Fortus are not legally required to publish a modern Slavery Statement due to not meeting minimum requirements in terms of size. However, we believe in the objectives of the legislation and recognise the importance of taking steps aimed at ensuring there is no slavery or human trafficking in our organisation or our supply chains and it is our policy to publish this statement to indicate its compliance with the Act’s objectives.

Structure and services

Fortus are a professional services group offering financial and other business advisory services from multiple locations throughout the UK. Most of our services are provided to UK based clients, principally in the SME sector. We are regulated by recognised supervisory bodies, in most cases, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. We operate predominantly from our own office environments, or client office premises for site-based assignments.

Supply Chain

Most of our services are provided by employees in the UK rather than contractors. Where we use third party organisations to assist in provision of services, we expect them to comply with the Modern Slavery Act as well as be suitably qualified for the work they undertake. We do outsource a small proportion of services outside the UK and we obtain assurances from the appropriate UK based holding company that their organisation has policies in place to meet UK obligations under the Modern Slavery Act. General supplies to us are for office goods and services such as office equipment, stationery, property maintenance, travel & accommodation. We consider this to be a low risk area and that our normal supplier approval procedures are adequate.

Board Summary

The Directors of the Fortus companies have considered the above and concluded that as we do not operate in high risk areas and so do not consider any of our activities to be at high risk of slavery or human trafficking. We consider that the combination of the regulatory environment we operate in and our own current procedures on supplier approval are adequate to meet our responsibilities and obligations. We will however continue to keep our procedures under review on at least an annual basis.