The Dandara Group commits to uphold the obligations set below which applies to all entities and businesses within the Group. We are committed to responsible corporate governance and conducting our activities with integrity. We will meet our legal, ethical, environmental and social responsibilities to protect our clients, employees, partners and those we do business with. We also recognise our societal duty to support governments, the communities in which we work, law enforcement and economic crime prevention as well as doing our part to protect the environment.
We are also committed to ensuring our information systems are secure and that the privacy of our clients is protected. Any deliberate breach of financial crime laws (e.g. tax evasion facilitation, bribery or money laundering), modern slavery in any form or any action that harms the environment is strictly not tolerated.
We expect and require the people and firms, associated with us, that work for us or on our behalf, who we partner with, or who provide goods or services to us (“our Business Associates”) to have similar processes and controls in place if they are involved in performing services for us or supplying goods to us. The requirement to abide by our policies and commitments is supplemental to any contract or agreement we have entered into with our Business Associates and remains in force until all obligations of our Business Associates has ceased. We require our Business Associates to notify us of as soon as they become aware that they have not or may not be able to comply with any of our commitments. Any material failure to comply may be considered a material breach of our contract with our Business Associates.
Specifically, our commitments and expectations of our Business Associates are set out below.
Worldwide, more than half the GDP of the UK is lost in bribes each year. Bribery and corruption can lead to the loss of a healthy environment and sustainable future. The principal legislation is the UK Bribery Act 2010 which reaches to anywhere a UK firm does business or its associated parties, subsidiaries etc. wherever they are located. We also comply with the Isle of Man Bribery Act 2013 which mirrors the UK version and the Corruption (Jersey) Law 2006.
We will not engage in, and do not expect our Business Associates to engage in:
We will do all we can and expect our Business Associates to do all they can to prevent bribery. We conduct due diligence and risk assess and monitor our Business Associates. We have controls in place around gifts and entertainment, conflicts of interest, charitable donations and employment opportunities. We train our staff requiring them to be aware of the risks of bribery. We have an ongoing risk assessment programme.
Tax evasion is very damaging to the societies in which it occurs. It diverts money and resources from those who need them most, hindering economic and social development. Under the UK Criminal Finances Act 2017, as a corporate body we have a duty to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion. That prevention extends to our Business Associates where they are acting on our behalf and extends to the facilitation of evasion of any tax or duty in any jurisdiction.
We will not assist or facilitate another party to evade taxes and we will report any party that asks us to do so. Similarly, we will not tolerate any Business Associates acting on our behalf to facilitate tax evasion.
We train all our staff in relation to tax evasion facilitation and the consequences of not acting with integrity. We risk assess our exposure to the possible tax evasion schemes or practices to which our business could potentially help facilitate, and put controls in place and monitor control effectiveness. Due diligence checks and our expectations are built into the processes, terms & conditions in relation to employment and, as outlined here, we have high expectations of our Business Associates conducting activities on our behalf.
Under Schedule 19 of the Finance Act 2016 our UK Housebuilding Division is required to publish our tax strategy, the controls and approach apply across the group. The strategy can be found here.
We make an annual statement in relation to modern slavery and that statement and our commitment to reduce modern slavery can be found here.
We believe in protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our and our client’s data beyond the obligations of that for individuals under the Data Protection Acts of the jurisdictions in which we do business (see Privacy Policy). Our information technology and cyber security systems are robust and modern, we use market leading providers to keep information secure including our email gateway and archive storage, web presence and endpoint security systems. Our staff are trained on the importance of information security awareness the value we place on it.
It is sometimes necessary for us to share the personal data of our clients – be that a name and address provided to a contractor to fix a plumbing, electrical or similar issue, or it is inherent as part of the functioning of our business through the use of providers of information technology solutions and security software. When we need to allow our Business Associates to process the data that we control they must comply with our data processing requirements to ensure the data remains secure. We also expect our Business Associates to have their own data processing agreements in place with their Business Associates should there be a need to further process the data.
We are committed to conducting our business with openness, transparency, accountability and integrity. We want to know about any wrong-doing that happens with regard to Our Commitments, any matter endangering health and safety, criminal acts, modern slavery risks or other matters of public concern, so we can act on them and learn from them. Our employees and Business Associates would likely be the first to identify any issues and we have a ‘speak up’ culture and encourage employees and our Business Associates to speak to line managers, site managers and business contacts. To maximise our ability to capture all genuine concerns and underline our commitments, we also have a confidential whistleblowing channel. Concerns are investigated by our Compliance, Legal, Tax and Human Resources teams and where substantiated we act upon them. Employees and our Business Associates can find out more or raise concerns at whistleblowing@dandara.com.
We are pleased to confirm that having signed the Developers Pledge Letter and the Developer Remediation contract[BM1] . Dandara has appointed several partners to undertake the initial surveys, which will be used to inform the remediation works and support in the creation a reparation timeline that can be completed with minimal disruption to residents. Throughout the remediation process, Dandara will continue to work closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), freeholders, leaseholders, contractors, consultants and management companies to ensure all work is delivered to a high standard and in line with the developer remediation contract.
Steven Hannah, Finance Director