Corporate Responsibility Report Getting you there for less

Transcription

1 Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Getting you there for less

2 About this report This report describes the corporate responsibility performance of Go North East in the 12 months to 27 June As part of our annual business planning, we have set targets and goals to improve our corporate responsibility performance for 2009/10. We have placed more information on our new Go-Ahead Group corporate responsibility website which will be available from November You can find this at This report is structured around our most important issues as a transport provider: Being customer focused, community friendly Being an innovator and market leader Taking care of the environment Accessibility Being a good employer. Stanley Consett Ashington Newcastle upon Tyne Gateshead Durham Blyth North Tyneside South Tyneside Sunderland We provide local bus services across the Tyne & Wear and County Durham regions. About the Go-Ahead Group Go North East is part of the Go-Ahead Group. Go-Ahead is a major provider of transport services across the UK, employing over 27,100 people. Each year, the Group s companies serve over a billion passengers. The Group s operations span bus, rail and aviation services, and are defined by a belief that local people make the best decisions about running local services. Each of Go-Ahead s subsidiary companies is run as an autonomous business in tune with the local market.

3 A Welcome from our Managing Director Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Go North East 1 Welcome to our fifth annual Corporate Responsibility Report in which we explain our wider contribution to the community and economy of the North East. Our fleet of 665 buses and coaches most with their own unique local identities run services in and around Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Durham, Gateshead, Sunderland and Teesside. This year we continued our commitment to buying environmentally friendly new buses meeting the latest (Euro 4 or Euro 5) emissions standards. Our award-winning local branding schemes have been widely acclaimed with names such as Red Kite, The Angel and Crusader reflecting the involvement of local communities and their rich social and cultural histories. In the North East we are proud to have pioneered the use of low-floor, easy-access buses and have upgraded the whole of our mainstream fleet to provide access for all. We support this investment with training to ensure that we deliver mobility to all sections of the community. Our award-winning buses provide some of the best public transport outside of London with 99.65% reliability achieved on our scheduled 56 million bus kilometres this year. We are also one of the largest private sector employers in the region with more than 2,000 trained staff and our own training school in Gateshead. Through our commitments to staff training, apprenticeships and lifelong learning we aim to ensure that our staff can develop their skills within the company. We pride ourselves on offering excellent customer care and providing excellent public consultation, from our extensive timetable information and bus briefings to our dedicated customer helpline and comprehensive website. Our innovations in customer communications have also made us the first UK bus operator to provide open-access to our senior staff through web Open Line sessions, Meet the Manager programmes and Bus Doctor surgeries. With a great record of providing funding to support groups and charities in our local community, we do much more than run buses. I hope that this report will give you a flavour of what we do and how we constantly strive to improve our performance and engagement in the area where we are proud to run our business: the North East. Peter Huntley Managing Director

4 2 Go North East Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Customer focused, community friendly Car ownership in the North East is one of the lowest anywhere in the country, making buses essential to the region s prosperity, and to our passengers ability to access vital community services and leisure pursuits. As part of our contribution towards keeping the region moving and making opportunities accessible to all, we continue to review our fares regularly. We work constantly to make our fares simple and give great value for money and place special emphasis on making travel affordable in areas of high social exclusion and low incomes. In the last 12 months we have introduced flat fares on our East Durham services providing affordable bus travel for some of the most socially deprived areas in the region. In addition our Bargain Bus brand was expanded in Northumberland. We continue to work closely with local authorities, forming strong partnerships to encourage a more joined-up approach to bus travel and deliver the infrastructure improvements required for buses to run smoothly. Our East Gateshead Quality Bus Partnership with Gateshead Council and the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus) has entered its second successful year. At the same time, we have recently established a less formal working arrangement with Durham County Council to promote affordable travel in East Durham. Listening to customers Listening to the views of our customers often helps us to develop our fares and services. We make every effort to make it easy to provide us with valuable feedback. We lead the way with our approach to open reporting on our performance and offer more ways for customers to contact us than any other bus company in the region. We are the only regional bus company to have a dedicated customer services team and we also encourage feedback through weekly live web chats, bus doctor sessions held in the community and provide regular opportunities to talk to our Service Delivery Managers on our buses. Our information is now also available through Facebook and Twitter. As a result of customer feedback in the last year, we have introduced a trial allowing bicycles on our Lime buses. We have also piloted a simple fare offer for concessionary pass holders aged 60 or over, which allows those who were restricted to travelling after 9.30am to pay a small fare to travel on our buses earlier in the day. We also believe in involving the local community in the promotion of our services wherever possible, encouraging passengers or potential customers to buy into their local service and establish a sense of ownership. Safety and security Feeling safe and secure is an important consideration for many passengers when travelling on the bus and all of our mainline services are fitted with CCTV cameras and recording facilities. The local community benefits from the annual community fund and fundraising events by staff.

