Corporate report

Department for Education modern slavery statement: 2020 to 2021

Published 25 November 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Applies to England

Ministerial foreword from Baroness Barran

Modern slavery has been described as the greatest human rights issue of our time, and many millions of innocent people have been forced into various forms of modern slavery including here in the UK. It is essential that British taxpayer’s money is not spent on those who exploit vulnerable people, and public procurement has an important role to play in protecting those individuals.

It is vital that the Department for Education (DfE) takes action to identify, mitigate and manage the risks in its commercial activity. First and foremost, our priority is to protect the victims of modern slavery. I am committed to ensuring that DfE does all that it can to eliminate modern slavery in its supply chains.

The Cabinet Office guidance Tackling modern slavery in government supply chains and the Cabinet Office’s Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts really does put commercial procurement at the forefront of making a difference.

This statement sets out the approach DfE has taken during this first year of implementing the Cabinet Office guidance. However, I fully recognise there is always more that can be done, and DfE has set out a number of key performance indicators to improve its performance during the next 12 months. This demonstrates the departmental commitment to continuing to develop its approach to supporting the UK government’s commitment to eradicating modern slavery in its supply chains.

Baroness Barran is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for the School System)

Scope of this statement

Reporting period

In line with government requirements this is the first DfE modern slavery statement, which covers the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

The statement outlines actions taken by DfE during the reporting period. Whilst this includes information regarding DfE’s human resource (HR) processes (Section 1 the primary focus is on the work DfE has undertaken within its supply chain to identify and address modern slavery risks.

In line with the guidance issued to government departments, DfE was afforded some autonomy as to how to implement this policy. On this basis DfE determined that focussing attention on markets and supply chains which are deemed at higher risk of modern slavery would be the priority for this initial reporting period.

DfE made use of the Home Office Modern Slavery Prioritisation Tool to identify risk areas within its commercial activity. Further information on DfE’s approach can be found in Section 3.

DfE arm’s length bodies

While DfE’s arm’s length bodies (ALBs) play an integral role in the delivery of the DfE vision, it is not mandatory for them to be included in DfE’s modern slavery statements.

Following consultation with all DfE ALBs it was agreed that they would not be included in this inaugural statement for the following reasons:

• some of our larger ALBs are considering publishing their own modern slavery statement. This includes the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB), Social Work England, LocatED, Ofqual and Ofsted
• on completion of the Home Office’s Modern Slavery Prioritisation Tool, the risk of modern slavery within their supply chain was deemed low. This was primarily due to their contracts mainly consisting of recruitment of professionals (for example lawyers) or being sourced from frameworks with a relatively small supply chain

DfE has supported ALBs through its training and awareness programme. More details can be found in Section 4.

Further information on DfE agencies and public bodies is available on GOV.UK.

Section 1: Organisation structure and supply chains

What DfE does

The Department for Education is a ministerial department, supported by 17 agencies and public bodies. DfE is responsible for children’s services and education, including early years, schools, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships, and wider skills in England.

During the 2020 to 2021 financial year DfE spend was £103 billion.

Further information can be found on the DfE section of GOV.UK.

Organisation facts and figures

DfE monthly workforce management information for the period 2020 to 2021 is available on GOV.UK.

DfE’s staff are based in the ministerial office in London and in several other locations around England, including Darlington, Coventry, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Manchester.

Vision and mission

Core to DfE’s vision is supporting every individual to realise their potential. DfE enables children and learners to thrive by protecting the vulnerable and ensuring the delivery of excellent standards of education, training and care. This helps realise everyone’s potential which powers our economy, strengthens society, and increases fairness.

As Britain starts to recover from coronavirus (COVID-19), it is recognised that education is a key enabler to achieve this and DfE is focussed on the following 4 strategic outcomes:

1. Drive economic growth through improving the skills pipeline, levelling up productivity and supporting people to work (cross-cutting outcome with other government departments).

2. Level up education standards so that children and young people in every part of the country are prepared with the knowledge, skills, and qualifications they need.

3. Support the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people through high-quality local services so that no one is left behind (cross-cutting outcome with other government departments).

