Supporting our communities
By contributing to activities and organisations that align with our business, we want to make a positive social and economic contribution to the communities in which we live and work.
Building relationships
It's important to us to build and nurture mutually beneficial relationships between our business, our people and the local communities in which we operate. We do this by partnering with organisations on initiatives that have impact and meaning to our business and employees.
Our key criteria, where measurable impact can be demonstrated, are:
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Armed forces – supporting active service personnel, veterans and their families;
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Education and skills – inspiring young people to consider science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers; and
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Local community – working to support the communities in which we operate.
Inspiring young people
We're excited to play a part in inspiring the next generation of leaders and innovators. We invest in people, technologies and infrastructure across our sites and focus on supporting STEM activities and enabling social mobility through our investment in skills and apprenticeships
Local communities
Supporting our local communities, and encouraging our employees to get involved, is important to us. That's why we actively seek opportunities to provide funding or in-kind support that can demonstrate a positive impact to our local communities in which we operate.
Volunteering
As well as donations, sponsorship and employee fundraising, we develop and support structured education programmes and enable our employees to volunteer their skills and time. Volunteering remains an important part of our employees’ career journey and can be pursued as a personal development goal.
Supporting our Armed Forces
Our armed forces put their lives on the line to keep us all safe and they do this so that we can live our lives to the full. An important strand of our strategy is support for initiatives that assist active service personnel, veterans, and their families.
Our priorities
We will continue to focus on supporting the armed forces through established and new partnerships, and drive engagement with young people through our education programmes.
Building on the support we provided in relation to COVID-19, we will focus on identifying initiatives with greater social impact in our local communities.
We will also look for opportunities to provide more in-kind support with knowledge, skills and expertise to our partners and demonstrate greater value to the wider community.
We use the B4SI Framework methodology to define the value of our support and its impact on our community partners, in comparison with our peers and other organisations. Our reporting data is externally assured every year, and all community investment-related expenditure and any associated employee fundraising are reported through an online system and validated by an external assurance provider.
10m
Investment in 2020
Contributed through our community investment programmes
1.5m
US Employee Relief Fund
Additional contribution, to support those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic
10,224hrs
Volunteered by our employees in 2020
Including 700 hours mentoring provided by 116 UK employees to 152 small- and medium-sized enterprises through Be the Business.
Game changing PPE for the NHS
Submarines team made up of half a dozen specialist engineers design and develop the Morecambe Bay Hood for the NHS.
UK Armed Forces Corporate Covenant
On Friday 26 March 2021, we re-signed the UK Armed Forces Covenant, reinforcing our commitment to supporting those who serve, have served and their families.
UK Armed Forces charity partnerships
It’s important to us to support our military family, in and beyond their service. Our long standing relationships with a number of armed forces charities is one way we do this.
Supporting Covid-19 relief
efforts in India
efforts in India
To help rural communities in India hit by Covid-19, we've made a donation to Goonj which, alongside many other charities, is working tirelessly to provide vital resources
Donating laptops to help support school children
We’re working with our IT services provider DXC Technology to donate around 1000 laptops to school children across the UK over the next six months
