Modern Slavery Statement, year ending 31 July 2024
Introduction
St George’s, University of London merged with City, University of London to become City St George’s, University of London on 1 August 2024.
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes St George’s, University of London’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 July 2024, prior to the merger. It has been approved by the St George’s, University of London Council for Dissolution, in November 2024.
St George's, University of London
We are committed to improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking, to ethical conduct of all activities and to making continuous improvements to processes in that regard.
St George’s was the UK’s only university solely dedicated to medical and health sciences education, training and research co-located with St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust within St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South West London. We were a member institution of the University of London. In 2023/24 we had a global annual turnover of £96 million.
Our supply chains
Our procurement services were managed under contract by Kingston University. Our supply chains mainly fell within the following ‘top level' categories:
- Estates and facilities management (works, services and goods)
- ICT equipment and services
- Professional services
- Teaching materials
- Medical research
We were a member of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC) which has also published its own Modern Slavery Statement which details how they manage the modern slavery compliance for over 200 member institutions and organisations who procure through their frameworks which encompass nearly £230million spend across their framework agreements. We channelled in excess of 30% of the value of our addressable spend through LUPC and agreements arranged by the other higher education purchasing consortia and public sector purchasing consortia.Full details of the LUPC’s modern slavery compliance is found here.
The business and supply chains which may pose particular risks in terms of slavery are in facilities management, ICT and AV equipment, construction, and partnerships with overseas institutions in some jurisdictions. Our due diligence processes (below) minimised these risks, and our facilities management services were provided by an outsourced provider appointed via the LUPC which had therefore been scrutinised and complies with the LUPC requirements.
Our commitment to eradicating modern slavery
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our Institution. Our ethos as a specialist medical and health institutionteaching vocational courses which emphasise ethical conduct reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
Due diligence processes for slavery and human trafficking
As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk:
- We included a requirement for compliance with the Act in our due diligence process for the validation of new partners and requirements for compliance with the Act in all our agreements with partners who supplied our goods and services.
- Kingston University, which managed all our procurement, uses a procurement tool where all new suppliers are requested to complete a questionnaire to confirm arrangements in place across supply chains. We also undertake much of our procurement via the LUPC which itself has publicly committed to tackling slavery and human rights abuses in its supply chains, and to acquiring goods and services for its members without causing harm to others. Full details of how the LUPC ensure compliance across their frameworks may be found on their website.
- We had a policy of not employing unpaid interns across the workforce.
We had in place systems to:
- Identify and assess potential risk areas in our supply chains
- Mitigate the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our supply chains
- Monitor potential risk areas in our supply chains
- Protect whistle blowers
Training
To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, the LUPC provide training to the Procurement team via an e-learning module on their website.