Modern slavery statement

Northbrik Systems Ltd is committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings. We have zero tolerance for modern slavery or human trafficking, and we expect the same standard from everyone we work with — clients, sub-processors, contractors and referrers.

Under section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, commercial organisations with an annual turnover of £36 million or more must publish an annual slavery and human-trafficking statement. We fall below that threshold as a small London studio. We publish this voluntary statement because our public-sector and financial-services clients include it in their supplier reviews, and because it is the right thing to do.

Northbrik is a UK-registered private limited company, headquartered in Covent Garden, London. We deliver bespoke software engineering, internal platforms and integrations for UK businesses. Our workforce is a small permanent team of engineers based in the UK, supplemented very occasionally by named UK-resident associate contractors for specialist tasks.

Our supply chain is deliberately short. The overwhelming majority of our supplier spend goes to a small, fixed list of cloud-infrastructure and professional-services providers. We do not operate physical goods, hardware manufacturing, or cleaning, catering, or construction services that carry known high modern-slavery risk.

Technology suppliers

Cloud hosting, managed databases, email delivery, payments, error monitoring. Assessed as low modern-slavery risk given sector, workforce model and jurisdictions.

Professional services

Accountancy, legal, insurance. UK-regulated entities with their own public anti-slavery policies.

Banking & payments

UK-authorised banks and payment institutions. Low risk.

Office & IT equipment

Direct purchase from UK-resident authorised resellers. Any hardware with a globally-distributed manufacturing chain is sourced from manufacturers that publish annual Modern Slavery Act statements (for example, Apple, Dell).

Associate contractors

Occasional named specialists engaged directly on a per-project basis, with written contracts and right-to-work verification.

We assess modern-slavery risk by sector, geography and workforce model. The result today is that direct risk in our own operations is very low, and indirect risk sits upstream in hardware manufacturing tiers we do not contract with directly. Our policy is to treat low risk as a reason to stay alert rather than a reason to stop looking.

Specific red flags we screen for when considering a new supplier: unusual employment terms, inability to produce right-to-work evidence, sub-market labour rates paired with long hours, lack of a visible modern-slavery policy for suppliers above the statutory threshold, and operations concentrated in countries rated "extreme" on the Verisk Maplecroft Modern Slavery Index.

• Every permanent employee and associate contractor is onboarded with right-to-work checks, a written contract, and a named UK bank account.
• Every supplier above a £5,000 annual spend is reviewed for public statements on modern slavery, ethical sourcing, and labour standards before contracting.
• We do not use unpaid internships or unpaid trial periods.
• All paid engagements are paid at or above the UK Real Living Wage, and employed staff are paid well above it.
• Payment terms for suppliers under £250k annual turnover follow the UK Prompt Payment Code — 30 days or sooner — to avoid cashflow pressure that can increase exploitation risk.

• Anti-slavery and human-trafficking statement (this document).
• Whistleblowing policy — direct to the founder, with a named alternative contact for escalation.
• Equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policy.
• Right-to-work verification policy.
• Supplier onboarding policy, including a modern-slavery checklist.

All team members complete a short modern-slavery briefing at onboarding and an annual refresher that covers red flags, reporting routes, and the UK Modern Slavery helpline. The briefing is maintained in-house and reviewed by the founder every year.

For this financial year we track the following indicators:

• Number of suppliers reviewed under the modern-slavery checklist (target: 100% of suppliers with annual spend above £5,000).
• Number of modern-slavery concerns raised internally or externally (target: all raised are acknowledged within one working day and investigated within five).
• Percentage of staff who completed the annual briefing (target: 100%).
• Percentage of invoices paid within Prompt Payment Code terms (target: ≥ 95%).

If you suspect modern slavery in our operations or supply chain, contact us at hello@northbrik.com with "Modern slavery" in the subject. You can raise a concern anonymously; we will not attempt to identify you.

You can also contact the UK Modern Slavery Helpline on 08000 121 700, or the police on 101 (999 in an emergency).