Modern Slavery Statement

1. About this statement

Modern slavery covers slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking. It is a crime and a violation of human rights. Talitu will not take part in it, will not turn a blind eye to it anywhere in our supply chain, and will not work with an organisation that knowingly does either.

This statement sets out what we do to keep modern slavery out of our business and our supply chain. It describes what is true today. Where we do not yet run a formal programme, we say so rather than describe one we do not have.

2. Our business

Talitu Ltd is a London-based technology consultancy, registered in England and Wales under company number 10295016 with its registered office at 483 Green Lanes, London N13 4BS. We design and build custom AI agents, software, data and automation systems for businesses, and we run and support them afterwards. We also supply engineers and project teams to work inside client organisations, and we introduce candidates for permanent roles.

We are a small company. Our work is knowledge work, carried out by employees, contractors and specialist subcontractors, mostly in the United Kingdom and Europe. We do not manufacture physical goods, we do not operate factories or warehouses, and we do not employ low-skilled seasonal labour.

3. Our supply chain

Our supply chain has three parts:

• People. Employees, self-employed contractors, and specialist subcontractors and consultancies we bring in for particular skills.
• Technology. Cloud hosting, AI model providers, telephony and messaging platforms, developer and collaboration tools, and other software services. The current list of providers who process client data is published on our sub-processors page.
• Business services. Accounting, insurance, banking, professional advice and office costs.

4. Where the risk sits

We assess the risk of modern slavery in our own operations as low. Our people are skilled, well paid, contracted in writing and free to leave. That is the profile least associated with forced labour.

Our risk is not evenly spread across the supply chain:

• People supply is our highest risk area. Contractor and staffing supply chains are where exploitation happens in our sector. The risks are unlicensed or opaque intermediaries, workers charged fees to get work, undisclosed deductions from pay, and arrangements that hide who a person actually works for. This risk grows if we place people internationally, and it grows any time a chain has more than one layer between us and the worker.
• Software and cloud services are low risk to the workers we can see, and opaque further down. The people who build cloud platforms are not typically at risk of forced labour. The risk sits several tiers below them, in hardware manufacturing, mineral extraction, and the construction, cleaning and security of data centres. We buy these services as a small customer on standard terms. We have very little influence over those lower tiers and very little visibility into them. We would rather state that plainly than claim an audit programme we do not run.
• Office and facilities services are a known risk area in general, in particular cleaning, security and catering. We currently buy very little of this.

5. Our policies

The commitments below sit in documents we actually use:

• This statement.
• Section 25 of our Master Terms of Business, which places a modern slavery obligation on us and on every client we work with, alongside obligations on bribery, sanctions, the facilitation of tax evasion, equality, health and safety and whistleblowing.
• Schedule 3 of the same terms, which covers the supply of our people to clients, including right-to-work checks, health and safety duties, employment status and off-payroll working.
• Schedule 4, which covers introducing candidates for permanent roles.
• Our Acceptable Use Policy, which governs what the systems we build may be used for.

We do not maintain a large policy handbook. We are a small company and we would rather point to a small number of documents that are read and applied than list a dozen that are not.

6. What we do in practice

• Everyone is contracted in writing. Every person who works on a Talitu engagement does so under a written contract, whether they are an employee, a contractor or a subcontractor. Nobody works for us on an undocumented arrangement.
• We check the right to work. We carry out the right-to-work checks the law requires for people we employ, before they start, and we require our subcontractors to do the same for anyone they put on our work.
• We pay lawfully and on time. We pay at or above the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage, and we pay contractors and suppliers on the terms we agreed. Late payment pushes pressure down a supply chain and onto the people at the bottom of it.
• We never charge a worker a fee for finding them work. Not for placement, not for introductions, not for training, not for equipment and not as a deduction from pay. Our fees are paid by clients.
• We do not hold anyone's documents. We do not retain passports, identity documents or other personal papers, and we do not ask anyone to lodge a deposit, bond or recruitment fee as a condition of work.
• We keep the chain short. We work with people and firms we know, or who come to us through a known referral. We do not source labour through intermediaries we cannot see through.
• We pass the obligation down. Subcontractors must meet the same standards we accept towards our clients, including on modern slavery, and must tell us promptly if a problem arises.
• We will not work with an organisation that knowingly takes part in modern slavery, or that will not answer a reasonable question about it.

7. Supplying and placing people

Because supplying people is where our risk concentrates, we apply extra rules to it.

• We contract directly with the person or with their own company. Where a chain would run through another intermediary, we need to know who is in it, who pays the worker, and on what terms.
• The engagement document has to record who the client is for off-payroll working purposes and who pays the worker, so nobody is left unclear about who is responsible for what. This is set out in Schedule 3 of our Master Terms of Business.
• We do not describe an arrangement as consultancy or outsourcing to avoid the rules that apply to supplying workers. Where those rules apply, they apply.
• Clients hosting our people are expected to give them a safe working environment and to extend their own anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, whistleblowing and grievance protections to them.
• Before we place anyone internationally, we will check what recruitment and visa rules apply in that country, because cross-border placement is where fee-charging and debt bondage most often appear.

8. Working with clients

Our clients are businesses, and modern slavery risk runs in both directions. Section 25 of our Master Terms of Business commits each side to comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, to confirm that so far as it is aware nobody in its supply chain for the work is involved in slavery, human trafficking or forced labour, and to tell the other promptly on becoming aware of a breach.

We are happy to complete a client's supplier questionnaire on this subject, and we will answer it honestly, including where the answer is that we do not yet do something.

9. Training and awareness

We do not currently run a formal training programme with attendance records. Saying otherwise would be easy and untrue. What we do instead is brief everyone who joins an engagement on this statement, on the standards in section 6, and on how to raise a concern.

As the company grows, and in particular as we place more people into client businesses, we will put a recorded programme in place for anyone involved in hiring, contracting or buying. We will describe it here when it exists, and not before.

10. Raising a concern

If you believe anyone connected to Talitu or to our supply chain is being exploited, tell us. Write to hello@talitu.com, marked for the attention of the directors, or use our contact page.

You can raise a concern anonymously. We will not penalise anyone, whether an employee, a contractor, a supplier or a client's staff member, for raising a genuine concern about wrongdoing. We will investigate what you tell us.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 999. You can also contact the Modern Slavery and Exploitation Helpline on 08000 121 700, which is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.

11. Measuring effectiveness

We do not publish key performance indicators, because a set of numbers produced by a company of our size would say more about presentation than about performance. What we track is simple and honest:

• Every person working on an engagement is covered by a written contract.
• Every employee has a completed right-to-work check on file before their start date.
• No work-seeker has been charged a fee by us.
• Concerns raised, and what happened as a result.

As at the date of this statement, no concern about modern slavery has been raised with us and we are not aware of any incident in our business or our supply chain.

12. Review and approval

We review this statement at least once a year, and sooner if our business changes in a way that changes our risk. Starting to place engineers into client businesses at scale would be that kind of change.

13. Contact

Questions about this statement can be sent to hello@talitu.com or via our contact page. Our postal address is Talitu Ltd, 483 Green Lanes, London N13 4BS.