Response Source noted this week the anti-slavery register TISCreport.org findings of companies’ poor compliance with the Modern Slavery Act, specifically the section which deals with transparency in supply chains.
“The TISCreport team were able to provide an in-depth snapshot of the progress in this first year of operation, using their dynamic data-system to generate a full breakdown of compliance by sector, and, in addition derive a list of known overdue organisations, which has been made available to UK Government Departments.”
The article reports their findings show that at least half of organizations expected to publish statements have not completed them. But the news isn’t all discouraging, as 3,680 organizations have already published statements.
According to TISCreport the business sectors with the best performance are accommodation and food service, as well as agriculture, forestry and fishing, with up to 70% compliance. Sectors with the poorest compliance include education and real estate.
Most disappointing were some of the responses from very wealthy non-compliant businesses, one of whom gave the following answer as their reason: “Problem is I can’t function my business, if I get rid of everything made by slave labour.” Jaya Chakrabarti, CEO of TISCreport, says, “The overall number of overdue non-compliers is a little disappointing after all the hard work done by so many to communicate the MSA requirements and aims. It shows we all have more work to do in helping organisations to understand their obligations, especially those sectors who are not confident in complying.”
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