Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement for the Autovista Group
We have a zero tolerance approach to modern slavery and are fully committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our corporate activities. This statement sets out the steps we have taken to prevent slavery and human trafficking from occurring within our organisation and our supply chains. We constantly seek to improve our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking.
Our Business
The Autovista Group (the “Group”) is a leading provider of automotive pricing insights along the entire lifecycle of a vehicle. The Group provides pricing insights across more than 20 countries. Autovista, Eurotax, Glass's, Rødboka and Schwacke are our highly-respected, market-leading brands. The Group has more than 750 employees and operates across the UK, Europe and Australia as a fully flexible business. It means giving our employees full flexibility to decide where and when they do their work. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Group has managed to keep its entire workforce employed.
This statement is made on behalf of the UK parent company of the Group, Autovista Bidco Limited.
Our Supply Chains
Our supply chain includes suppliers from a number of sectors, particularly the motor industry, IT software and hardware and professional services. We also occasionally use agencies to supply agency staff.
We seek to ensure that those within our supply chain align with our ethics and values. As part of a first step in a wider program to assess modern slavery and human trafficking risks within our supply chain, we have reviewed those commitments made by our top suppliers against modern slavery. Wherever possible, we seek to include appropriate provisions requiring compliance with legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, in our supplier contracts.
To date, we are not aware of any slavery or human trafficking activities in our supply chain. If any issue is highlighted to us in the future, then we would undertake an urgent and thorough investigation. If the investigation confirmed the concerns, we would work with our supplier to ensure that appropriate action was taken to address the issue. This action may include the termination of our business relationship with that supplier.
The Group‘s People & Performance and Risk & Compliance teams would be responsible in the first instance for dealing with any risks or concerns raised in relation to modern slavery.
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 and human trafficking policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships. Compliance with the legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, reflects our company values (see ‘Values’ below).
Our Executive Management Team is united in our commitment to ensuring that high ethical standards are demonstrated and maintained at all times and we adopted a Code of Ethics in December 2020 to underpin our ethical trading position and to reduce the risk of conflicts of interests within our organisation. This Code includes dedicated sections regarding anti-slavery and human trafficking and also employment conditions.
We commit to adhering to the four UN Global Compact labour principles throughout our operations:
1. Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
2. Elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
3. Effective abolition of child labour; and
4. Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
We ensure that all staff working for us are engaged in accordance with the law and we undertake right to work checks on all direct employees prior to them commencing their employment. This includes checking, where applicable, that the employee has a valid work visa and is of an appropriate age to work.
In addition, all staff who have any concerns that modern slavery may be occurring in any part of our organisation or supply chain are required to notify management so the issue can be addressed and we have processes in place to protect whistleblowers. These processes and policies are reviewed annually with a view to increasing their effectiveness. We also host employee forums allowing employees yet another route to raise any concerns they may have and to promote openness.
Our Values
Trust, Integrity, Innovation, Openness, Respect and Inclusion: these are the values that underpin the culture at Autovista Group. These values are core to all that we do as a business and they set the tone for how we treat each other, our customers, suppliers and any other third parties. We talk in detail about our values and how they are reflected in practice on our corporate website and they are a key part of our training program.
We hold these values as critically important in how we run the business, and to reinforce that, we award employees who demonstrate application of our values in their work.
Awareness
To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, our anti-slavery and human trafficking policy is available on the Group’s intranet.
We continue to provide two mandatory interactive one-day training sessions for all employees across the Group covering a) our company values, and b) understanding governance and risk & compliance.
We also raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking by including a section on this topic and its importance in our standard employee induction process.
To raise awareness of our activities in relation to preventing modern slavery externally, we have referenced our last modern slavery statement in our group UK consolidated annual financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020. Additionally, we registered our 2019 modern slavery statement with the UK Government’s modern slavery statement registry when it was launched in March 2021.
Further Steps
Following a review of the effectiveness of the steps we have taken so far, we intend to take the following further actions during 2021 and beyond to help prevent slavery and human trafficking.
We aim to raise even more awareness of modern slavery issues within our workforce by including the prevention of modern slavery as an item that is periodically included on the agenda at our employee forum meetings (an action which was deferred from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic).
We plan to roll out a dedicated Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) training page on the Group’s intranet to ensure that all employees have easy access and can undertake the training in their own time in line with our flexible working policy. The training will include one module relating to modern slavery, which will be mandatory for every employee.
We plan to share the positive steps we have taken to tackle and prevent modern slavery in the UK Government’s modern slavery statement registry in 2021.
Section 54(1)
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 December 2020.
Signed: 
On behalf of Autovista Bidco Limited
Date: 28/06/2021