We invested over £6.3 million in community initiatives worldwide.

Our employees around the group donated over 34,000 hours of their time to support local communities.

Our major group community initiative last year was being one of the first partners to sign up to the Oxfam 365 Alliance, which aims to provide the infrastructure necessary to respond rapidly to emergencies.

In 2006, as measured by Business in the Community’s PerCent Standard, we invested £6.3 million in community initiatives around the world, which is an increase of over 10% (£600,000) on 2005.

We want to be supportive of the local communities in which we operate. We feel informed decisions about where and how to lend our assistance are best made locally by our people deciding themselves which projects to support, managing their own local community programmes.

This year, the majority of our businesses focused on three major areas: financial literacy, youth education and development, and health and social welfare. Our support usually involves funding in some form, but we also help by providing “support in kind”, such as offering equipment, facilities or office supplies for free or by giving employees time off to help. Our people want to get involved outside of work too, giving their own time and money to help charities and community groups.