaged people into sustainable employment; (ii) support people to gain the skills they need to enter and progress in employment; (iii) assist and inspire young people to fulfil their potential; (iv) provide people with access to a range of assessment services; and (v) improve people’s health and wellbeing.

Supply chains

Reed recognises its supply chain as being its most significant risk of modern slavery and therefore prioritises the management of labour in its supply chains, including formal programmes of supplier audits designed to ensure that suppliers are operating ethically and within the scope of UK law.

RSR

RSR’s supply chains are limited to those individuals and organisations which provide RSR with the goods and services needed to operate its business, such as stationery and IT equipment, and other recruitment agencies which may be engaged as support suppliers to clients who outsource the management of their recruitment needs to RSR.

RSR has a robust audit schedule of its supply chain to ensure compliance to Home Office regulation and that any umbrella companies utilised are affiliated to the FCSA or Professional Passport. RSR is also committed to transparent supply chains through its commitment to the JobsAware initiative.

ROL

ROL’s supply chains are limited to those individuals and organisations which provide it with the goods and services needed to operate its business, such as stationery and IT equipment. ROL now require all suppliers, regardless of spend, to confirm their commitment to abolishing modern slavery.

ROL has identified the prevention of fake or misleading job adverts as a priority to manage risk effectively. ROL carries out due diligence on all new customers who wish to advertise job vacancies on Reed.co.uk prior to granting access. ROL also seeks to ensure that no fake or fraudulent job adverts are posted on its website in order to reduce identity theft and fraud. All of ROL’s job adverts have a “Report this Job” function, where jobseekers can flag jobs which are not genuine, which ROL then reports to JobsAware. ROL regularly trains its staff on the vetting of new customers and how to spot fake jobs. ROL also benefits from intelligence sharing from JobsAware.

In the previous year RSR and ROL have seen an increase in fraudulent recruiters contacting the public to obtain personal data and/or money under the pretence of finding people work. This is an industry wide issue and Reed have communicated via social media and their websites about these recruitment scams and what people should do if they are targeted. As stated above, ROL and RSR work closely with JobsAware to help tackle fake job adverts.

RinP

RinP’s supply chains are three-fold:

Other public service providers to whom elements of the public service contracts delivered by RinP are subcontracted. These providers will typically either deliver end-to-end services in a particular geographical area or specific elements of RinP’s service. RinP completes full due diligence checks before appointing sub-contractors and monitors performance throughout the contract.

RinP may on occasion utilise specialist call-off provision to complement its in-house delivery.

Those individuals and organisations which provide RinP with the goods and services needed to operate, such as stationery and IT equipment.

Policies and due diligence processes for preventing slavery and human trafficking

Reed is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in its supply chains or in any part of its business. Reed’s Modern Slavery Policy reflects this commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all its business relationships. It also reflects the commitment to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in Reed’s supply chains. The policy implements processes to identify, monitor and mitigate risk areas, as well as encouraging reporting and protecting whistleblowers.

These processes are implemented and monitored by individuals working in Reed’s Compliance, Legal and Human Resources teams.

Certifications

RSR holds a Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) licence. In order to hold a licence RSR must meet the GLAA licensing requirements which cover health and safety, accommodation, pay, transport and training.

In 2023 RinP, RSR and ROL were also accredited with the Inclusive Employers Standard. This evidence-based accreditation measures the inclusion and diversity activity within an organisation against six pillars. One pillar in particular focuses on empowering people from under-represented groups.

Training

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in its supply chains, Reed has included a training module on modern slavery and human trafficking, completion of which has been made mandatory for all appropriate employees, including all supply chain management across the Group.

In 2023 this training was reviewed and tailored to include Reed specific procedures and RinP has introduced a Co-member Safeguarding booklet which includes a reference guide for modern slavery. This guide helps co-members to identify how they should respond if they have participants with whom they have safeguarding concerns, which includes modern slavery. This should aid the detection of modern slavery impacting our programme participants.

Effectiveness in combating slavery and human trafficking

Reed keeps its policies and processes under frequent review to ensure compliance with the law and best practice. Each principal subsidiary of Reed has an audit schedule in place to ensure that its effectiveness in eliminating slavery and human trafficking is regularly and consistently tested with escalation routes clearly identified. Since the last statement this audit schedule has continued to operate effectively. In particular, RSR has completed several checks against its temporary work force that focus on identifying common signs of active modern slavery. Any anomalies are investigated and reported where necessary.

ROL has also increased verification checks of clients before on-boarding. This is to help reduce the risk of people accessing the job seeker data with malicious intent.

Furthermore, RinP has implemented a new high risk and vulnerable person risk assessment which provides opportunity for participants at risk to be highlighted and addressed. This allows for a systematic risk assessment of vulnerable participants which increases the likelihood of modern slavery issues being identified.

In FY23 RinP’s safeguarding reporting system, which includes modern slavery, helped to identify a participant that was subject to modern slavery. This ultimately resulted, from the evidence we provided, in the organisation involved being prosecuted.

As a Group, Reed has also continued to develop a risk framework which includes monitoring and evaluating modern slavery as a risk across the Reed Group.

In 2023, Reed engaged with a third party to review its maturity in the environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) space and also to support the development and implementation of an effective ESG strategy. This strategy has a focus on improving people’s lives and helping communities prosper, whilst being underpinned by Reed’s approach of working with principles and purpose.

Both the risk framework and ESG strategy engages at subsidiary level and Group level, ensuring risks are considered and monitored by relevant stakeholders throughout the Reed Group.

Modern slavery prevention aims

Reed will:

  1. continue to improve training and awareness by developing and tailoring eLearn and other educational content.

  2. continue to develop and manage the Group risk framework which includes monitoring and evaluating modern slavery as a risk across Reed.

  3. develop and monitor the effectiveness of the ESG strategy which includes the goal of helping communities prosper, including those most at risk.

  4. conduct regular audits of high-risk areas, with periodic reviews to ensure effectiveness at identifying, monitoring and combating modern slavery risk.

Any concerns about this statement or modern slavery can be raised with Reed by emailing: compliance.escalations@reed.com

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes the Reed Group’s modern slavery statement for the financial year ending in 2023. This statement has been agreed by the Reed Global Limited Board of Directors on 15 December 2023 and signed on its behalf by a Lewis Crowther, an executive member of the Board.