Modern slavery and transparency in supply chains statement 2025/26

This statement sets out the steps taken during 2025/26 by Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority and is published in line with section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015.

What is modern slavery?

Modern slavery is a serious crime being committed across the UK in which victims are exploited for someone else’s gain. It can take many forms including trafficking of people, forced labour and servitude.

Despite common misconceptions, modern slavery is not a distant issue – it is a very real and present threat within our communities. It often remains hidden from view, making it difficult to detect. Victims are frequently controlled, manipulated, or coerced, and many may not even recognise themselves as victims due to fear, lack of awareness, or psychological influence.

We share the actions we have taken so far in this statement.

Our ambition

Since the Modern Slavery Act became law, live police operations have increased significantly.

According to the independent anti-slavery commissioner (IASC):

• The rising cost of living and new technology are leading to record levels of exploitation in the UK.
• There has been a 22% increase in the number of potential victims referred to the monitoring group in 2025.
• More than a fifth of potential victims in 2025 were from the UK, the largest single group.

Read the BBC News report about record levels of modern slavery in the UK.

In addition to the rising cost of living and technological advances, data from the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline cites the growing exploitation of migrants on skilled worker visas as a key factor behind the increase. The true scale of the issue remains difficult to measure as victims fear repercussions such as homelessness or deportation if they come forward.

• Read the Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline annual assessment 2025 (PDF).

Protection and prevention are central to everything we do at Kent and Medway Towns Fire and Rescue Authority (the Authority). Working collaboratively with our partners and suppliers, we take our responsibilities seriously and are committed to driving the change we all want to see. Every member of our organisation is empowered to act on any concerns they identify. Together, we are striving towards a future free from slavery, persecution, and exploitation.

This statement shares what we have done so far. It also details our commitment to what we will do to help combat this offence. We are focused on where we can make a difference, and we are proud that we have made a good start. We know that there is still much to do, and it will take time to stamp out modern slavery.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service

Every minute of every day, we are here to save lives and make our County even safer. We are a forward-thinking, modern fire and rescue service with a long and proud history. Together with our customers we are creating a safer future for Kent and Medway Towns.

We help keep people safe at home, at work, and in educational settings. We’re there for our communities whenever we’re needed – whether responding to a fire, a road traffic collision, or a water rescue.

The service is formed of over 1,610 members. We have 56 fire stations and 3 training facilities, as well as a distribution centre, fleet workshop, control centre and service headquarters all within Kent and Medway Towns. We also have 48 volunteers available to support our customers.

Preventing harm is central to our work. We have 20 Safe and Well officers and 10 Home Fire Safety Visit Task Force Officers who support the public and colleagues by identifying and assisting people at risk, working closely with partner agencies such as social services, mental health teams, housing associations and the police. Together, they implement high-risk interventions, often at very short notice.

12,201 Safe and Well Visits and 14,336 Home Fire Safety Visits were undertaken in Kent and Medway Towns throughout 25/26. Customer-facing colleagues involved in prevention, protection and response activities (such as safe and well visits or regulatory audits) follow established processes to report concerns, including those that may be related to modern slavery, to dedicated safeguarding teams.

We also have 12 designated safeguarding officers (DSOs) supported by a Safeguarding Lead and Safeguarding Case Manager. Our internal and external safeguarding processes make sure the service helps to protect the safety and welfare of children and adults at risk as our teams meet them during their work. We have a safeguarding policy and guidance that includes activities that are undertaken to protect specific children, young people and adults who are suffering, or likely to suffer, abuse, harm or neglect. Our teams raised 478 safeguarding cases between April 2025 and March 2026.

Our Customer Promise outlines our commitment to everyone we serve. By working together, we aim to build a safer future for Kent and Medway. We are committed to delivering excellent and accessible services, maintaining trust, and continuously improving based on our customers’ needs – reflecting the ambition set out in this statement.

We are committed to a culture of listening and understanding, encouraging curiosity and compassion. We provide both internal and external whistleblowing routes so colleagues can raise concerns and help prevent harm. This approach enables us to value differences, promote kindness, and identify when someone may be at risk.

