Modern Slavery

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement [Updated: 2022]

Alderwood LLA is part of Achieve together.

Achieve together is one of the UK’s leading providers of support for people with learning disabilities, autism, PMLD, deafness, hearing loss and associated complex needs. Our organisation has over 25 years of expertise and our ethos has always been to have the people we support and their families at the heart of our organisation and at the centre of everything we do. Together we are focused on providing a strong foundation to offer the best possible support.

Our team of expert practitioners are proud to deliver high-quality support to over 2,300 people in over 400 care homes and services across England and Wales. We endeavour to be a continuing leader in best practice across the country and ensure that people we support have every opportunity to fulfil their potential. Our goal is to drive quality across the sector and lead by example.

The purpose of this statement is to set out our commitment to the steps already taken, and steps we will continue to take, to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our organisation or supply chain.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires commercial organisations such as ourselves 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 that will be published within six months in accordance with the Act.

Achieve together has zero-tolerance to slavery and human trafficking across its entire business operations. 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 organisation or supply chain.

This statement sets out our commitment to creating and ensuring a non-discriminatory and respectful working environment for all our team members and sets out our associated policies for our supply chain.

We are confident that our existing recruitment and onboarding processes are designed to ensure that all prospective employees are legally entitled to work in the UK and safeguard employees from any abuse, coercion or deprivation of freedom.

Organisational structure and supply chains

This policy applies to Galaxy Bidco Limited and all its subsidiaries including Achieve Together Limited which is the principal trading entity of the Group.

Achieve together have put in place appropriate governance to effectively support this
statement. Our Procurement Policy sets out the process and procedures for effectively managing our supply chain. We have nominated senior professionals responsible for the oversight of our arrangements and associated policies which are sponsored by a member of the Executive Board.

Due to the nature of our business, we assess ourselves to have a low risk of modern slavery in our organisation and supply chains. However, despite this low risk, we are committed to undertaking regular audits and risk assessments, both internally and within our supply chain, to ensure that we promptly mitigate any identified risks or concerns.

Policies and Procedures

We have reviewed and updated a number of our policies and associated processes to ensure they include reference to the duties of the organisation and individual team members and, where applicable, information on the Modern Slavery Act. These policies include:

• Policy Functional Owner
• Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Estates & Procurement
• Anti-Slavery Policy Estates & Procurement
• Use of Contractors Estates & Procurement
• HR Ways of Working People
• HR Compliance & Governance People
• Whistleblowing Quality
• Safeguarding Adults Quality
• Embedding our principles

We will continue to embed the principles of this statement and associated policies through:

• providing awareness and accessibility to this statement and informing our team
  members of the appropriate action to take if they suspect a case of slavery or
  human trafficking
• publicising our statement and policies on internal and external communication
  channels
• include in compliance training and awareness initiatives as appropriate
• ensuring those team members responsible for procurement activity are aware of this statement and associated policies
• ensure procurement strategies and contract terms and conditions include references to modern slavery and human trafficking
• continuing to take action to embed a zero-tolerance policy towards modern
  slavery
• monthly reviews of arrangements by the Executive Team and annual review of our statement and associated policies
• submission of an annual report within six months of the end of the financial year
• undertake an annual review of this statement by the Executive Team

This statement will be published on our website via a prominent link on the homepage.

This statement will be published on the government Modern Slavery Statement Registry.