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Modern Slavery Act

This statement sets out V4 UK Holding Limited’s actions and commitments to understand potential modern slavery risks related to its business and to put in place steps, aimed at ensuring there is no slavery or human trafficking either within its own business or supply chain. 

The below sets out practices in place and any committed actions set for 2023.

About

V4 UK Holdings Limited is the ultimate parent company of Bloom Procurement Services Limited and V4 Services Limited both of which operate primarily in the UK public procurement sector. The Group employs 107 people based in the UK.

V4 Services provides business consultancy across a broad range of sectors and
categories including leisure, health and social care, business, and procurement.
To find out more about the nature of our business please click
https://bloom.services/about-us/ and https://www.v4services.com/

Bloom offers a dynamic supply chain providing the public sector with a marketplace to buy and manage professional, consultancy and specialist services. To deliver an end-to-end procurement service to public sector clients, Bloom works with a broad range of accredited suppliers of outcome based professional services covering twenty key service sectors and over three hundred service subcategories.

Bloom provides a compliant managed procurement service covering specification
development, supplier identification & onboarding, commercial management and
lessons learned upon successful delivery of outcomes. To find out more about the
nature of our business please click https://bloom.services/

Anti-Modern Slavery Statement

V4 UK Holdings Limited is committed to preventing acts of modern slavery and human trafficking from occurring within its business and supply chain and imposes the same high standards on its suppliers. We do not tolerate modern slavery within our operations or within our supply chain. We ensure everyone who works for us is respected and we expect the same of anyone we do business with.

Our people take our commitment seriously and this is underpinned by our trademark behaviours:

  • We will be curious – We ask ourselves is there a better way and use mistakes to learn and improve.
  • We work together – We make time to understand the people we work with. We take responsibility for our actions and consider the impact on others.
  • We will be real and true – We support each other. We do what we say we will do, and we treat people with respect.

Our supply chain and review over the last year

Before onboarding a supplier to our supply chain, Bloom ensures all potential suppliers complete our accreditation process. Our suppliers are required to selfcertify and provide relevant documentation upon request.

We have a zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. As part of our efforts to monitor and reduce the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring within our supply chain, we have adopted procedures in our supplier accreditation and project delivery processes and actively seek assurance that suppliers adhere to the same high standards as our organisation.

Our procedures are designed to:

  • establish and assess areas of potential risk in our business and supply chain • monitor potential risk areas in our business and supply chain
  • reduce the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our business and supply chain
  • provide adequate protection for whistleblowers.

We have been working with employees, clients and other stakeholders to assist with a review of our due diligence procedures. We are also collaborating with an academic partner to undertake a comparative study into best practice in supply chain due diligence in the UK professional services sector. As a result, we aim to strengthen our accreditation process and encourage our supply chain to better combat Modern Day Slavery.

We have been investigating business developments which will indirectly support the Group’s compliance with the Modern Slavery Act. In the past 12 months we have achieved Real Living Wage accredited employer certification and introduced a Supplier Code of Conduct, where we expect suppliers to uphold the following:

  • No forced or involuntary employment
  • Safe and clean working environments
  • No child labour or exploitation
  • Payment of the real living wage
  • No excessive working hours
  • Zero discrimination
  • No harsh or inhumane treatment

To meet these expectations, suppliers must fully understand their business operations and those of their supply chain.

We have continued to, where appropriate, incorporate contractual obligations within our contracts which entitle us to terminate the relevant contract in the event of a prohibited act or non-compliance with the Modern Slavery Act.

Policies

As part of our commitment to combating modern slavery, we have implemented the following policies:

  • Corporate Responsibility Policy – we are committed to ensuring the Group acts in a responsible manner towards the wider community.

  • Equality and Diversity Policy – inequality increases workers’ vulnerability to becoming victims of slavery and human trafficking. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity. It is the Group’s policy to ensure no employee or potential employee shall be disadvantaged or receive less favourable treatment.

  • Recruitment and Selection Policy – we operate a robust recruitment policy, including eligibility of right to live and work in the UK for all employees to safeguard against human trafficking or individuals being forced to work against their will.

  • Whistleblowing Policy – our whistleblowing policy ensures that all employees know they can raise concerns about how colleagues are being treated or practices within our business, without fear of reprisal.

  • Health and Safety Policy – this policy sets out our approach to ensure we provide a healthy working environment for our staff and contractors who work out of our premises.

These policies have been developed by the Group’s People function in conjunction with directors and senior managers before being implemented across the business with all colleagues.

Risk and compliance

The Group regularly evaluates the nature and extent of its exposure to the risk of modern slavery occurring in its supply chain. We do not consider that we operate in any sector that has a high risk of falling foul of the anti-slavery and human trafficking guidance because:

  • we only operate in the UK which has robust protection against human rights abuses

  • we only assist in the procurement of outcomes based professional services to public sector clients from accredited professional suppliers

  • we do not function as a recruitment agent, facilitate contingent labour or procure the supply of labour

We ensure all our suppliers either adhere to our anti-slavery statement or seek assurance that they have in force a similar statement or policy of their own. We will enforce compliance and will not tolerate slavery and human trafficking within our supply chain.

Training

We regularly review our training tools to ensure they are up to date. We have further measures in place to ensure that our colleagues have completed their annual training in a timely fashion and benefitted from the training provided.

Next Steps

We express our commitment to better understand our supply chain and work towards greater transparency and responsibility towards people working in them.

We will continue to review our organisation and our supply chain to ensure that to the best of our knowledge slavery and human trafficking is not taking place within our Group and suppliers.

In the next twelve months we aim to complete the GOV.UK Modern Slavery
Assessment Tool (MSAT) and make our response visible to our customers.

We will renew our due diligence processes and procedures in our supply chain to protect against slavery, money laundering, child labour, terrorist activities and other forms of human trafficking.

We will begin to track and monitor the number of suppliers that have viewed and signed up to our supplier code of conduct.

We will continue to support publicly funded organisations to find local SMEs which may lead to improving economic prosperity within the communities we work with.

This statement is made in accordance with section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes the Group's slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year commencing 1 st January 2022. This statement was approved by the Board on 29nd June 2023.

Adam Jacobs - Director
V4 UK Holdings Limited
Date: 30/6/2023