We go beyond simply complying with laws and standards. We actively foster a culture that does not tolerate discrimination – whether in our practices or in the behaviours of anyone within our organisation or wider networks.

You can find out more about who we are and what we do elsewhere on this website.

Our sourcing map

Our average annual expenditure with third parties is £31.05m. Our supply chains span 57 countries as outlined below, despite ongoing international tension and conflict.

Countries in our supply chain

Countries in our supply chain

• United Kingdom
• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Bangladesh
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
• Denmark
• Ethiopia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ghana
• Greece
• India
• Indonesia
• Italy
• Ivory Coast
• Liberia
• Luxembourg
• Madagascar
• Malaysia
• Mexico
• Monaco
• Morocco
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• North Macedonia
• Norway
• Pakistan
• Papua New Guinea
• Poland
• Qatar
• Republic of Ireland
• Romania
• Slovakia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Turkey
• UAE
• Ukraine
• USA
• Vietnam

Our progress: what are we doing about modern slavery?

Our suppliers

Our sourcing map shows our suppliers’ extensive global supplier base. Given the ongoing global supply issues and rising costs, this remains an evolving picture. To ensure the continuity of critical goods and services for our front-line, our suppliers’ supply chains have expanded significantly – reflecting our commitment to greater transparency across our supply chains.

We recognise that modern slavery can occur at any level of the supply chain, from raw materials through to disposal, including within our direct suppliers’ operations.

As a publicly funded organisation, we ensure absolute transparency in all our purchasing decisions and practices. We continue to build on our promise in our previous statements that all our Tier 1 suppliers are required to sign up to the Modern Slavery Assessment Tool. We have made great progress in this area. Over £30m worth of contracts with suppliers across various sectors are now working with us to publish their performance against key measures. The information shared with us is proportionate to the critical nature of the goods and services supplied, and the level of modern slavery risk within the markets in which suppliers operate.

We work with our Tier 1 suppliers to make sure that they are committed to training their workforce and local supply chains on modern slavery risks and compliance.

The complexity of auditing and tracing multi-tier supply chains cannot be underestimated. This work must be undertaken collaboratively with our Tier 1 suppliers and will take time, particularly in the context of dynamic global markets. However, the progress we are making through close partnership, underpinned by shared values and a common purpose, will help ensure we act responsibly towards everyone connected to our organisation.

Our suppliers are taking positive steps to ensure their supply chains, and every individual within them, are free from modern slavery risks. Measures include on-site pre-enrolment systems and anonymous worker check-ins to gather direct feedback on rights and employment practices. We also work with suppliers aligned to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority standards, as well as those collaborating across the UK construction industry to address risks of slavery and forced labour.

Supplier code of conduct

The Authority works in a responsible, ethical and open way and we expect the same from our suppliers. We have set out the standards, values and behaviours we expect from our suppliers in our Supplier Code of Conduct. We ask suppliers to confirm that they will work with us to protect and respect human rights. Our focus on ethical conduct also extends to the tax conduct of our suppliers and potential suppliers. This is reinforced by the Procurement Act 2023, which requires the mandatory exclusion of suppliers involved in certain offences.

Policies and controls

We are committed to the highest standards of openness, honesty and accountability. As such, policies have been developed or updated to reduce slavery and human trafficking:

• Procurement regulations
• Procurement policy
• Modern Slavery Policy
• Equality in Procurement at KFRS
• Employment Checks Policy
• Supporting Guidance - Safeguarding Overview of Checks, Vetting and Training
• Safeguarding and Managing Allegations Policy
• Supporting Guidance – Safeguarding
• Speak Up Policy
• Transparency Policy

We keep our policies under regular review, ensuring that we have the right guidance, processes and controls in place to detect modern slavery-related offences.

We work closely with external agencies, law enforcement, and industry groups to stay informed on emerging modern slavery trends. This insight helps strengthen our ability to identify red flags in customer transaction behaviours.

