Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement for the Autovista Group
We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and are fully committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking in our corporate activities. We constantly seek to improve our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking. This statement sets out the steps we have taken to prevent slavery and human trafficking from occurring within our organisation and our supply chains.
Our Business
The Autovista Group (the “Group”) is a leading provider of automotive pricing insights along the entire lifecycle of a vehicle. The Group provides pricing insights across more than 20 countries. Autovista, Eurotax, EV-Volumes, Glass's, Rødboka and Schwacke are our highly-respected, market-leading brands. The Group has more than 750 employees and operates across the UK, Europe and Australia as a fully flexible business, allowing our employees full flexibility to decide where and when they do their work.
This statement is made on behalf of the UK parent company of the Group, Autovista Bidco Limited, for itself and each member of the Group.
Our Supply Chains
Our supply chains include suppliers from a number of sectors, particularly the motor industry, IT software and hardware, and professional services. We also occasionally use agencies to supply agency staff.
We seek to ensure that those within our supply chains align with our ethics and values. As part of a first step in a wider modern slavery and human trafficking risk assessment within our supply chains, we have begun to review those commitments made by certain of our top suppliers against modern slavery. Wherever possible, we seek to include appropriate provisions requiring compliance with applicable laws, which would include the Modern Slavery Act 2015, in our supplier contracts, and increasingly we include specific reference to modern slavery legislation.
To date, we are not aware of any slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains. If we were to become aware of any such activity in the future, we would undertake an urgent and thorough investigation. If any concerns were uncovered, we would work with the relevant supplier to ensure that appropriate action was taken to address the issue. Our response may include the termination of our business relationship with that supplier.
The Group‘s People & Performance (HR) and Risk & Compliance teams are primarily responsible for dealing with any risks or concerns raised by the business in relation to modern slavery. These teams are central Group functions, whose leaders form part of the Group’s Executive Management Team.
Our Policies on Slavery and Human Trafficking
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Our anti-slavery and human trafficking policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships. The importance of complying with applicable law, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, is reflected in our Group values (see ‘Values’ below).
Our Group’s Executive Management Team is united in, and central to furthering, our commitment to ensuring that high ethical standards are demonstrated and maintained at all times. Our Code of Ethics underpins our ethical trading position, which is a key strategic focus for the Group. This Code includes dedicated sections regarding anti-slavery, human trafficking and employment conditions.
We commit to adhering to the four UN Global Compact labour principles throughout our operations:
1. Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.
2. Elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour.
3. Effective abolition of child labour.
4. Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
We ensure that all staff working for us are engaged in accordance with the law. We undertake right to work checks on all direct employees prior to them commencing their employment. This includes checking, where applicable, that the employee has a valid work visa and is of an appropriate age to work.
In addition, all staff who have any concerns that modern slavery may be occurring in any part of our organisation or supply chains are required (through clear reporting lines) to notify senior management so that the issue can be escalated appropriately and addressed effectively. We have processes and policies in place to protect whistleblowers and their anonymity. These processes and policies are reviewed annually with a view to increasing their effectiveness. We also host employee forums, which promote transparency and offer employees another route to raise any concerns they may have.
Our Values
Trust, Integrity, Innovation, Openness, Respect and Inclusion: these are the values that underpin the culture at Autovista Group. These values are core to all that we do as a business and they set the tone for how we treat each other, our customers, suppliers, stakeholders and third parties. We talk in detail about our values and how they are reflected in practice on our corporate website and we have a page on our Group’s staff intranet dedicated to our values.
We hold these values as critically important in how we run our business, and to reinforce that, we recognize employee behaviours which are aligned to our values through our “Cheers for Peers” page on our Group’s staff intranet and also use rewards schemes to recognize employees who have gone above and beyond to demonstrate our values.
Awareness
To ensure a foundational level of understanding across the Group of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, our anti-slavery and human trafficking policy is available on our Group’s staff intranet.
To raise further awareness of modern slavery issues amongst our workforce, we included the prevention of modern slavery as a periodic agenda item at our employee forum meetings and at our UK staff board meetings.
In 2021 we rolled out a dedicated Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) training program for all employees, run online via our Group’s staff intranet (to ensure that materials are readily and easily accessible). The training included a whole module relating to modern slavery and an online assessment to check and consolidate employees’ understanding. The training module and the assessment are mandatory for every employee. Participation in the training and completion of the assessment are tracked centrally, and to date 99% of Group staff have completed the training and the assessment.
We also raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking by including a section on this topic and its importance in our standard employee induction process.
To increase awareness of our activities in relation to preventing modern slavery externally, we referenced our last modern slavery statement in our UK group consolidated annual financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2021. We have also registered recent modern slavery statements with the UK Government’s modern slavery statement registry to enhance the transparency and accessibility of our commitment to eliminating modern slavery. Our registration for 2021 can be found on the UK Government’s website.
Further Steps
Following a review of the effectiveness of the steps we have taken so far, we intend to take the following further actions during 2022 and beyond to help prevent modern slavery and human trafficking.
We aim to embed the practices we have implemented to date and continue, for example, to include the prevention of modern slavery as a periodic agenda item for employee forum and UK staff board meetings.
We plan to publish relevant news articles, and links to further training, relating to modern slavery on our dedicated Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) training page on our Group’s staff intranet. This content will sit alongside the training and assessment we have already implemented, which will continue to be mandatory for every employee.
We intend to implement further training in relation to our Group Values in 2022 given their critical importance to the running of our business. We plan in due course to start refreshing our manager training program along similar lines in order to embed our Group Values via the practices and conduct of our managers.
In our Modern Slavery Statement for the financial period ending 31 December 2022 we plan to outline the launch (completed in March 2022) of the Group’s new whistleblowing app. This has been made available (on our Group’s staff intranet) to encourage transparency and reporting whilst protecting the anonymity of whistleblowers.
We are in the process of updating our Group Supplier Policy to include, where applicable, the option to request (and review) certain information from our suppliers relating to their compliance with applicable law, including laws relating to modern slavery and human trafficking. For this purpose, information request forms are also in the process of being developed. We expect the updated policy and new information request process to be in place by the end of 2022. Our aim is that obtaining this information from selected suppliers will (i) enable us to get a better understanding of our suppliers; (ii) allow us to better assess the level of modern slavery risks in our supply chains; and (iii) give us a greater ability to scrutinize the actions being taken by our suppliers to identify and tackle such risks.
We plan to share the positive steps we have taken to tackle and prevent modern slavery in the UK Government’s modern slavery statement registry in 2022 and to reference our latest modern slavery statement in our UK group consolidated financial statements for future financial periods.
Section 54(1)
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 December 2021. This statement has been authorised and approved by the board of directors of Autovista Bidco Limited.
Signed: 
On behalf of Autovista Bidco Limited
Date: 28/06/2022