AA1000
Our CSR report and supporting CSR programme is developed and assured in line with the AA1000 Assurance standard and the Associated Assurance Principles Standard (AA1000APS). This standard is based on adherence to three principles:
- Inclusivity - engaging with our stakeholders to help shape the business
- Materiality - understanding the CSR issues that are most important to us at any one time and reflecting this in our reporting processes
- Responsiveness - managing and responding to material issues, challenges and stakeholder concerns.
Inclusivity
We define our stakeholders as any group or organisation who could be significantly affected by the business or who could have an impact on the company. Through consultation at divisional level we have identified each of our main stakeholder groups and have established a range of mechanisms for engaging with them.
One of the main challenges we face is managing the range of stakeholder interactions and collating feedback from both the Group level and local engagement processes. In particular, much of our customer engagement takes place at local level and reflects local issues and circumstances. However, we balance the local engagement with Group-wide surveys that allow us to also gain an understanding of broader trends.
This year we are conducting a review of engagement across the Group with a view to developing a more structured stakeholder engagement strategy and sharing best practice at local level.
Materiality
For the past two years we have formally assessed the relative materiality of our CSR issues. We have developed a process (based on recognised best practice) that assesses materiality in terms of the current or potential significance of an issue both to FirstGroup and to our stakeholders. This year we have refined the process to take account of our current management control measures and the extent to which we meet stakeholder expectations: this has further prioritised the high risk issues. Our employees and customers represent two significant stakeholder groups, as reflected in the final outcome. Based on our latest assessment, our most material issues are;
- safety and security
- customer satisfaction
- employee engagement
- strategy, vision and values
- corporate governance and business ethics
- recognition and rewards
- service integration and technology (UK).
These are followed by:
- carbon reduction
- service performance
- employee health and well-being
- relationships with the unions
- accessibility
- effective partnerships
- community relations.
Responsiveness
We see our stakeholders as important partners in the business and their feedback helps shape our business strategy. Action plans and programmes are developed in relation to formal stakeholder feedback such as employee and customer surveys. In other cases, issues are addressed locally. A challenge for us is capturing local issues that may have broader significance for the Group. We respond to stakeholders at both Group and local level and have a variety of mechanisms for doing this: these are described in the stakeholder engagement section of the report.
In line with previous years, our CSR report has been the subject of an assurance process by a third party. The full assurance statement can be found here.