In this section
About us
At B3Living we believe safe, warm and affordable housing is essential for us all. Since 2006 we have been delivering better homes, communities and business through over 5,500 homes and 180 colleagues. We work hard as a team to maintain our existing homes, and we want to make a difference to people’s lives by building new ones.
Our mission statement is:
“To make a positive, sustainable change to housing provision for our customers and communities”.
B3Living is an exempt charity, and is a registered provider of social housing with the Regulator of Social Housing under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Company No: 29876R), principally involved in the development and management of affordable housing, B3Living is a part of a group of companies that includes B3Living Development Ltd and Everlea Homes Ltd.
Our commitment
B3Living fully supports the principle aims of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (‘the Act’) and is committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our own operations and supply chains. The B3Living Board has overall responsibility for ensuring that this policy complies with B3Living’s legal and ethical obligations and that all those staff and third parties under its control comply with it.
This statement sets out the steps we have taken to target modern slavery for the financial year ending 31 March 2024. We will continue to examine the effectiveness of our approach, to ensure continuous improvement as part of our ongoing commitment to keep slavery and human trafficking out of our business and our supply chains.
We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our UK business operations or in any of our extended supply chains.
We are also committed to ensuring there is transparency in our business and our approach to tackling modern slavery throughout its supply chain. Consistent with our disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we expect the same high standards from all of its suppliers, contractors and other third parties. We also expect our suppliers to hold their own suppliers to the same standards as set out in this statement.
We establish a relationship of trust and integrity with all our suppliers, which is built upon mutually beneficial factors, our supplier selection and on-boarding procedure includes due diligence of the supplier's reputation, respect for the law, compliance with health, safety and environmental standards and references.
We have not been made aware of any allegations of human trafficking/slavery activities against any of our suppliers but if we were, then we would act immediately against the supplier and report it to the authorities.
We are committed to treating our staff with fairness and respect and pay the Real Living Wage as a minimum across all teams. In 2021-22 we became a Real Living Wage Employer and continue to work with our suppliers to ensure that this is paid to workers employed by our suppliers. We comply with all relevant employment legislation.
Supplier due diligence
B3L conducts due diligence on all new suppliers during on-boarding which includes:
- Assessing risks in the provision of particular services
- Auditing the suppliers, their health and safety standards, labour relations and employee
contracts - Requiring improvements to substandard employment practices
- Sanctioning suppliers that fail to improve their performance in line with our requirements
We require all suppliers to attest that:
- They do not use any form of forced, compulsory or slave labour
- Their employees work voluntarily and are entitled to leave work
- They provide each employee with an employment contract that contains a reasonable
notice period for terminating their employment - They do not require employees to post a deposit/bond and do not withhold their salaries
for any reasons - They do not require employees to surrender their passports or work permits as a condition
of employment
We continue to work to strengthen annual checks with existing suppliers to ensure these standards are maintained.
Policies
Our approach to preventing modern slavery feeds into our extensive policy framework, which supports the prevention of slavery or human trafficking. These include risk management, safeguarding, health and safety, recruitment, whistleblowing, procurement as well as housing and property management.
We also have a strong governance framework including robust standing orders, financial regulations, as well as compliance with the National Housing Federation’s Code of Conduct and Code of Governance.
In 2022-23 we also rolled out training on modern slavery for our office-based staff and embedded this into our ongoing training schedule.
Non-Compliance
B3Living will only trade with those who have confirmed their compliance with the Modern Slavery Act. We will assess any instances of non-compliance, take appropriate action and report these to the Board. However, there were no instances of non-compliance during the period covered by this statement.
B3Living has a Whistleblowing Policy in place, which ensures full protection (and anonymity) of employees and this policy was updated in 2023. Contractors with concerns are encouraged to raise concerns via the procurement process.
This statement is made under section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It constitutes our Group’s modern slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year 1st April 2023 to 31 March 2024. It was approved by B3Living’s Board on 16th July 2023 and applies to all companies within the B3Living Group.
Steve Woodcock
Chief Executive
16th July 2024