4. Provide the best start in life through high-quality early education and childcare to raise standards and help parents to work (cross-cutting outcome).

The DfE Outcome Delivery Plan (ODP) sets out in detail not only how it will deliver these priorities but also how it will monitor and measure its success. In addition, the ODP outlines how DfE will ensure continuous improvement in all that it does.

To support achievement of strategic priorities, DfE works with a range of third-party suppliers. During the financial year 2020 to 2021, £15.6 billion of the total DfE spend went to these organisations via either contracts or grant agreements.

Modern slavery

As outlined in the government modern slavery statement^{[footnote 1]}, modern slavery has no place in a decent and moral society and DfE is fully committed to eradicating this.

In line with the Civil Service management code, DfE’s own internal HR processes are robust. However, DfE recognises that this alone will not address the problem. With such a diverse supply chain, DfE is also proactively working with its suppliers to identify and mitigate against the risks of modern slavery.

DfE has taken, and continues to implement, a series of measures to ensure that UK taxpayer’s money for which it is responsible does not help, inadvertently encourage or enable, those responsible for modern slavery to thrive. DfE’s practises seek to identify and remove such behaviours.

Key roles and functions in DfE which support tackling the risk of modern slavery

Permanent Secretary

The DfE Permanent Secretary Susan Acland-Hood is accountable for DfE’s spending decisions and providing assurances that DfE has taken the necessary action to prevent modern slavery throughout its supply chain. In addition, the Permanent Secretary is responsible for approving DfE’s modern slavery statement and appointing an anti-slavery advocate to ensure DfE meets its goals.

Detail on how DfE is working towards achieving these goals is set out in Section 5. .

Anti-slavery advocate

The DfE Commercial Director Claire Benham is the DfE Anti-Slavery Advocate and is responsible for DfE’s commercial function. The Commercial Director plays an important role in supporting DfE to achieve its strategic priorities, including identifying and mitigating risks of modern slavery in its supply chains.

The anti-slavery advocate role includes ensuring that all commercial staff are aware and trained to identify and take action to address modern slavery risks when they become apparent. They will ensure that a meaningful and transparent modern slavery statement that will stand up to public scrutiny is produced annually. They will also act as an escalation point for the reporting of risks and issues. Any reports/allegations of modern slavery risks will be brought to their attention. The escalation process can be found at Annex A.

Commercial policy lead

The DfE Commercial Policy team is responsible for developing and supporting implementation of government and departmental commercial policies. A lead has been appointed within the team to ensure all relevant action is communicated and co-ordinated within DfE to tackle modern slavery risks within its supply chains. They are a member of the Cross Government Modern Slavery and Procurement Implementation Group. This group meets regularly to consult on the government’s strategy and policies to address modern slavery risks in government supply chains.

DfE has established an internal working group which consists of representatives from each of DfE’s 7 commercial delivery teams. These representatives act as a modern slavery point of contact within their team and are responsible for reporting on identification, mitigation, and management of modern slavery risks in their team’s commercial portfolio. The commercial policy lead engages with this group on a regular basis to provide policy guidance, updates and support.

Key functions

Human resources (HR)

The terms and conditions of service for government departments and agencies are set out in the Civil Service Management Code.

The Civil Service Human Resources function provides model policies and guidance on topics including fixed-term appointments, agency workers, and employee relations, which DfE adjusts to reflect its specific needs. Any adjustments are done in consultation with trade unions, senior leadership team and employee networks.

To manage the risk of exploitation of directly employed staff, the government has a system of rigorous employment checks. Due to DfE’s comprehensive policies and processes for employing staff, it considers the risk of slavery, including forced labour, to be low in its directly employed workforce.

DfE operates on the following principles.

Providing safe / hygienic working conditions – DfE is committed to providing a safe working environment for all. DfE has a range of policies and procedures in place covering building safety, staff safety and contractors. DfE has specific reporting tools in place to enable people to report an accident or incident should the need arise, and it adheres to current health and safety legislation.

Child labour shall not be used – DfE does not employ anyone under the age of 16. Although occasional placements (usually lasting 2 weeks) for school pupils may be accepted.

Living wages are paid – DfE’s lowest paid salary range is above the living wage. The salary range for internships is also higher than the living wage.

