Modern Slavery Statement

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In accordance with Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, this is the Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement for M-Sport UK Ltd for the year ended 31 December 2023; and has been approved by the board of directors of M-Sport.

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Modern slavery has a broad definition, but in all cases it features one person depriving another person of their liberty in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. This includes human trafficking, forced labour and slavery-like practices such as debt-bondage, and the sale or exploitation of children.

 

Organisation

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M-Sport is a motorsport company which was formed in 1997. Its main business is competing in the World Rally Championship (WRC) as the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team. Since its formation, the team has won three Constructors’ World Championships and two Drivers’ World Championships. 

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But it’s not just in rallying that M-Sport excels, the company’s other accolades include: Bentley Motors’ Technical Partner for their Continental GT3; the design and manufacture of a range of winning Rallycross vehicles; Technical Partner for the Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY; supplier of the TOCA British Touring Car control engine; the design and manufacture of the new Mustang GT3 engine; chosen partner to run the official Ford Dakar programme from 2024; and sells an extensive range of customer rally and race cars; sells clothing and other merchandise at events and online; offers conference facilities to external companies and factory tours to corporate and public guests.

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The company employs approximately 190 full time employees at its base at Dovenby, Cumbria. M-Sport does not employ seasonal workers. All the company’s recruitment activities are carried out by an in-house HR Department.

 

Policy

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We have policies in place internally to protect the rights of our staff. In due course we may update these policies to explicitly reference modern slavery and human trafficking.

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Our Code of Conduct is applicable to all personnel working for and on behalf of the company, and sets out the high standard of behaviour we expect from our staff towards their colleagues and any other individuals.

 

Our Recruitment Policy ensures that the “right to work” of all potential employees is checked. This includes checking that the employee has a valid work visa and is of an appropriate age to work.

 

Our Health and Safety Policy ensures that the working conditions of our staff, in terms of safety, welfare and well-being, are to a high standard.

 

Our Supplier Terms and Conditions set out the standards we expect from our suppliers.

 

Supply Chain

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The supply chains of automotive manufacturers are traditionally considered to be very complex, and M-Sport’s is no different. Our supply chain is predominantly comprised of materials and component manufacturing businesses operating in the engineering and automotive sectors. However, it also includes businesses from various other industries, such as IT equipment, clothing, travel, professional services and hospitality.

 

Risk Assessment

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Due to the complexity and variety of our supply chain, we have decided to focus initially on the industry sectors that have been identified to have the highest risk of modern slavery.

 

The Global Slavery Index 2018 identified the UK’s top 5 imported products being at risk of modern slavery as garments, electronics (laptops, computers and mobile phones), fish, cocoa and rice.

 

We have therefore ranked our clothing and IT equipment supply chains as being at the highest risk of modern slavery.

 

In years to come, we plan on further mapping and analysing our supply chain to carry out a more in depth assessment to help identify the areas which have the highest risk of modern slavery activities.

 

Due Diligence

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We are committed to implementing systems to ensure that modern slavery is not taking place within our supply chain.

 

As part of this, we will begin issuing a modern slavery questionnaire to existing suppliers. This will begin with the suppliers identified as providing the highest risk items – garments and electronics.

 

In due course this may also include updating our supplier terms and conditions to include obligations to comply with anti-slavery laws.

 

Performance Measurement

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To date we haven’t identified any instances of modern slavery in our operations or supply chain. Though we acknowledge that this doesn’t mean we can guarantee it doesn’t exist.

 

As we implement due diligence systems within our supply chain, suitable key performance indicators (KPI’s) will be developed in order to aid these actions and measure the performance/effectiveness of our activities. This may include monitoring the percentage of supplier companies we have risk assessed, sent questionnaires to and received completed questionnaires back from.

 

Training

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Due to the fact that the industry in which we operate is considered low risk in relation to modern slavery or human trafficking, no training has been undertaken other than making this statement available to employees and suppliers. This decision will be reviewed on an annual basis.

 

 

John Steele

Commercial Director of M-Sport UK Ltd