Modern Slavery Act 2015 – deadline tomorrow

30th June 2017 marks the next big deadline for Modern Slavery Act compliance. Organisations with a financial year-end date of 31st December are required to produce a Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement before that date.

Train your staff with our suite of courses

Since VinciWorks released its first course on modern slavery a year ago, thousands of employees and suppliers have used the course as part of their internal compliance programs.

Among the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received, many companies felt they needed a more comprehensive course for procurement teams and a shorter course for general staff. Here is the suite of courses we have created to suit the needs of an entire organisation.

1. Raise your Awareness

Target audienceModern Slavery: Raise your Awareness online course
General staff in low risk industries

Duration
10 minutes

Course outcomes
Basic overview and common signs of slavery

Demo course
Continue reading

Government rushes through new Money Laundering Regulations 2017

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament

Parliamentary procedure broken in order to meet today’s EU deadline

The government confirmed at the last minute the new EU Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4MLD) will come into force today (Monday) in order to meet the European deadline of transposing the 4th Directive into national legislation by 26 June 2017.

Due to the general election, the government has been forced to rush through the new rules, and will break parliamentary convention in order to do so.

The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 is a negative statutory instrument. These automatically become law without debate unless there is an objection from either House of Parliament. By convention negative statutory instruments should not come into effect until a minimum of 21 days after they are laid out. However, on Friday the government confirmed they would be breaking these rules in order to ensure that the EU deadline for transposing the Fourth Directive into national law is met.
Continue reading

Course on preventing facilitation of tax evasion

 VinciWorks has released a new e-learning course on tax evasion. The course will teach employees how to spot tax evaders, and the reporting procedures required of them. The training will cover the organisation’s policies and procedures, which include provisions of The Act and any other regulatory rules and principles. This includes:

  • An explanation of when and how to seek advice and report any concerns or
    suspicions of tax evasion or wider financial crime, including whistleblowing
    procedures
  • An explanation of the term ‘tax evasion’ and associated fraud
  • An explanation of an employee’s duty under the law
  • The penalties relating to the person and corporate entity for committing an
    offence under The Act
  • The social and economic effects of failing to prevent tax evasion

Continue reading

Free on-demand webinar – Get Ready for GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on 25 May 2018. If you are unprepared, this regulation could have a drastic impact on your business and how you collect data. The regulation creates significantly more rights and protections for data subjects, and imposes heavy fines on businesses that fail to comply.

The changes you may have to make to comply with GDPR include:

  • Assessing and justifying all of your data collection
  • Revising your privacy, data protection and cyber security policies
  • Designing systems for new data rights including the right to be forgotten and the right to data portability
  • Appointing a Data Protection Officer and implementing a “privacy by design” process

The webinar guides you through the first steps you need to take to become compliant. It will help you understand how the changes under GDPR will affect your organisation and how you should begin planning.
Continue reading

How are organisations customising their modern slavery training?

VinciWorks’ suite of training on modern slavery now includes three courses:

Like all VinciWorks courses, the modern slavery courses can be fully customised to:

  • Fit internal procedures
  • Adhere to internal style
  • Include extra relevant information

In fact, every word of the courses can easily be customised.

Below are examples of the four most common customisation requests that we have collected in order to help organisations better understand best-practice for customisation.

1. Opening quote

The course Modern Slavery: Prevention Exploitation features a quote by Theresa May underscoring the severity of modern slavery. Many firms have replaced this quote with a quote or letter from an executive that reiterates the organisation’s commitment to combating slavery.

This quote sets the tone for the course and conveys the deep responsibility that all staff should feel towards the issue.
Continue reading

New course: Cyber Security for Kitchen Appliances

Ghost hovering over a kettle

Is your kettle spying on you?

Research from the Association of Public Registered Information Lawyers has shown that 70% of all cyber security failings happen because of unsecured kitchen appliances in the workplace.

Even though VinciWorks has helped to change the landscape of compliance training for human staff with Cyber Security: Practical Applications, the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart products has led to a new frontier in the cyber wars: the office kitchen.

Cyber Security for Kitchen Appliances is the brand new course from VinciWorks to keep your office, your data and your tea break safe and secure.
Continue reading

New Course – Modern Slavery: Practical Steps for Procurement

Online Modern Slavery course for procurement teams

New modern slavery course for procurement teams

VinciWorks has just released a new advanced course on Modern Slavery. A companion to the introductory Modern Slavery: Preventing Exploitation, this 45 minute course is tailored to procurement teams. It gives further insight into modern slavery in supply chains and will help carry out risk assessments. The course can be fully customised to suit internal procedures.

The course includes:

  • Common problems to look out for in the supply chain
  • High risk countries and products
  • Real-life scenarios from different parts of the supply chain to test your ability to spot red flags
  • Practical steps for projects
  • Questions to ask potential suppliers
  • Guidance on addressing risks of modern slavery in your supply chain

Industry-specific red flags

Mobile devices created by modern slaves
Our course highlights industries where modern slavery is most likely to occur

Click below to demo the course for free.

Demo the course

RMS Update: Dashboard is now filterable

The dashboard of the Risk Management System is the nerve center of the risk management process. It provides an overview of an organisation’s risk profile, important alerts, top risks and the latest risk news.

This risk epicenter is now even more powerful with the addition of filters for categories and org units.

This granular view of your risks and controls enables you to drill down into any category or org unit and identify potential risks and opportunities. When using the filter, all elements of the dashboard, including reports, charts, control procedures etc. are updated with the filter.

VinciWorks hosts second continuing competence user group

Over 22 leading firms joined Director of Best Practice Gary Yantin and SRA Policy Executive Richard Williams for the second continuing competence user group. This candid conversation between the firms and the regulator focussed on how firms are implementing continuing competence since the changes to CPD in November, and to share best practice.

Many firms currently implementing changes to CPD

Richard spoke about how many firms are still in the process of implementing continued competence. He voiced the importance that the SRA places on the new approach and advised that there will be an annual declaration as part of a renewal exercise to make sure firms are meeting regulatory obligations. Richard also made clear that the SRA will not be carrying out spot checks on firms, but will use the annual declaration in conjunction with other regulatory data to explore concerns that they may have with the competence or standard of service provided by a solicitor or firm.
Continue reading