Our employees help to make a difference to local communities in a number of ways, either through using their skills and expertise at local events and projects or giving their time to help raise money for many different charities.

All employees engaged in any of our employee involvement or community relations programmes receive training on delivering these programmes in the community from one of our partner organisations who specialise in Education. The partners include:

• Education Business Partnerships (numerous regional partners)
• Business in the Community
• The National Trust
• Education Connections
• Educational Specialists Education Connections and EdComs
• The Football Association.

All employees taking part in any of the programmes involving work with young children complete a criminal records disclosure form.

Additional support in training and awareness is provided through a series of E.ON UK Employee Volunteering handbooks, which we have developed in partnership with our Human Resources team to maximise the support offered to our employees taking part in community initiatives.

We support and encourage employee volunteering, which in turn benefits local communities, helps individual development and brings benefit to our business too.

Our employee volunteering programme offers a range of initiatives to suit everyone. Over the past year, employee involvement has progressed considerably with more than 2,700 employees taking part in our Energy in the Community programme in 2006.

The programmes we have developed fall into three categories:

• Community projects
• Volunteering and team challenges
• Fundraising.

Community Projects

The employee involvement opportunities in this category aim to support other projects within the wider UK business and to use our colleagues' skills to help deliver our community investment projects.

Colleagues can volunteer to deliver elements of our new national education programme, the 'Energy Experience' leading lessons that teach young people about all aspects of energy.

In addition, volunteers from Central Networks business are trained to assist in the delivery of the plugin2engineering programme and are made available to schools for visits, career talks and volunteer lessons. Volunteers can help deliver the lesson plans but their main purpose is to give a real-life account of what it is like to work for Central Networks and in the electricity distribution industry.

Football Association Level One Coaching

As Sponsor of The FA Cup, we are able to offer our employees a number of exciting opportunities. For example, employees can train to become a Football Association Level One Coach. They can then use this qualification to help out with coaching at a local team or school.

Volunteering and team challenges

Volunteering

In addition to the volunteering projects that support our wider programmes, we have also developed a portfolio of opportunities that enable employee volunteers to make a long-term commitment to a local school. These include:

• Right to Read - This is a programme that helps develop children's literacy skills. By volunteering regularly in a school, an employee volunteer can help to improve a child's reading age by six months in 12 weeks.
  
  We currently have relationships with 10 schools across the UK where our employees support pupils reading.
  
  We are delighted with the support our school has received from E.ON UK volunteers. Our SATS results show that many children who have taken part in the Right to Read scheme have increased their reading age, some by as much as three years. - Dilys Cranstone, Headteacher, Cantrell Primary School, Bulwell, Nottingham.
• Partners in Maths - This scheme involves employees helping primary school pupils to improve their numeracy skills. Employees play purpose designed maths-based board games to improve the pupils' skills. We currently support three schools in the UK with this initiative.
• IT Mentoring - This was launched as a pilot scheme involving the IS division of our Retail business helping children at a primary school in Nottingham improve their IT skills. Since then, the successful pilot is now being repeated in Limbrick Wood Primary School in Coventry and more IT mentors are getting involved every year.
  
  It has been fantastic! All the teachers were really pleased with the extra support the volunteers offered. We agreed to allocate Monday and Thursdays for the visits and the volunteers are fitting in well with the teachers and the pupils and many are coming back for additional sessions - Aliza Rabbitt, School communication officer, Morven Park Primary School.

Team challenges

Teams across E.ON UK are encouraged to participate in community team challenges. These are one-day events where our employees get the opportunity to work together as a team and really give something back to the community.

More than 1,191 employees took part in community team challenges in 2006 and spent over 7,000 hours gardening, digging, painting and planting to benefit local charities and community groups.

Case study

During May and June 2006, more than 80 employees from two teams within E.ON UK spent a number of days creating an outdoor classroom for Dovecote Primary School in Clifton, Nottingham. The team created raised gardening beds, a water feature, a rockery area and two ponds within an enclosed area of the school, which will be used to give pupils practical learning examples and to grow fresh produce to be used in the school canteen.

The project was featured on regional television on ITV Central's   Big Clean Up and ITV Central News, before being featured on national television as part of the ITV Big Clean Up show.

The help we gave not only benefited the school, but allowed our own team to draw on existing skills and interests while developing new ones. It was rewarding for us all to see the work achieved at the end of the project and being able to help the school achieve its goals. - Jonathan Paton, Customer Liaison Project Manager, who took part in the challenge.

Dear E.ON, We love our garden. It is a great place to play and learn. We have seen lots of birds and insects and the flowers looked lovely in the summer. Thank you for all your hard work. We would love you to come back and see the garden and see how well we are looking after it. Thank you again from all the children and staff at Dovecote. - Extract from 'Thank You' message from pupils at Dovecote Primary School, Clifton, Nottingham - presented by the pupils at our annual Employee Involvement Celebration Event on 11 October 2006.

Fundraising

Our employees are extremely passionate about charities that have meaning for them and go to great lengths to raise money and support them in any way they can. In order to recognise their tremendous efforts year on year, we offer support for different types of fundraising initiatives and charitable giving.

Matched funding

Our Matched Funding programme supports employees who take part in fundraising events for charities and community groups. We match fund pound for pound up to the value of £500 and have supported employees in a range of fundraising activities from sponsored silences to skydives.

During 2006, we gave nearly £180,000 through Matched Funding in support of the money raised by our employees.

Matched Time

Matched Time enables us to recognise the contribution our employees make to the community in their own time. Any colleague who volunteers for 80 hours a year or more can claim up to £250 that can be used to benefit the charity or community group with which they volunteer.

In 2006, we gave nearly £35,000 through Matched Time to recognise the hard work provided by our employees. In total, our employees gave up over 23,000 hours of their spare time to the charities and community groups that are important to them.

Payroll Giving

We offer employees a chance to donate to charities of their choice in and easy and tax-free way, straight from their monthly salary.

In addition, we cover all administrative fees and add 10% to all donations. For example, if an employee donates £5.00 to a charity of their choice, it will only cost them £3.90 and the charity will receive £5.50.

2007 Targets

Our aim for 2007 is to increase the number of employees taking part in our Energy in the Community programme to 3,250 and, specifically, to   promote the volunteering opportunities within the E.ON Energy Experience, plugin2engineering and FA Level One coaching while continuing to have a strong focus on education and community energy solutions in any volunteering initiative we offer. We will also be launching a new volunteering initiative, aimed at using our expertise within the business, to deliver energy efficiency advice to a more vulnerable section of the population, in partnership with Age Concern.