Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement for LPD Ltd Statement for financial year 2022-2023
This statement is made pursuant to section.54 of the Modern Slavery Act (MSA) 2015 and sets out the steps that LPD Ltd has taken and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain. Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. LPD Ltd has a zero tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all business dealings and implementing effective systems and controls to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain.
Meeting the threshold
LPD meets the MSA threshold of a business in the UK who supplies goods or services with an annual turnover of £36 million or more to publish a MSA statement each financial year on their website.
Our Business
Established in 1981 and based in Leeds, LPD has expanded and grown to become one of the market leaders within both the door (LPD Door) and furniture (LPD Furniture) industry. Still very much a family business, our aim has always been to set the standard in high quality, cutting edge door and furniture design in the UK. Offering an extensive collection of door and furniture designs, specifically tailored to suit all tastes, we pride ourselves on offering the most innovative, visually appealing and technologically advanced door and furniture range. Recognising the important role that our trading partners and customers play, our focus over the last decade has been to develop trusted, long-term relationships.
LPD currently employs under 250 staff in the UK of which 99% are on permanent contracts, many employed since the start of trading in 1981. We do employ third party organisations to provide specialist skills such as auditing, chain of custody work, management reporting, security and IT services.
We currently work with our supply chain partners globally including 15% in the EU, 5% in the Americas and 80% in the Far East.
Due Diligence and Risk assessment
We have conducted thorough reviews of our UK operations, held meetings with key stakeholders as well as our key supply chain partners within the door part of our business. We are currently rolling out these reviews across the furniture side of the business. This has and will continue to help inform our management teams of key areas to focus on across the whole business as well as improvements to our new policies and Modern Slavery statement.
These key risk areas included
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Contracts with service providers
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Management of complex supply chains
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Working with supply chains in high risk regions
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Enhancing the training to all staff and key supply chain partners
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Gaps in our T&C’s and company codes of practice/policies
Policies in relation to Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking
The risk assessment process enabled us to improve our current policies to ensure that the working conditions at suppliers and producers of our products and services we purchase meet the standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As such LPD has adopted the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code for labour standards in our policies, which are based on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions. Our updated policies now include
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Induction Training
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Employment contracts
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Disciplinary and Grievance Policy
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LPD Ethical policy
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Supplier T&C’s
Further steps to prevent Modern Slavery in our supply chains during 2022-23.
The Directors of each LPD business unit are responsible for compliance in their respective departments and for their supplier relationships. To help support our teams, we have formalised internal governance of Modern Slavery and Human Rights at both operational and senior management levels and updated our trading policies and terms and conditions to encompass our commitment to eliminate modern slavery or human trafficking.
In addition, we aim to continue to conduct the following activities within our business and greater supply chain over the next year:
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Undergo an independent ethical audit to international standards to ensure our own full compliance.
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Implement any actions that arise from the audit in a timely manor
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Conduct deeper training with all internal staff so they are aware of the issues
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Cascade our new policies out to all our supply chain partners to ensure they
communicate these policies and ensure compliance within their supply chains.
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Continue to engage with and listen to our key stakeholders to ensure we
benefit from best practice.
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Develop a set of key performance indicators to inform our governance teams
not only those targets have been met but show that continual improvements are also being made with respect to our commitment to tackling Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.
Statement approved by the board of LPD Ltd.
31st May 2023