South Kesteven District Council looks set to adopt the Safer Lincolnshire Partnership's Modern Slavery Charter

The Partnership has asked all its members to adopt the Charter, and SKDC's Rural and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee's next meeting (11 March) will discuss how to best tackle issues around modern slavery and human trafficking.

Committee members are being asked to recommend adoption of the Charter to the council's Cabinet Member for Communities, Cllr Annie Mason.

A committee report lists aspects of modern slavery as including forced labour, debt bondage – where people borrow money they cannot repay and have to work to pay off the debt - human trafficking, child slavery or exploitation for someone's gain and forced and early marriage.

The report states that officers have reviewed the Charter's commitments and confirms that they are currently being achieved or are able to be achieved within existing resources.

Adoption of the Charter, formally launched in January, would require SKDC to commit to having adequately trained staff and procedures in place to recognise and report suspicions and evidence and effectively tackle concerns.

It would need to identify a process for escalating concerns, display Modern Slavery resources on the council's web site and ensure accessibility by translating information into different languages as appropriate and make it available in large print.

Committee feedback will be passed to Cllr Mason to decide whether the council should join other Lincolnshire authorities in adopting the Modern Slavery Charter.

She said: "Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and modern slavery takes many forms within modern society which we need to be aware of and be in a position to tackle.

"We have a responsibility to safeguard vulnerable individuals from harm, and, if we adopt the Charter, it will allow us to contribute to the county's collective efforts to protect our communities."