DfE Commercial Directorate

The commercial function has responsibility for oversight of all DfE’s spend with its supply chains and for implementation of the modern slavery policy. The commercial function has 4 distinct teams as set out below, ensuring dedicated commercial support is available throughout DfE. This ensures commercial expertise is focussed where it is needed, including DfE’s core policy areas, capital buildings programme and the provision of commercial support for schools. The commercial operations teams provide support for the delivery arms of commercial.

Table 1 - DfE Commercial Directorate staff, as of 5 April 2021

Delivery area	Number of staff
Commercial delivery team staff	139
Schools commercial	75
Capital commercial	13
Commercial operations	53

Supply chain facts and figures

DfE total spend during 2020 to 2021 was £103 billion, of which £15.6 billion was with third party suppliers for both contracts and grants (grant activity is not in scope of this statement).

DfE buys a very broad range of goods and services.

Examples include (not exhaustive):

• specialist education services such as qualifications, testing and curriculum
• construction and FM services relating to our school building and departmental buildings
• professional services such as consultants, lawyers and research
• technology hardware, software and services

Supplier locations

In line with Home Office guidance, DfE has taken a proportionate, risk-based approach in the identification, mitigation, and management of modern slavery risks in the supply chain.

The data below shows head office locations of DfE’s prime contractors for commercial contracts that were live in the 2020 to 2021 reporting period and have 6 months or more remaining. This information is taken from the details given by suppliers during supplier registration on the DfE e-procurement system Jaggaer.

Table 2 - DfE supplier locations

Head office location	Number of contracts
Australia	2
Ireland	1
United Kingdom	415
United States	6
Total	424

DfE is committed to undertaking further work during the 2021 to 2022 reporting period to map operation locations within our supply chains for commercial activity at medium or high risk of modern slavery. This activity is in recognition that while a head office location may rest in one country, a supplier may operate and deliver services or produce goods across multiple countries, some of which are at higher risk of modern slavery.

Sub-contractor high-risk supply chain locations

While DfE holds data on sub-contractors we have not undertaken detailed analysis of this information during this reporting period. Further work to gather supply chain location maps will commence during the 2021 to 2022 reporting period, with our focus being on those supply chains deemed at medium or high risk of modern slavery.

Section 2: Policies in relation to modern slavery

DfE promotion, implementation and enforcement of Procurement Policy Notice (PPN) 05/19

DfE undertook a number of steps to support promotion and implementation of PPN 05/19.

Detailed guidance was developed for new procurements, existing contracts, special contract terms and the prioritisation tool. These were incorporated into the DfE Commercial Toolkit and made available to commercial staff. This guidance is subject to regular review. It is designed to ensure commercial staff take a proportionate, risk-based approach in the identification, mitigation and management of modern slavery risks in the supply chain. It provides guidance on all stages of the end-to-end procurement process.

DfE ran a programme of modern slavery awareness training for all commercial staff, videos of which are accessible via the commercial learning portal to support new starters and refresher training as and when required.

Several training sessions on the Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT) have also been delivered to DfE’s commercial staff and ALBs by NQC Ltd who host the Supplier Registration Service on their platform on behalf of the Crown Commercial Service. The MSAT can be found on this system. Further detail on MSAT can be found in Section 3.

Modern slavery is a standing agenda item on the bi-monthly Commercial Policy and Assurance briefing calls. These calls provide updates on key commercial policies and are used as a prompt to reinforce use of the commercial toolkit guidance. They also provide an opportunity to ensure new staff are clear on action to take and how to access guidance and tools.

DfE has implemented a dedicated modern slavery Microsoft Teams channel to communicate modern slavery updates to single points of contact (SPOC) within its commercial delivery teams; this includes an ‘ask the community’ function to encourage collaboration amongst delivery teams to share best practice and resolve issues.

DfE has updated the commercial Procurement Risk Assessment Tool to support early identification of modern slavery risks in new procurements.

DfE has delivered awareness sessions to senior commercial leaders to reinforce essential activity required within their teams and the need to take affirmative action to tackle the risk of modern slavery within DfE’s supply chains.

