Introduction
At Macmillan Cancer Support we do whatever it takes to get every person with cancer the best support today and spark a revolution in cancer care for the future. We strive to operate to high ethical standards, and we recognise that we have a responsibility to consider the impact of our operations on others.
This statement sets out the measures we have already taken - and that we are continuing to build on - to understand and minimise modern slavery risks within our organisational structure and supply chain.
We are committed to ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place in any part of our operations or our supply chains
Our organisation
We are the UK’s leading cancer support charity. We have around 1,500 employees and more than 28,000 volunteers, all based in the UK. Our employees are not in any category that is seen as vulnerable to modern slavery in this country. We are an accredited Living Wage Employer with the Living Wage Foundation, and we pay all employees at least London Living Wage.
We have a wholly owned subsidiary, Macmillan Cancer Support Trading Limited, which sells Christmas cards and other items and carries out fundraising trading activities, with all the profits given to the charity.
We are a registered charity and company limited by guarantee, governed by a board of trustees who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of company law. The trustees oversee our activities to achieve our objectives and are ultimately responsible for everything we do. Day-to day responsibility for running the charity is delegated to the Chief Executive, and the Executive Directors who comprise the Executive Team.
Our supply chain
We work with over 800 suppliers (based on our 2025 spend information) with 80% of spend across 57 suppliers. A significant percentage of our suppliers are dedicated to supporting marketing, fundraising, corporate and IT services. Most of our suppliers are UK based.
Branded merchandise supply chain
At Macmillan we procure branded merchandise through our internal buying team. Our merchandise is produced in eight countries. Most of our merchandise comes from China, followed by the UK, followed by Germany, USA, Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Spain. We have a core supplier framework selected through a comprehensive supplier tender process.
As we have assessed these types of products as having potentially higher modern slavery risk, we have focused on strengthening our due diligence and practices throughout these supply chains. Our merchandise suppliers must adhere to strict processes, maintaining accurate factory audits, ensuring safe working conditions, and addressing any identified issues promptly. We have risk assessed our merchandise suppliers to highlight the biggest risks, prioritise action and strengthen our supply chain. This work has enabled us to enhance our processes and ways of working with our suppliers to minimise risk.
Our policies and procedures
We have a range of policies that contribute to minimising the risk of modern slavery in our supply chains. They are promoted through internal awareness raising programmes such as all colleague emails and training. The most relevant policies for the purposes of modern slavery include our procurement policy and guidance, our ethics policy and our whistleblowing policy.
Our whistleblowing policy is publicly available on our website and members of the public can raise a whistleblowing concern.
There is high compliance to our Procurement Policy with all high-value goods and services purchases monitored closely and reported on a quarterly basis.
Due diligence
For higher value contracts, we now include an assessment of the anti-modern slavery measures taken by potential suppliers. Our template services contracts include clauses about suppliers complying with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, however, on some occasions, for practical purposes we enter contracts based on the suppliers’ terms meaning clauses around suppliers complying with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 are not always included in the contracts.
Our Procurement Policy requires that in both the selection of suppliers and their management, we consider Environmental Social Governance (ESG) criteria, including exploitation in the supply chain. We use an external third-party data analytics service that enables us to monitor the risk profile for our suppliers, including modern slavery risks.
Our Procurement team is part of the Charity Sector Procurement Group where members share good practice about all areas of Procurement in charities, including reducing the risk of modern slavery in supply chains.
Risk identification
We carried out a high-level modern slavery risk identification on our supply chain using the principles and guidance set out by government in the Procurement Policy Note Guidance on tackling modern slavery in government supply chains. The assessment considers supplier industry, nature of workforce and the supply chain model which allows us to identify spend areas which may carry an increased risk. This will be reviewed every three years or if a change in circumstances indicates the risk might increase.
Our risk appetite position on modern slavery expects all colleagues and suppliers to take proactive steps to ensure that our operations and supply chains remain free from exploitation in all its forms. Risks of actual or potential modern slavery sit within our overall risk management framework and would be escalated through our risk governance processes, with oversight at Executive level. More information on our risk management governance and management of ESG risks can be found in our Annual Report.
Supplier Code of Conduct
Union Engagement
Macmillan has long recognised the Royal College of Nurses union in respect of its nurses, however in 2025 Macmillan also decided to review representation across the whole organisation, which led to a second union, Unite, being recognised for employees in eligible roles in our Services division (primarily, the Macmillan Support Line), and a third Union, Community, being recognised for the majority of other employees across Macmillan.
Staff training and awareness
A modern slavery working group raises organisational awareness and continually improve measures to minimise exploitation and modern slavery risks in our operations and supply chain.
As part of Anti-Slavery Week in October 2025, we raised awareness through a Modern Slavery news item in an all-colleague email newsletter and developed a dedicated Modern Slavery page on our intranet.
We updated our guidance on identifying indicators of modern slavery and due diligence and agreed our approach to modern slavery training.
Looking ahead
Key actions and initiatives planned for 2026 include:
- We will continue to raise modern slavery internal awareness
- We will roll out supplier management training which includes modern slavery training to strengthen controls and reduce the risk of modern slavery within our supply chains
- We will further embed risk management into our processes and where higher risk of modern slavery is identified in the supply chain, we will decide appropriate next steps including potential additional due diligence measures and controls
This statement is made voluntarily (as Macmillan does not meet the financial threshold at which publishing a statement becomes mandatory) and accords with s54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for the financial year ending 31 December 2025.
This statement has been formally approved by the trustees of Macmillan Cancer Support at a board meeting on 7th May 2026 and signed on their behalf.
David Bennett, Chair
Macmillan Cancer Support
7 May 2026