Our Society Steering Wheel & Tackling Modern Slavery

We have now published the Society’s Period 12 Steering Wheel for the last financial year. As well as measuring our financial performance the wheel also measures our performance in the key areas of co-operation, people, customers and delivery.  Below are some highlights of the results.

Overall The Steering Wheel results are encouraging in the areas that measure people. On co-operation we have exceeded last year’s figures on supporting our communities and promoting co-operation. Member trade has remained the same at 42% and this is a particular area of focus for us this year.

Encouragingly our customer loyalty index has again gone up from 81 to 83 as has the number of compliments and we are handling complaints better.

This Monday was the fourth anniversary of the passing of the Modern Slavery Act. Despite the act, the UK Government estimates there are tens of thousands of people still in slavery in Britain today. The act requires businesses to produce a slavery and human trafficking statement every financial year and put it on their website. To support our suppliers and business partners to do this on Tuesday we ran a workshop at Co-op House in partnership with Business in the Community (BITC). The training also covered how to engage colleagues and spot signs of modern slavery in the workforce. On completion of the course, all attendees received a BITC Modern Slavery awareness certificate.

Last week I attended a roundtable of a new Government policy paper about the Oxford - Cambridge Arc. This is the Governments vision to maximise the economic potential of the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor so it can compete on the global stage by securing the homes and jobs that the area needs while protecting its environment. We have a number of trading sites in the corridor and in light of their report will be looking at new businesses opportunities to meet the Governments projections of future growth. For more information on the report click here.

Looking ahead it’s now only six weeks until our AGM on 11 May so please put the date in your diary. I would encourage as many colleagues as possible to attend, so please book your place now by clicking here. For more information on the AGM this year please click here. More immediately on Saturday it's Earth Hour so I hope you will support this important initiative by switching your lights off for an hour from 8.30pm to 9.30pm and selecting a range of Earth Hour pledges to protect the environment by clicking here.

Finally, I’m pleased to announce that following the poll on Colleagues Connect we now have a name for our plastic bee which is HerBEE. Congratulations to Jo Edwards who wins their own Jerry Bottle and sustainable lunch pack, as well as having their chosen name on a plaque by the sculpture.