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Modern Slavery Statement

LCCU Modern Slavery Policy

Introduction

This policy outlines what Leeds Credit Union (LCU) does to understand and minimise the potential risk of modern slavery in its business and supply chains. LCU is committed to the principles of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the abolition of modern slavery and human trafficking.

LCU expects its partnerships, contractors, suppliers, and its staff, falling in scope of this legislation, to be aware of and comply with the requirements of the Act and to read this policy in full.

What is ‘Modern Slavery?

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) brings several different measures together as part of the UK’s efforts to combat modern slavery. The Act aims to create more transparency throughout organisational supply chains to uncover modern slavery abuses and human trafficking.

Modern slavery is a serious and often hidden crime in which people are exploited for criminal gain. The impact can be devastating for the victims. It can take many different forms, including:

Forced labour: victims are forced to work against their will, often working very long hours for little or no pay in dire conditions under verbal or physical threats of violence.

Debt bondage: victims are forced to work to pay off debts that realistically they never will be able to.

Sexual exploitation: victims are forced to perform non-consensual or abusive sexual acts against their will, such as prostitution, escort work and pornography. Adults are coerced often under the threat of force, or another penalty.

Criminal exploitation: often controlled and maltreated, victims are forced into crimes such as cannabis cultivation or pick pocketing against their will.

Domestic servitude: victims are forced to carry out housework and domestic chores in private households with little or no pay, restricted movement, very limited or no free time and minimal privacy often sleeping where they work.

Child trafficking: young people (under 18) are moved internationally or domestically so they can be exploited.

Organ harvesting: where persons are trafficked in order to sell their body parts and organs for transplants – includes eggs, kidneys and eyes.

Our Commitment

We want to ensure that staff at LCU are able to recognise and call out modern slavery and that we do everything we can to ensure modern slavery is not occurring within our business or supply chains. This will be done through training and development and open communications.

This Policy commits LCU to support the operational response to modern slavery and collaborate with our partners and suppliers to ensure we are tackling modern slavery together.

Due to the nature of our work, we assess ourselves to have a low risk of modern slavery in our business and supply chains. Our supply chains are limited, and we procure goods and services from a restricted range of UK suppliers using a recognised tender process.

We have taken the following steps to counter the risk of modern slavery:

We regularly review this policy and related policies.

We have Whistleblowing Process which staff can use to anonymously report breaches of laws, including breaches relating to modern slavery and human trafficking.

We operate a robust recruitment process which includes appropriate immigration checks for all employees to safeguard against human trafficking or individuals being forced to work against their will.

Our employees are all paid at or above minimum wage rates. For outsourced work, our process for selecting third party vendors includes due diligence checks for potential forced labour or other relevant ethical concerns.

END