How to complete a Modern Slavery Assessment
Appoint a UK response owner, confirm the customer's scope and gather evidence from purchasing, HR, compliance and your China team. Answer for the importing business, explain gaps, respond to recommendations and agree follow-up actions with the customer. Factory evidence can be coordinated by Cambridge China Bridge.
Confirm the request and assessment scope
Ask the customer which importing entity, contract, products and supply chains the assessment should cover. Confirm the deadline, contact person and expected delivery method. Keep the customer's assessment request separate from your statutory reporting decision; use our modern slavery reporting guide for that distinction.
For a new assessment with an invitation code, select 'Enter invitation code' beneath 'Get Started'. Check that you are responding for the correct importing business. Ask a private-sector customer how they want to receive the completed response rather than assuming their request uses the public-buyer sharing route.
Give each contributor a defined job
Appoint a response owner to circulate the current questions, collect answers and resolve contradictions. Purchasing should describe suppliers and buying practices; HR should cover your own recruitment, labour providers and training; compliance should assemble policies, risk assessments and escalation records. Finance can explain payment practices, while a senior manager reviews claims and approves improvement commitments.
Ask your China team to obtain factory-specific records and clarify recruitment arrangements, subcontracting and unresolved findings. Keep the importer's own practices distinct from a factory's answers. Cambridge China Bridge's own staff in China can help coordinate this evidence; the importer should review and own its submitted response. For these checks, see our guide to mapping modern slavery risks in China supply chains.
Build an answer-to-evidence register
For each question, record the proposed answer, contributor, supporting file, document date, scope and remaining gap. Gather relevant policies, supplier maps, recruitment checks, training attendance, audit findings, corrective-action records and examples of escalation. A policy supports what you intend to do; completed records help show what happened.
Check whether evidence covers the actual production site and relevant labour providers. Preserve originals and label translations. Use our ethical audit guide to assess report coverage and our factory audit checklist for wider site checks. Explain missing or conflicting evidence rather than treating an audit badge as proof of every answer.
Review, complete and share the response
Before submission, have each contributor verify their answers against the register. Distinguish an operating process from a draft policy or planned action. Where evidence is unavailable, explain the limitation through the available response fields or an agreed covering note. Keep worker identities and sensitive case details in restricted records; agree a suitable evidence-sharing method with the customer.
The tool makes the assessment complete and the full report accessible after each suggested recommendation has been responded to. Review these responses with your senior owner. For a completed assessment, the platform's sharing option is in the dashboard's 'Questionnaires' tab. Confirm the intended recipient, retain the submitted version and ask the customer to confirm access or receipt.
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Turn recommendations into tracked actions
Discuss the recommendations with the customer and build an action register: relevant gap, agreed action, responsible person, target date, evidence of completion and reviewer. Explain why any recommendation appears inapplicable and agree the treatment. Prioritise worker protection and unresolved recruitment concerns alongside improvements to policies, training and supplier oversight. For customer reporting, see our guide to demonstrating modern slavery improvements to public buyers.
Schedule progress reviews and distinguish acknowledging a recommendation from implementing it. Close actions only when the agreed evidence has been checked. Revisit affected answers when suppliers, production sites or labour arrangements change. Escalate credible worker concerns through the route described in the reporting guide instead of waiting for the assessment follow-up meeting.
Frequently asked questions
Who should complete a customer's Modern Slavery Assessment?
Use a UK response owner supported by purchasing, HR, compliance, finance and the China team. Have a senior manager review claims and improvement commitments before submission.
What evidence should I prepare for the assessment?
Match records to each answer: policies, supplier maps, recruitment checks, training attendance, audit findings and corrective actions. Record their scope and explain missing evidence.
Can I use my Chinese factory's answers?
Use them as supplier evidence, then check their scope and reliability. Answer separately for the importing business's own recruitment, purchasing, training and oversight.
Does completing the assessment finish the follow-up?
Keep report completion separate from action completion. Agree owners, dates and closure evidence with the customer, then review whether the improvements have been implemented.