Code of Conduct

All of our suppliers and sub-contractors are required to follow our Code of Conduct and Supplier Charter, which are based on the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code and international labour laws.

We seek to work with companies who share our principles and work according to our policies on health and safety, ethics and environment standards and who are prepared to commit themselves to meeting the requirements of these codes. We are committed to working with suppliers to support necessary improvements, however we will also take action if suppliers and sub-contractors do not meet our standards. Harlow Barrington Builder Ltd reviews compliance by carrying out risk assessments, periodic review meetings and comprehensive audits where there is higher risk. We will report any serious violations and actions taken in our annual report.

Harlow Barrington Builder Ltd is committed to ensuring our business policies, procedures, requests and contracts do not place unnecessary demands on a supplier, which may lead them to violate their obligations. This could include late payment, low payment, and high pressure delivery demands. Suppliers and sub-contractors are required to maintain their own ethical sourcing policies and apply these standards to their own business, across all of their workers, suppliers and any sub-contractors engaged in their supply chain. They are also required to provide evidence of their own policies and compliance as appropriate and provide the means for workers to report or discuss non-compliances confidentially. In 2017 we revised standard terms and conditions and inserted relevant clauses for direct, temporary and agency contracts, construction materials suppliers and sub-contractors.

Assessing the risk of modern slavery:

Based on our annual risk assessment, we believe that Harlow Barrington Builders LTD has a low overall risk of modern slavery in both our own operations and in our immediate supply chain. However, we are pro-active in ensuring we are making our workforce, sub-contractors and suppliers aware of the potential risks.

We have reviewed our exposure to risk of modern slavery across all aspects of our business and focusING on the following areas: Direct, temporary and agency employment practices, Sub-contractors and Materials suppliers.

Direct temporary and agency employment practices:

All of our direct employees are, as an absolute minimum, paid in accordance with the UK living wage, or London Living Wage. We require all agency providers to be able to satisfy us that staff all have written employment contracts, have not had to pay for the opportunity to work, and are legally able to work within the UK.

Sub-contractors:

We have informed all of our sub-contractors of our requirements regarding modern slavery, and continue to provide information on the Act and its requirements on our website..

Materials suppliers:

All construction material suppliers have been informed of our requirements in relation to ethical sourcing, and the requirements of the Act were reiterated at our national supplier conference and within workshops with our local buying teams. Risk assessment criteria are based on where the materials are manufactured and the value of the business conducted with the supplier.