We donate our time, skills and money to support our local communities 

Our community investment programme ‘Capita in the Community’ aims to tackle social exclusion of all kinds. We donate our time, skills and money to community initiatives, supporting projects in local schools and community groups.

In 2009 we reviewed our community investment programme, streamlining our approach to align with our CR and business strategy and allow us to direct our efforts more effectively. We introduced a framework basing our activities around three themes: education, social exclusion and health.

The programme is applied centrally at Group level and also at individual business level, including our business operations in India. The framework provides enough flexibility to allow businesses to address specific local needs in the areas where they work.

Through this programme we provide positive educational support and training for young people and adults, supporting them through the entire cycle of education to employment and helping them to reach their full potential. We support people who are socially excluded by improving accessibility to services and opportunities to use digital technology. And we also partner with a healthcare charity as our corporate charity, providing financial support and using this as an opportunity to educate our employees.

In 2009 we increased our support for getting unemployed people back into work. Our Life and Pensions account in Glasgow entered into a Local Employment Partnership with Jobcentre Plus, helping to employ and train local people. Through our support of the Backing Young Britain campaign we are also providing new opportunities to young job seekers through the provision of work placements. 

We use the London Benchmarking Group methodology to capture and value as much of our community investment data as possible. In such a diverse and constantly growing business the extent of data capture is limited, but in 2009 we valued our total community investment at £1.4 million (2008: £1.2 million).