Looking after our people

Our internal policies encourage a culture of supporting and empowering our people, recognising that we must ensure that modern slavery is considered at every significant decision gateway internally, as well as externally.

In March 2023 we adopted an updated flexible working policy, which means that from day one of joining our organisation, colleagues can request flexible working to enable greater opportunities for work-life balance. The policy reflects our proactive approach to introducing measures that give our people freedom of choice, long before any legislation changes.

We make sure that any recruitment services that we utilise also apply the same high standards that we do. We verify candidates’ ID and their right to work in the UK, along with undertaking a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check to help us learn who we are employing and to identify whether they could be connected to modern slavery-related activities, as perpetrator or victim. We also have an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) in place for 24/7 support.

Process and risk

We have developed a safeguarding concern referral form and published intranet guidance to help colleagues raise concerns. Safeguarding training is mandatory. We have also widely distributed posters, some developed with our external EAP provider, to signpost whistleblowing routes and demonstrate the process for raising concern. We keep the referral process under review to ensure first-hand accounts are recorded by the person identifying the concern. The information requested on our referral form aligns with that used by partner organisations. We also ensure the person’s concerns, feelings and wishes are documented at the earliest opportunity.

Working with our legal advisers, we have developed improved obligations on our suppliers by introducing modern slavery compliance clauses which we include in our tender processes. As a result, our suppliers are obligated to take steps to investigate and identify issues relating to the Modern Slavery Act and to inform us if they become aware of any issues within their supply chains. We want to make sure that the rights of everyone working within our supply chains are protected.

Training and awareness

Safeguarding training is mandatory and face-to-face refreshers are every three years. Modern slavery and human trafficking e-learning is mandatory for all new and existing colleagues. In line with NFCC guidance for checks, vetting and training, specific roles receive Enhanced level 2, or level 3/4 training in house. Safeguarding managers also complete level 5 training with an external provider. This is evidenced in our Safeguarding Policy and Safeguarding Guidance for checks, vetting and training.

The training plan is reviewed on an annual basis.

Procurement

The Procurement team continues to remain committed to the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) Ethical Procurement and Supply E-Learning. All team members that have responsibility for sourcing or supplier relationship management have completed the training and are certified.

The team is committed to their ongoing contract management of existing strategic suppliers to ensure they remain committed to working within the requirements of the Modern Slavery Regulations – taking note of the UK Public Procurement Regulations in this area which came into effect in early 2025, and specifically PPN 009: Tackling modern slavery in government supply chains.

The team continues to maintain their continued professional development and regularly participate in webinars and training events to expand their learning and exposure to modern slavery in supply chains.

Collaboration and stakeholder engagement

Compliance and positive steps towards change relies on teamwork. Our partnerships are integral for the Authority in addressing modern slavery risks to help us stay on top of emerging modern slavery trends and strengthen our detection capabilities.

We have had many intervention successes resulting from multi-agency collaboration. Key organisations and initiatives we continue to partner with are:

Looking ahead

We are proud to report that we are responding to modern slavery in a way that reflects our Customer Promise, with safety being our primary focus.

Modern slavery is a complex, multi-layered issue. We are committed to our responsibility to regularly review our policies, due diligence, and risk assessment processes to strengthen our approach to modern slavery. This allows us to identify, assess, and address risks, tackle modern slavery from its root causes and protect the human rights of the people in our business and supply chains.

We will continue to widen the scope of our due diligence to engage and share our ambitions with our suppliers and train everyone within our organisation to spot the signs of modern slavery.

Over the reporting period that this statement covers, we have increased our knowledge of our supply chains by growing the number of suppliers that are working with us to mitigate modern slavery risks in our supply base.

We recognise that there is still progress to be made across our supply chains. We are committed to reviewing and improving our practices and collaborating with others to ensure that we continually improve within an ever-changing world.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners, including our customers and suppliers, without whom our work to protect the rights of individuals in our supply chains and address the risk of modern slavery wouldn’t be possible.

Signed

Thomas Mallon
Chair, Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority

Ann Millington
Chief Executive, Kent Fire and Rescue Service