Section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires any organisation operating in any sector, which supplies goods and services, and carries on a business or part of a business in the UK, with an annual turnover of £36 million or more, to publish an annual slavery and human trafficking statement. This statement constitutes Writtle group’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the group’s financial year ending 31 December 2019.

Writtle is a UK-centred marketing services group with an international client base.  The group directly employs over 600 people across 13 operating companies in the UK, USA and Hong Kong.

We do not tolerate any form of slavery or human trafficking in any part of our business or in our supply chain and we will never knowingly deal with any organisation which is connected to slavery or human trafficking.

Given the location of our business and supply chain, and the nature of the goods and services that we provide, we consider that we are at a very low risk of exposure to slavery and human trafficking.  We are not aware of any areas of our operations and supply chain likely to lead to a breach of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.  We will continue to monitor any new risk areas in our supply chains across the Group, mitigate any risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring, and protect whistle blowers.

In the financial year ending 31 December 2018, we updated our group wide supplier contracts to include anti-modern slavery and human trafficking provisions, ensuring that our suppliers comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and are required to report any suspected slavery or human trafficking in a supply chain. In the financial year ending 31 December 2019, we provided training to personnel involved in procurement and within finance, compliance and risk obligations across our Group. In the financial year ending 31 December 2020, we aim to adopt a standalone anti-slavery and human trafficking policy.