DfE’s Commercial Policy team are working with the DfE Commercial Assurance team to agree how they will monitor ongoing implementation of this policy as part of their commercial compliance programme.

The anti-slavery advocate has implemented modern slavery specific objectives as part of commercial performance objectives for all staff in DfE’s core commercial, schools commercial and capital commercial.

The DfE business case template has been strengthened to identify projects and procurements where modern slavery is a potential risk area. More detail can be found in Section 3.

Section 3: Risk assessment and due diligence

DfE’s approach to prioritising anti-slavery activity.

Risk based approach

The Cabinet Office guidance Tackling Modern Slavery In Government Supply Chains – A Guide for Commercial and Procurement Professionals (PDF, 8.2MB) gives departments some autonomy around the application of this guidance.

Resources have been significantly impacted by COVID-19 with staff redeployed to work on urgent education sector contracts and seconded to other departments to provide wider government support. The DfE are also mindful of the burden COVID-19 has had on some of its suppliers, alongside the asks from government departments on social value and modern slavery. DfE has therefore modified the outlined approach to some extent initially and will strengthen activity going forward into year 2 and beyond.

When considering DfE’s approach to identifying, mitigating, and managing modern slavery risks it was determined that within the first year, efforts were best focused on areas within DfE where it believed it would have the greatest impact.

DfE’s approach in identifying where this initial focus would be is set out below.

Existing contracts

For existing contracts, DfE identified markets inherently at higher risk of modern slavery, for example, information technology, corporate services (including facilities management), capital (construction), capital direct contracts to schools (which includes contracts for the provision of furniture, heating installation and maintenance) and professional services.

Further analysis of DfE’s commercial portfolio was undertaken to then identify contracts potentially in-scope for this first year. This enabled DfE to determine that any contracts valued above £10 million with a remaining contract term over 6-months would be subject to a modern slavery risk assessment.

On completion of this risk assessment, those contracts deemed at medium or high risk of modern slavery would be subject to the mitigation and management activity outlined in the PPN.

DfE is committed to extending the scope of this activity in year 2021 to 2022 to any existing contracts valued over £5 million and assessed at medium or high risk of modern slavery.

New procurements

A prioritisation tool was designed to support government departments to undertake a light touch modern slavery risk assessment of their contracts. It aims to help to determine which suppliers to invite to complete the MSAT and conduct other modern slavery due diligence measures. It determines the risks of modern slavery based on consideration of several factors including industry type, supply chain location, operating context (for example presence of cheap migrant labour), and business supply chain model.

The Modern Slavery Prioritisation Tool was completed for all new procurements above Public Contract Regulations (PCR) 2015 thresholds (irrespective of whether they were inherently at risk of modern slavery).

If that procurement was then identified as being at medium/high risk of modern slavery, the procurement and subsequent contract was subject to the mitigation and management activity outlined in the DfE commercial guidance (building on PPN 05/19).

Capital

A slightly different approach was adopted within DfE’s Capital function as outlined below.

Around 100 construction contracts are procured annually through the DfE’s construction frameworks by capital delivery programmes. Contract values range from around £2 million to over £40 million.

DfE’s Capital function is one of the largest construction sector clients in the country with spend of £2.1 billion in 2019 to 2020^{[footnote 2]} through its free schools and Priority School Building Programmes.

DfE’s Capital function procures construction frameworks to provide strategic capability and capacity to deliver its education building programmes and around 35 suppliers (including a number of SMEs) on the framework are actively involved in the delivery of school building projects.

All in scope construction activity is subject to mitigation and management activity without completion of the prioritisation tool as the construction industry is recognised as a sector which is high risk. This sector is vulnerable to modern slavery largely due to its high demand for low-skilled, manual, low-waged and casual working practices, which has been identified as more likely to be subjected to forced labour. The nature of construction industry procurement practice is based around third party supply chains where there is not always visibility of employment standards and staff protection. It should also be noted that there is a high volume of international labour/migrant workers where different employment laws may not reflect the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.