5 Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Go North East 3 We do not tolerate anti-social behaviour on our buses and do not hesitate to use footage downloaded from these cameras to help secure convictions for offences against our passengers or drivers. Similarly, drivers are supplied with DNA saliva testing kits to support any evidence captured on CCTV. 70m Passenger journeys (to the nearest 5m) 70m 99.65% Scheduled kms operated (%) 99.69% CCTV on bus fleet (%) 55.76m Staff are regularly out and about to meet and help customers. Total vehicles kms travelled 55.57m 98.9% VOSA PSV vehicle pass rate, national average 86.5% 98.5% Size of bus fleet Community investment (%) , % of total Group spend ( 269,720) Cash donations Gifts in kind Employee and management time

6 4 Go North East Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Innovator and market leader Our unique approach to the creation of more than 50 branded routes has led to us being heralded as one of the most innovative bus companies in the country. With many of the branded routes reflecting local points of interest in their design, we are able to build destination travel as well as dayto-day transport needs into our marketing plan. The branding and destination messages are carried through onto timetables, internal friezes and other branded materials associated with our services. This approach promotes regional travel by bus and encourages the use of sustainable transport links to reach popular destinations traditionally reached by car. We became the first bus company in the region to achieve 100% easy access on all of our main services, years ahead of legislation requirements; we were also the first to introduce Euro 5 engine buses and the first to fit all of our buses with CCTV cameras. Our Red Kite bus (above and below) looks great inside and out, and tells our customers about the return of the birds to the North East.

7 Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Go North East 5 Go North East and Durham County Council worked together to provide a package of tailor-made bus services and value fares. Our services were nominated for no less than three awards in the 2008 UK Bus Awards, achieving runner-up for Young Manager of the Year and winning the Marketing Campaign of the Year Award. Our close partnerships with local companies to encourage and promote bus travel also lead the way in our region. Having recently taken over the management of bus stations at two of the largest shopping centres in the region Metrocentre and The Galleries we are introducing a unique blend of advice on quality retail and public transport through our specially trained customer services staff. Our close partnership with leading business park management at Cobalt uses innovative fares and tailored timetables to encourage as many staff as possible to travel to work by bus. Go-Ahead became the first UK transport operator to be awarded the Carbon Trust Standard in recognition of our work to reduce carbon emissions. Go-Ahead is also a member of Greener Journeys, a campaign to raise awareness of the role buses and coaches can play to help the Government deliver its carbon reduction targets by giving people a real alternative to private car use. For the third year in a row Go-Ahead achieved a gold rating in Business in the Community s (BITC) Responsibility Index the highest rating amongst comparable participating public transport operators.

8 6 Go North East Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Taking care of the environment It is the responsibility of everyone to work towards reducing their carbon emissions and, as a leading bus company, we work hard to promote bus travel as a modern, clean, sustainable alternative to travelling by car. Through continual investment in new vehicles, we have consistently reduced the average age of our fleet. Currently, our fleet of 665 buses have an average age of just over seven years, making it one of the youngest in the country. Our use of Mix Telematics to analyse fuel consumption has further improved our environmental profile, achieving a 3.8% fuel saving. By encouraging the highest standards of driving, our telematics system is also helping to reduce accident rates, and provides useful data for improving passenger safety. We believe in letting as many people as possible know about our good environmental performance especially our passengers. In the last year, we have introduced our own unique Kite mark to illustrate the cleanliness of our bus engines. The imaginative symbols, based on the instantly recognisable Red Kite, represent the European standard on emissions and communicate engine cleanliness in a clear, simple and visually interesting way. Action to save energy in our buildings has led to a 20% saving on gas (adjusted for temperature variations between and ) and electricity combined. We have set up a team of energy champions throughout the organisation who work hard to make sure our energy saving objectives are successfully filtered down to all members of staff. 98.3% VOSA emissions pass rate 100% Average age of fleet (yrs) Government industry target (below 8yrs) Our efforts are delivering positive results. We have achieved a year on year reduction across all emissions on a per passenger journey basis. Air pollution Go North East reduced all emissions on a ppj basis. NOx (g) per passenger journey PM (g) per passenger journey CO 2 (kg) per passenger journey CO (g) per passenger journey HC (g) per passenger journey Bus engine environmental standards (%) Fleet with Euro 2 engines or above Fleet with Euro 4 and Euro 5 engines* * Euro 4 latest European diesel emissions standard. Euro 5 European diesel emissions standard to become mandatory in September 2009.

9 Accessibility Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Go North East 7 Our main services are 100% easy access with low floors and ramp access. To improve reliability, we have made a conscious decision to move away from mechanical ramps and introduce manual ramps on all of our services. We will roll out this programme over the coming years. We continue to be the only bus operator in the region to offer our Easy Access Wheelchair Guarantee, which provides a complimentary taxi for anyone in a wheelchair if a low-floor bus is not provided where scheduled or if a ramp fails to operate. The emphasis we place on the importance of accessibility is paying off, with more employees taking the initiative in supporting our passengers with access issues. An example is the story of Service Delivery Supervisor, John Gordon. After finding he was unable to communicate when approached for help by a deaf person, John swore he would never be in that position again. After taking a deaf awareness course, John enrolled on a sign language NVQ course and is even sharing his skills with other colleagues. We have supported John throughout his learning experience and continue to support him in his efforts to train other company employees in the basics of sign language. Low-floor buses entire fleet (%) Supervisor John Gordon learns sign language to support deaf people travelling on our buses. All of our main services have easy access for all.

