Modern slavery statement

Financial year end 2023

This statement, made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, sets out the approach taken by Scottish Friendly to understand all potential modern slavery risks related to our business, and the steps taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in our operations and supply chain.

What is modern slavery?

Modern slavery is when someone is forced to illegally work against their will. It is an international crime, affecting around an estimated 30 million slaves around the world. It is a growing global issue that transcends age, gender and ethnicities. It includes victims who have been brought from overseas and vulnerable people in the UK across many different industry and service sectors.

Our business and supply chains

Scottish Friendly is a mutual company, offering investments as well as insurance products and services in the UK. We employ circa 300 colleagues; all are based at our office in Glasgow and work in a hybrid way from this location or their home.

Our supply chain includes the provision of services for administration, information technology, publishing, payroll and premises.

Overview - policies and procedures

Scottish Friendly has a zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. We aim to conduct our business in an ethical and transparent manner.

Our suppliers are primarily UK based providers of professional services. Due to the nature of our business and supplies, as well as our approach to governance, we consider our risk of slavery and human trafficking to be very low. However, we continue to periodically review the effectiveness of the relevant policies and procedures that we have in place.

Our internal policies and procedures are outlined below:

  1. Supply of goods and services - any purchasing activity must adhere to all applicable UK laws and regulations and all applicable European laws, directives and regulations.

  2. Colleagues - processes are in place to ensure that Employment Law is complied with across Scottish Friendly. In addition, potential employees must provide documentation to prove that they can legally work in the UK. We operate a dignity at work procedure so that employees can raise any harassment or bullying concerns. We also operate a whistleblowing policy so that all employees know that they can raise concerns about how colleagues are being treated.

Senior Management have been briefed on the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

This statement is approved by the Board and signed on its behalf by Pam Simmons, Company Secretary.