To mitigate against the risk of modern slavery on DfE school building projects, it promoted modern slavery compliance to all framework suppliers. DfE has regular dialogue on its expectations that suppliers will support this policy and comply with the Modern Slavery Act. DfE promotes the Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) construction protocol to its framework suppliers and monitor signatories and have also provided information available from the Construction Industry Training Board. DfE has initially prioritised the use of MSAT with its largest suppliers and meetings have been held to plan activities associated with MSAT findings.

As part of the procurement of new construction frameworks, bidders are required to meet modern slavery requirements and provide information on the prevention of modern slavery. DfE has also included framework agreement clauses around modern slavery that will enable it to include MSAT (or other equivalent audit tool) in KPIs through the duration of the framework.

Findings from risk assessment

DfE completed analysis to determine how it would implement action to identify, mitigate and manage modern slavery in its commercial activity. It identified that a large proportion of its commercial activity has low risk of modern slavery due to the nature of goods and services purchased, for example:

• specialists to deliver digital development or technology services with no element off-shored outside the European Economic Area (EEA)
• professional services where contractors work for the main supplier and have been subject to immigration status checks
• services in some categories are predominantly delivered via grant funding agreements, (which are out of scope), with any contracted services at low risk of modern slavery
• contracted services with UK based charities/not for profit organisations to provide support services to children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and are at low risk of modern slavery
• although the Public Sector Recruitment framework (used for bringing in people resources) may include some of the higher risk staff categories such as cleaners, DfE does not use the framework for high-risk staff categories. All contingent labour from this framework must pass a basic legal check when they are registered as a candidate, and a Baseline Personnel Security Standard check (including rights to work in the UK) is mandatory as part of the contractual requirement before DfE can onboard a worker. These measures mitigate risks and therefore temporary workers recruited via this framework are deemed at low risk of modern slavery

Following the process outlined above, the number of contracts deemed in scope for this reporting period (above £10 million with over 6 months remaining term at medium or high risk of modern slavery) are listed in table 3.

Table 3 - Number of contracts deemed in scope for 2020 to 2021 reporting period

Category area	Contracts in scope
Capital	52*
Direct contracts to schools	2
Operations - Corporate services	2
Operations - ICT	3

*Note - within capital there are 52 contracts split across 12 suppliers.

Modern Slavery Assessment Tool

The MSAT is a modern slavery risk identification and management tool. This tool has been designed to help public sector organisations work in partnership with suppliers to improve protections and reduce the risk of exploitation of workers in their supply chains. It also aims to help public sector organisations understand where there may be risks of modern slavery in the supply chains for their contracts. Further detail on the modern slavery assessment tool (MSAT) is available.

MSAT is completed by suppliers and shared with commercial staff to determine the level of risk within their organisation and supply chain.

Table 4 shows the MSAT completion for the contracts in scope at table 3.

Table 4 - Number of MSAT completions

Category area	MSATs completed
Capital*	4
Direct contracts to schools	1 pending
Operations - Corporate services	1
Operations - ICT	3

At the time of writing, 4 of the 12 Capital suppliers had completed the MSAT. However, the 12 suppliers associated with the 52 construction contracts in scope have confirmed that they are compliant with Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act This requires companies with an annual turnover above £36 million, and carrying out a business, or part of a business in the UK, to develop a modern slavery statement, also known as a ‘Transparency in Supply Chains (TISC)’ statement.

General trends from MSAT

Findings from the MSATs completed in this reporting period are set out below. Given that this is the first reporting year there is insufficient data to determine MSAT trends to date. However, DfE will monitor this evolving picture and will continue to collect and analyse data in year 2. This will enable DfE to establish if there are any trends or areas of good practice that can be adopted from other government departments who share DfE’s supply base.

