THIS IS A GROUP STATEMENT AND COVERS ALL THE COMPANIES LISTED BELOW FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR ENDING 31.12.2023.

Forced, bonded or compulsory labour, human trafficking and other kinds of slavery and servitude represent some of the gravest forms of human rights abuse in any society and will not be tolerated within our operations or our supply chain.

This is our eighth public statement made pursuant to Section 54, Part 6 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 through which we seek to set out our current approaches and policies, while at the same time begin to demonstrate how we intend to act moving forward and build upon year on year.

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

Parkeray is an established London based construction group that operates in the South of England, focusing primarily on the interior fitting out of commercial offices. Parkeray Limited (8670500) the Parent has three wholly owned trading subsidiary undertakings:

• Parkeray Interiors Limited (Provision of Interior fit-out services – broadly for works above £250k) (3493453)
• Parkeray Lite Limited (Provision of Interior fit-out services- broadly for works up to £250k (11537335)
• Parkeray Trustees Limited (Non-trading) (8670497)

Our 2023 turnover was £130M million delivered across 150 + projects ranging in value from a few thousand up to £13 million; in doing so, Parkeray directly employed 170 staff members. (Year-end closing number)

CURRENT APPROACH AND STEPS UNDERTAKEN IN 2023

We appreciate that Parkeray does not exist in isolation and that pretty much everything we do has a social and environmental impact in some form or another. We care about this and hold ourselves accountable and responsible for our actions. In doing so, we are heavily reliant on our workforce and our supply chain partners.

Our Social Justice Policy underpins everything we do; it is a mandatory requirement which extends to every individual working for or on behalf of Parkeray. It requires all of us to act ethically and comply with legal requirements at all times, putting our principles into practice in everything we do. Such is the culture of the company; we are confident suspected breaches of this policy will be raised and addressed appropriately.

DIRECT EMPLOYEES

The vast majority of our work is undertaken within Central London and to ensure fairness; all of our employees are paid significantly above the London Living wage with our younger employees on training contracts being paid well above the minimum wage for those up to 22 and well above the National Living Wage for those aged 23 and above. Payments are made by bank transfer with no payments made through third-party bank accounts.
All of our employees are required to provide evidence of their eligibility to live and work in the UK.

AGENCY LABOUR

We have a formal agreement with two agencies to provide us with temporary staff as and when required. The agreements are renewed annually with twice yearly reviews. The Agencies are aware of the need to adhere to our Social Justice Policy; a commitment to which is a pre-curser to any continued involvement. The Agencies are required to bear the responsibility for vetting their candidates for their eligibility to work in the UK. Our HR team undertakes spot checks on this vetting process during the year.

OUR SUPPLY CHAIN

Every subcontractor and supplier are made aware of and is required to adhere to our Social Justice Policy.
By its very nature, the construction supply chain is complex and there are often many tiers of suppliers between Parkeray and the source of the raw materials; often with procured services and materials flowing from all parts of the world.

Our commitment to our Social Justice Policy extends downwards through the supply chain. A supplier that we have a direct and contractual arrangement with (a Tier 1 supplier) in turn bears the responsibility for ensuring, as far as is practical, compliance across their direct supply chain (Tier 2 suppliers) and so on.

RISK

Our assessment of risk can be categorised under four headings; directly employed staff, materials directly procured, agency labour and bona-fide subcontractors. Based on a proportion of turnover spend and our assessment of the level of controls currently in place, we have assessed our level of risk and exposure as follows:

TRAINING AND INCREASED AWARENESS

We recognise that human rights can only be realised through an informed and continued demand for their protection, in doing so we understand for us to play a part in this process, we will need to find ways to educate and raise awareness of the problems the world faces with modern slavery and human trafficking.

To that end, during the course of 2022, our staff members all undertook comprehensive training to get a better understanding of modern slavery and human trafficking. The training provided our staff with an awareness of the signs of exploitation and trafficking. The course also taught best practice methods for talking to victims and understating the barriers that prevent victims from trusting and co-operating with the authorities. Following training, there was a better understanding of how victims are trafficked, how to support victims and practical information regarding the National Referral Mechanism. Refresher training will be undertaken during the course of 2024.

We realised that it is important that the training we provide to our employees is targeted to have the best effect; our risk profiling identifies that the strongest need and biggest area of exposure is that of modern slavery within our supply chain. Because of its complex nature, we are looking to continue working with external organisations such as ‘stronger2gether.org’ and as registered members we have access to their website and a monthly newsletter.

Over the course of 2024, we will be meeting with stronger2gether to identify how best we can continue to provide guidance and good practice advice in preventing, uncovering, and reporting slavery and human trafficking, that may be occurring within any part of our business.

In doing so, we are keen to understand, educate and work with our supply chain to avoid those countries and products where slavery is most likely to be most prevalent. www.productsofslavery.org

TARGET SETTING

Moving forward, we intend to utilise our current period of trading to identify planned actions for our staff base and supply chain to increase awareness, transparency and to help to effect change. This is a platform upon which we seek to build upon annually.

This statement was formally approved by Parkeray Limited Board of Directors, in January 2024.

 

Signed:

 

Phil Pearce
Group Board | CEO