Corporate Social Responsibility
FirstGroup plc is a leading transport operator. Almost all our operations are in the UK and North America with revenues that are split fairly evenly between the two.
In the UK we provide bus and rail services. In North America we operate yellow school bus services and Greyhound coaches, and provide transit management and vehicle maintenance services. In UK Rail, First Student and First Transit our business is contract-based and we provide services on behalf of third parties.
CSR drives us to improve business performance and ensures that our business decisions help to deliver more sustainable transport systems. Engagement with our stakeholders and effective partnerships are crucial.
To evaluate our CSR performance for the financial year 2010/11 please go to our online report using the left hand menu. For a shorter overview, you can refer to our summary report which is available using the left hand menu or in printed format. Alternatively you can shortcut to a particular area of interest using the right hand menu.
CEO statement
A strong CSR culture should be important to any business. I believe it drives us to improve performance resulting in better employee engagement, improved customer service and greater business efficiency. CSR is also about ensuring we help tackle some of our society's wider challenges such as congestion, resource consumption and climate change.
As a business we are fully committed to helping to deliver part of the solution by ensuring that public transport provides an attractive, low emissions alternative to other forms of travel. To make this happen, partnerships are essential. We will continue to build and develop our many effective partnerships so that our growing customer base receives a better service. To help us achieve this goal we will continue, with our industry partners, to support the development of policy changes at both national and local level.
Safety remains our core value and the businesses have continued their relentless delivery of improved safety results. Since 2006 Lost Time Injuries and passenger injuries are down by approximately 50%. Nonetheless, during the year, four of our employees were tragically killed as a result of accidents at work. While our thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues these terrible tragedies remind us that there is nothing more important than the safety of our staff and our customers. We remain relentless in the pursuit of our goal to eliminate workplace accidents and injuries.
In the last two years the economic climate has presented challenges. In parts of the business we have had to adjust local networks to meet passenger demand which we recognise has impacted on some of our customers. However, going forward our focus is on growth. We will continue to develop and improve our services, for example, through improvements to customer information and communication systems, and investment in new vehicles and infrastructure. We recently announced a £160m order for over 950 new buses - a clear demonstration of this commitment.
In the coming year we will reinvigorate our vision and values as part of promoting improved employee engagement. We will also align CSR more closely with our business strategy to help us deliver the highest quality customer service and to drive growth in all of our businesses.
Tim O'Toole, Chief Executive
Click here to view our BITC CR index 2011 results
Feedback
We welcome your views on our CSR performance and encourage you to feedback to us. You can do this by writing to us at the address below or by emailing CSR@firstgroup.com
Group Head of CSR
FirstGroup plc
395 King Street
Aberdeen
AB24 5RP
For printed copies of our CSR report please write to or email the address above. The report is also available in Braille and large print format.