Table 5 - findings for the MSAT completed in this reporting period

Category area	MSAT risk area
	Governance	Policies and procedures	Risk assessment	KPI’s	Due diligence	Training
Capital
Capital supplier 1	Green	Yellow	Green	Green	Orange	Yellow
Capital supplier 2	Green	Green	Green	Yellow	Green	Green
Capital supplier 3	Green	Yellow	Yellow	Green	Yellow	Green
Capital supplier 4	Green	Green	Green	Red	Orange	Yellow
Operations - Corporate services	Orange	Green	Green	Red	Green	Green
Operations - ICT
Contract 1	Green	Yellow	Green	Green	Yellow	Yellow
Contract 2	Green	Yellow	Red	Red	Red	Red
Contract 3	Green	Green	Orange	Green	Green	Green

Scores are red, amber, green rated, dependent on the percentage score achieved:

• 70-100% = green
• 40-69% = orange
• 20-39% = yellow
• 0-19% = red

MSAT next steps

DfE will continue to build understanding of MSAT findings and update guidance, internal processes and focus with its supply chain accordingly. However, in the short term DfE will concentrate on addressing the recommendations that have already been identified following completion of the MSATs to date.

The most common MSAT recommendations identified to date are:

• consider modern slavery during each stage of its procurement process
• consider undertaking activity that helps workers in your supply chains have access to representation
• consider carrying out due diligence measures to ensure workers in your organisation and supply chain are not trapped in debt bondage
• ensure that your latest statement includes information on if key performance indicators are used to measure progress in tackling modern slavery
• assess purchasing practices and how this could potentially put pressure on the supply chain, leading to modern slavery

Commercial delivery teams are required to include modern slavery as a standing agenda item for all contract management meetings with suppliers of contracts at medium or high risk of modern slavery. They should ensure regular discussions take place regarding MSAT recommendations, actions undertaken, and mitigate and manage ongoing risks.

Meetings with capital suppliers have been held to plan activities associated with MSAT findings.

Additional due diligence

DfE has worked with suppliers of existing contacts delivering IT equipment, for example laptops, tablets, routers etc that will have had some components and elements of the build taken place in or around China. This was to establish links with Xinjiang. None of the 4 suppliers have identified supply chain links to Xinjiang and all suppliers have confirmed they have taken proactive steps to ensure there are no modern slavery risks within their supply chains and they continue to monitor. DfE will continue to review MSAT results and ongoing discussions with these suppliers to monitor this situation.

Plans to strengthen risk assessment process in DfE

DfE is keen that consideration of any risks of modern slavery begins as soon as possible in the commercial process. To manage this, DfE has included a section on modern slavery in its business case ^{[footnote 3]} template which seeks:

• confirmation that the prioritisation tool has been completed for all new procurements in scope of the PCR
• confirmation that the procurement is low, medium, or high risk of modern slavery
• a high-level summary of findings from data and intelligence gathered during early market engagement
• a high-level summary of how modern slavery risks will be managed at all stages of the procurement

DfE is exploring options to embed the prioritisation tool and associated risk rating (high, medium or low) into its e-procurement system with a prompt to support compliance management and support data collection.

Process for monitoring modern slavery risks

DfE will continue to explore opportunities to monitor compliance with this policy and will strengthen assurance activity during the 2021 to 2022 reporting period.

Commercial delivery teams must ensure that the supplier completes their MSAT entry within 3 months of contract commencement and review this annually thereafter. DfE commercial guidance will be updated for the 2021 to 2022 reporting period to ensure that category teams obtain a supply chain map for the goods and services being provided within 3 months of contract commencement.

Social value in procurement policy

In response to PPN06/20 - Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts, a significant investment of commercial policy resource was made to raise awareness across commercial delivery teams and within DfE’s ALBs. The role of Social Value Senior Sponsor is held by one of DfE’s commercial deputy directors. This reinforces the importance of achieving social value in addition to the contracted goods, services and works.

Actions taken to raise awareness include:

• provision of commercial guidance on how social value links with modern slavery policy and consideration of possibilities to use the DfE e-procurement system to support this
• modification of DfE’s Outline Business Case to include the likely assessment of modern slavery risks and opportunities for added social value
• scrutiny of business cases as part of the DfE Commercial Assurance Boards and Joint Assurance Committees
• reporting requirements for social value KPIs for government’s most important contracts by the DfE Contract Management Centre of Excellence

The DfE Commercial Assurance team will undertake social value compliance testing as part of a programme of thematic reviews. This provides assurance to the Commercial Director that DfE is compliant with government policy and taking action to embed social value within its contracts and identify and mitigate the risk of modern slavery in its supply chains.

Responsible purchasing practices

Prompt payment

Government commitments on prompt payment are available on GOV.UK.

