ENO Statement on Modern Slavery

English National Opera (ENO) has a zero tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. ENO is committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in our business dealings and to putting effective systems and controls in place to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain.

Our business

ENO is a registered charity and opera producing company founded on the belief that opera of the highest quality should be accessible to everyone.  We employ over 300 employees, with 900 additional casual workers engaged on individual productions in the 2017/18 season.  Together we bring our productions to the widest possible audience, whether at our home the London Coliseum, nationally or internationally.  As well as staging ENO productions, the London Coliseum hosts visiting companies throughout the year.

Our policies

Our recruitment and HR policies and procedures ensure that all prospective employees are legally entitled to work in the UK and safeguard employees from any abuse or coercion once in our employment.

Strengthening our approach during 2017/18

  • We will continue to raise the general awareness of modern slavery issues among our employees by providing relevant information and introduce individual briefings for management and procurement responsibilities.
  • All new contracts will include provisions to ensure suppliers know their responsibilities.
  • We will implement a new procurement policy and guidelines with reference to the Act, regularly review our existing supply chains and identify and assess potential risk areas when considering taking on new suppliers.

Our performance indicators

We will know the effectiveness of the steps that we are taking to ensure that slavery and/or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain if no reports are received from employees, the public, or law enforcement agencies to indicate that modern slavery practices have been identified.

Approval for this statement

This statement is made pursuant to s.54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps that ENO has taken and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain.

This statement was approved by the Board of Directors on 14th December 2016.

Download the signed PDF of this policy.