Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendations.

            Councillor Mullin introduced the Update on the Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains report which followed the adoption of the Welsh Government’s Code of Practice on Ethical Employment in Supply Chains being approved at Cabinet on 19^th June 2018.

            The Chief Officer (Governance) explained that, in adopting the code, the Council committed to undertake 32 actions in order to ensure that there was no unethical employment practice amongst any of its suppliers or contractors.  The commitments included obligations to:

·         Take active steps, such as producing a modern slavery statement;

·         Introduce systems that would uncover and prevent unethical practice such as risk assessing whether any of the Council’s suppliers might engage in unethical employment practices; and

·         Respond if concerns were raised with it e.g. an allegation that a supplier did not pay a fair wage to oversee suppliers.

All active steps had been undertaken to implement the commitments – further work remained to ensure that the systems were implemented and that employees were trained in their existence and use.  In total, 21 of the actions had been completed.

One active step was to approve an annual statement on modern slavery.  The statement described the Council’s actions in seeking to eradicate such unethical practice and a draft of the statement was appended to the report.

In response to a comment, the Chief Officer (Governance) explained that the Procurement Team would provide advice to managers when tender exercises were being undertaken.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the progress in implementing the commitments under the Code of Ethical Practice in Procurement be noted; and

(b)       That the statement on modern slavery be approved.