DfE aligns with the government commitment to pay 90% of undisputed and valid invoices from SMEs within 5 days and 100% of all undisputed and valid invoices within 30 days.

Data on how long DfE, its executive agencies and other ALBs take to pay invoices is also available.

DfE aligns with the PPN 07/20 around a bidder’s approach to payment in the procurement of major contracts. Standard selection questions have been included and built into the DfE e-procurement system. In addition, terms are included in the model contract terms which require 30-day payment terms through supply chains.

For the DfE Construction, Mod A, B and C frameworks the department undertook an audit against PPN 02/20 - supplier relief due to coronavirus, to ensure that benefits were being passed down through the supply chain to tier 2 (sub-contracted) suppliers. These suppliers also have data collections in place to measure prompt payment, payment terms and SME spend.

The procurement of the Modern Methods of Construction (MMC1) and 2021 Construction frameworks also required bidders to have achieved prompt payment standards and these will be monitored throughout the duration of the frameworks.

Section 4: Training and awareness raising

There has been a wide-ranging approach to training staff on the new modern slavery policy.

The DfE anti-slavery advocate mandated all staff in commercial delivery roles within Commercial Directorate to complete and pass their annual Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply Ethical Procurement and Supply e-learning test.

Staff have also participated in extensive social value awareness events delivered by Cabinet Office for DfE. They have undertaken social value e-learning, which includes modern slavery within the tackling workforce inequality theme.

Modern slavery awareness sessions were delivered by the commercial policy lead and there has been significant ad hoc support and advice given to delivery team SPOCs. The purpose of this was to raise awareness of modern slavery generally and explain DfE’s approach to identifying and mitigating risks in its supply chains. All sessions post March 2020 were delivered virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.

NQC Ltd delivered several MSAT training sessions, and the DfE will continue to utilise this offer if necessary, going forward.

DfE has also delivered modern slavery awareness sessions and MSAT training to commercial representatives within ALBs. DfE continues to provide updates and share information on this subject as and when it is appropriate to do so.

Section 5: Goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)

KPIs that DfE will be using for 2021-2022 to monitor effectiveness of their work to tackle modern slavery

DfE has started to take action to identify, mitigate and mange modern slavery risks in its supply chains in year 1. KPIs have been developed for year 2 based on this initial activity. DfE recognises that there are areas for improvement and that will be reflected in revised KPIs over the next few years as it monitors and reviews performance.

Commercial capability

• KPI 1 - MSAT training will be available to Category Team staff at least once per annum
• KPI 2 - 60% of all Category Team staff will have undertaken the annual CIPS Ethical Procurement and Supply e-Learning (or recommended equivalent) by 31 March 2022

Risk assessment and management

• KPI 3 - The prioritisation tool will be completed for 60% of existing contracts valued at £5 million or more with a 6 month or more remaining term
• KPI 4 - The prioritisation tool will be completed for 70%^{[footnote 3]} of new procurements above the PCR threshold
• KPI 5 - A supply chain map^{[footnote 4]} will be obtained within 3 months^{[footnote 5]} of contract award for new procurements above the PCR threshold at medium or high risk of modern slavery
• KPI 6 - By 31 March 2022^{[footnote 6]} a supply chain map will be obtained for 60% of existing contracts valued at £5 million or more with a 6 month or more remaining term at medium or high risk of modern slavery

Due diligence processes

• KPI 7 – An MSAT entry will exist within 3 months of contract award for 60% of all new procurements above the PCR thresholds and at medium or high risk of modern slavery
• KPI 8 – By 31 March 2022 an MSAT entry will exist for 50% of existing contracts valued at £5 million or more with a 6 month or more remaining term
• KPI 9 – By 31 March 2022 action plans will exist for 50% of MSAT entries to manage red / yellow risks and implement recommendations
• KPI 10 - DfE commits to the government’s prompt payment to pay 90% of undisputed and valid invoices from SMEs within 5 days and 100% of all undisputed and valid invoices within 30 days
• KPI 11 – For the suppliers, payment of sub-contractors in accordance with PPN07/20 - Taking account of a bidder’s approach to payment in the procurement of major contracts Prompt Payment Assessment methodology will be applied to 100% of in-scope procurement exercises (apart from Cabinet Office approved exemptions)

DfE anti-slavery goals

DfE’s goals and progress made are set out below. All outstanding goals will be monitored and completed during the reporting year 2021 to 2022.

