How might modern slavery risk in English adult social care procurement be reduced?
UK legislation, in the form of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 (hereafter SVA) and more recently the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (hereafter MSA) has begun to acknowledge the role public procurement can play in improving social sustainability. Specifically in its response to an independent review, in July 2019 the UK Government agreed that it should be subject to the same MSA transparency in supply chains requirements as businesses and that, following consultation, certain other public-sector organisations may also be required to produce an annual statement in accordance with MSA Section 54. 1 We use data from a case study of one English Local Authority (hereafter LA) to identify four types of modern slavery risk in the labour supply chains of its adult social care services: debt bondage; remuneration; recruitment and selection and occupational risk. We discuss how the theoretical model proposed by Gold, Trodd and Trautrims may be used to identify the detection and remediation capabilities required to reduce these risks and discuss some of the barriers that need to be overcome if LAs are to design legally compliant procedures.