Introduction from the Managing Director

Slavery and human trafficking remains a hidden blight on our global society. We all have a responsibly to be alert to the risks, however small, in our business and in the wider supply chain. Staff are expected to report concerns and management are expected to act upon them.

Organisation’s structure

We are a strategic communications agency. WPS Comms Limited is the parent company of a wholly owned subsidiary, Walden Page Ballard Limited. The group has its head office in the UK and the trading business address is in the UK. The group has an annual turnover in excess of £400,000.

Our business

Our business delivers ideas and advice for Financial Services organisations and produces content such as written articles, film, print, exhibition events and advertising for use internationally and in the U.K.

Our supply chain

Our supply chains include high end print production, film animation, and website build and maintenance.

Our policies on slavery and human trafficking

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Our Anti-slavery Policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.

Due diligence processes for slavery and human trafficking

As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk:
– We employ only U.K. graduates with clear evidence of their educational history;
– We limit the geographical scope of our employment to current U.K. residents;

We build long standing relationships with local suppliers and ensure we know (as well as we possibly and reasonably can) their businesses and make clear our expectations of business behaviour;

With regards to national or international supply chains, our point of contact is always with a UK company or branch and we expect these entities to have suitable anti-slavery and human trafficking policies and processes. We expect each entity in any value chain to, at least, adopt ‘one-up’ due diligence on the next link in the chain.

We have in place systems to encourage the reporting of concerns and the protection of whistle blowers.

Supplier adherence tour values

We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. We expect all those in our supply chain and contractors comply with our values.

Training

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, we provide training wherever appropriate to relevant members of staff. All Directors have been briefed on the subject.

The Right to be forgotten

You have the right to request your data be removed from our database systems if you feel it is no longer necessary for us to hold the data.

Our effectiveness in combating slavery and human trafficking

We use the following key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how effective we have been to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any part of our business or supply chains:

Management audit;
– Use of labour monitoring and payroll systems; and
– Level of communication and personal contact with next link in the supply chain and their understanding of, and compliance with, our expectations.

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our group’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the current financial year