	Goal	Progress
1	Appoint an anti-slavery advocate at director level to help oversee activity and increase awareness of action to take	Complete
2	Develop KPIs to help us understand whether the action we are taking is working well and where we need to improve	Complete
3	Review, and where relevant amend, their procurement policies following publication of PPN 05/19.	Complete
4	Begin or continue contract risk assessments to ensure their action plans are targeted.	Prioritisation tools have been completed for new procurements and existing contracts of £10 million or more with a 6 or more months remaining term. Going forward, this will be managed in line with KPI 3
5	Invite all their major suppliers in medium or high-risk areas to complete the MSAT with follow up meetings to help better understand the anti-slavery activity they should be undertaking	Some action has been taken as detailed earlier in the statement. This goal will be managed in line with KPI’s 7, 8 and 9
6	Begin mapping their sub- contractor (tier 2) suppliers for their high-risk supply chains.	This goal will be managed in line with KPI’s 5 and 6
7	Participate in training (to build capacity internally) and cross government working groups to collaborate on common interests	Internal training and awareness sessions have been delivered on modern slavery and the MSAT tool. DfE has commercial toolkit guidance in place and the anti-slavery advocate has mandated completion of the CIPS ethical procurement and supply training. DfE is represented at the anti-slavery advocate cross government working group and the modern slavery policy implementation cross government working group

Annex A - Risk management and escalation process

Due process

Action to be taken to identify, mitigate and manage modern slavery risks.

	Action	Action to be taken by
1	Complete the prioritisation tool to assess risks in commercial activity.	commercial delivery teams
2	Follow the Commercial Toolkit guidance for action to take on commercial activity at medium / high risk of modern slavery.	commercial delivery teams
3	Identify, mitigate and manage risks via MSAT, one-to-one supplier engagement, audits and supplier visits[footnote 7]. Keep a local risk register. Ensure quarterly notification of key risk, themes and trends to commercial policy and anti-slavery advocate.	commercial delivery teams
4	Ensure sign off / awareness of emerging risks and issues.	commercial lead

Incident management activity

Action to be taken in the event that an incidence of modern slavery is found in supply chain for goods / services being delivered.

	Action	Action to be taken by
1	Lead the gathering of intelligence. Develop an action plan with the supplier.	commercial lead
2	Contact the authorities (if appropriate) and work collaboratively to manage the incident through action planning and on-going monitoring.	commercial lead / policy senior responsible owner / supplier
3	Ensure the anti-slavery advocate or nominated deputy is notified of incidence of modern slavery. Ensure the anti-slavery advocate is sited on the action plan and kept updated on on-going monitoring.	commercial lead

This statement has been approved by:

• Baroness Barran, Minister for the School System, on 22 September 2021
• Susan Acland-Hood, Permanent Secretary, on 7 September 2021

1. The statement outlines action taken by the UK government to ensure that taxpayers’ money does not line the pockets of criminals who exploit vulnerable workers. ↩

2. DfE consolidated annual report and accounts 2019–20 ↩

3. The business case provides justification for undertaking a project or programme. It evaluates the benefit, cost and risk of alternative options and provides a rationale for the preferred solution. The business case requires inclusion of a commercial case which covers procurement and commercial arrangements relating to the services or assets required to implement the proposal. ↩ ↩²

4. This excludes capital, no prioritisation tools will be completed as this is a known area of high risk. ↩

5. The supply chain map will be for the goods and services being delivered not the supply chain map for the organisation as a whole. ↩

6. For capital, which has a large volume of contracts and lengthy and complex supply chains, the supply chain map will be subject to development and completion through the life of the project and will not be a complete supply chain map within 3 months of contract award. Further, due to resource constraints, a proportionate approach to supply chain mapping within capital will be taken (for example Tier 1 and Tier 2 only). ↩

7. See footnote 3. ↩