Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement

Introduction from the Managing Partner

Our values are to be straightforward, confident, partnering and friendly in all that we do, and our response to modern day slavery lives these values out by:

• paying at least the living wage to all of our people;
• acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships; and
• enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our business or supply chains.

In relation to modern day slavery, we have a zero tolerance approach in every aspect of how we do business..

Our structure and business

We are a trusted professional provider of advice, services and products within the financial services sector, owned by its working partners. We are a part of the Hymans Robertson group, with the ultimate parent being Hymans Robertson LLP. Our group has over 900 employees and partners based in the UK and a small number of staff based in the US.  We have an annual turnover of c.£95 million.

We provide actuarial, investment, administration, risk management, technology and consulting services and products.

Given our role in the financial services sector, we believe that there is a low risk of slavery or human trafficking having a connection with our business activities. In particular, we do not rely on agency staff or subcontractors to provide our core services and products.  But there is no room for complacency in that belief, so, amongst other things, we have taken the steps detailed below.

Our policies on slavery and human trafficking

The main policies include:

Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy

The responsibility for preventing modern slavery within our firm starts with a top level commitment from our Management Board, but requires the engagement of our entire workforce to successfully achieve our statistical goal of zero tolerance.  We have therefore implemented an internal Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy to make our workforce aware of their individual obligations within the firm’s anti- slavery framework.

Fair Pay

Hymans Robertson LLP is committed to ensuring that all directly employed and contracted staff receive fair remuneration for the job they perform. We are an employer committed to paying at least the living wage set each year by the Living Wage Foundation.

Whistleblowing

Our firm encourages all its workers, customers and other business partners to report any concerns related to its direct activities or supply chains. This includes any circumstances that may give rise to increased risk of slavery or human trafficking. Our whistleblowing procedure is designed to make it easy for workers to report any concerns or suspicions, without fear of retaliation.

Employee Awareness 

Hymans Robertson’s employee handbook sets out all of our employment policies and principles. It includes our anti-slavery measures.

Recruitment

Most of Hymans Robertson’s workforce is employed directly on a permanent or fixed term basis.  All employees who join us are subject to checks to ensure they are genuine applicants operating as free agents with the required level of propriety. These include verification of identity, references, evidence of qualifications, residency rights, criminal and financial checks.

For the few roles in our business which are filled by contractors or agency workers, we ensure that similar checks to those for employees are carried out.  If using agency, we do this by obtaining written verification from the agency that the checks have been conducted and the outcomes are satisfactory. The agencies themselves will have been subject to our rigorous supplier relationship management process which includes due diligence on their organisation.

Suppliers

We operate a supplier verification and due diligence process. A copy of our anti-slavery statement is made available to our suppliers and we request and review a copy of their statement (where available), as well as undertaking a number of due diligence checks on them. When we are appointing a supplier, there are key areas and questions our process mandates that our staff must consider to ascertain whether there is an additional risk of slavery or human trafficking. These include country, sector, activity, business partnership, complexity, previous offender and pressure and low pay risks.  For suppliers where there is deemed to be an additional risk of slavery or human trafficking, supplementary checks as recommended from our modern slavery risk assessment are completed. These include carrying out a site visit where appropriate. In addition, where we engage suppliers on our own terms, these contracts contain clauses enforcing compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Communication and enforcement of this statement

We communicate updates to this statement and our Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy to our workforce using our internal intranet and ask our workforce to confirm their agreement and understanding to these policies in our annual staff declaration. To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, we require all our supplier relationship managers to complete training on modern slavery as part of our wider supplier contracts training and we monitor our supplier due diligence through our supplier database.

Our Commitment

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our group's statement on the prevention of slavery and human trafficking for the financial year ending 31 March 2020. It has been approved on 11 May 2020 by our Management Board on behalf of our Members, who will review and update it annually.

James Entwisle

Managing Partner and Designated Member
Hymans Robertson LLP
Date: 11 May 2020

Shireen Anisuddin

Managing Partner Elect and Member
Hymans Robertson LLP
Date: 11 May 2020