10 8 Go North East Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 Being a good employer We fully acknowledge that our business success relies heavily on the quality of service delivered by our employees, and that being a good employer is the key to recruiting and retaining staff. Our policy of providing a positive work environment with competitive rates of pay and a wide range of employee benefits, including a pension, has helped us to keep employee turnover rates down. We operate our own driver training school, providing the highest possible standards of driver training. We also offer enhanced training opportunities including our gold standard driver training. Since first introduced in 2008, gold standard training has been delivered to nearly 300 drivers. We have retained our Investors in People award since it was first obtained in We expect all of our staff to work hard to retain our existing customers as well as encourage new ones onto our services. We also believe in giving rewards and recognition for service excellence and initiative. Every year we reward our loyal staff with long service awards. In addition, innovation, initiative and service excellence are recognised through our Extra Mile awards. Our Go the Extra Mile Awards reward service excellence. Number of employees Women employed (%) Diversity by age (%) 2,102 2,076 2, ,021 Training spend Employee turnover rate (%)

11 Summary independent assurance statement Go-Ahead Corporate Responsibility Report Go North East is part of The Go-Ahead Group plc. Members of the Group run bus services (in the South of England, London and the North East of England), commuter train networks, aviation ground handling and parking services. Summary Independent Verification Statement from Bureau Veritas UK Ltd Bureau Veritas has been engaged by Go-Ahead Group plc to provide an independent opinion on the corporate responsibility ( CR ) key performance indicator ( KPI ) data contained within the Go-Ahead Group plc s 2009 Corporate Responsibility Reports ( the Reports ). Scope & Methodology The information and data reviewed for this verification process relates to the period from 29 June 2008 to 27 June We have verified the CR KPI data that is contained on page 5 of the Go-Ahead Group plc Report, some of which also appears in this Operating Company Report. The verification process involved a series of interviews with CR data owners at Group level and at a sample of four operating companies (Go-Ahead London, Oxford Bus Company, Southern Railway and London Midland) to understand the process for managing, collating and reporting data. At Group level, we conducted a review of Enablon, the Group software for collecting, reporting and managing CR data and the central Group contracts for energy supplies and waste management. At operating company level, Bureau Veritas also conducted a review of documents; inspection of internal and external records; interrogation of databases and associated management and reporting systems, in order to challenge and substantiate the CR KPI data presented in the Report. The integrity and accuracy of aggregated data was tested by tracking sample data back to its source. The methodology for data collection, estimation and aggregation was examined and tested for accuracy and robustness. Opinion of the verifier Based on our verification activities it is our opinion that: The reported CR KPI data provide a fair and accurate representation of Go-Ahead s CR performance for the defined period; No significant omissions were identified which could affect stakeholders ability to make informed judgements on Go-Ahead s CR performance for the defined period. A full verification statement including further details on our scope and methodology, basis for our opinion, recommendations, limitations and a statement of Bureau Veritas independence can be found on the Go-Ahead Group plc s website ( Statement of independence, impartiality and competence Bureau Veritas is an independent professional services company that specialises in quality, health, safety, social and environmental management advice and compliance with over 180 years history in providing independent assurance services. Bureau Veritas has implemented a code of ethics across its business which ensures that all our staff maintain high standards in their day to day business activities. Our verification assignment did not raise any conflicts of interest. September 2009 Bureau Veritas UK Ltd corporateresponsibility@uk.bureauveritas.com Go-Ahead Operating Company Corporate Responsibility Reports Aviation Services (Aviance UK, Plane Handling and Reed Aviation) Bluestar Brighton & Hove Bus Company Go-Ahead London Go North East London Midland Meteor Metrobus Oxford Bus Company Southeastern Southern Southern Vectis Wilts & Dorset

12 This report can be downloaded from Go North East s website More information on how Go North East manages its corporate responsibilities can be found at If you have any comments, views or ideas on how we might improve, or have any thoughts on other issues that we should address in this report, please write to: Peter Huntley Managing Director Go North East 117 Queen Street Gateshead NE8 2UA Tel: peter.huntley@gonortheast.co.uk This report was put together with the help of: The Go-Ahead Group, Corporate Citizenship, CR Consulting (Newcastle) Limited Rare Corporate Design. Printed by The Midas Press using environmental print technology which minimises any negative environmental impacts resulting from the printing of this document. We include the use of vegetable based inks, recycling 85% of dry waste, 85% of cleaning solvents and use 100% renewable energy. Printed on Revive 100 Uncoated which contains 100% post consumer waste and is FSC certified.