Wellbeing is a key component of our Employee Deal. Wellbeing recognises the importance of allowing our employees to take control of their health, safety and work-life balance. We believe that providing an environment that is both safe and healthy will make us a more attractive employer. Furthermore, a high-class health and safety culture creates a sense of ownership and pride across the organisation.

Health and safety

Health and safety is particularly important in an industry like ours, and we take this issue extremely seriously. We believe that all injuries and occupational illnesses can be prevented, and that excellence in health and safety drives excellence in business performance and, therefore, a better business.

The Health and Safety Performance Group, a senior management forum, has been established to monitor performance, promote best practice, and drive performance improvement across the whole of our UK operations. This group works in association with the Health and Safety Managers Group, which comprises the senior professionals within the health and safety function to improve performance by sharing best practice and developing initiatives for cross-business implementation.

Our UK health and safety policy covers all employees, and each business is required to have their own policy covering their specific business. As a minimum all businesses are required to meet legal requirements. Businesses must also meet the agreed Minimum Standards within our health and safety management system and strive to achieve best practice standards. All injuries are reported using our online system and must be investigated by line managers within one month of the initial report. We also have systems for the reporting of near hit incidents which are also investigated. All operational assets are inspected as a matter of routine. These inspections comply with statutory, insurance or recognised best-practice frequencies.

We have minimum standards for the health and safety training required for managers, supervisors and health and safety professionals, and these are applied within businesses to ensure that we maintain a competent workforce.

2005 health and safety performance

In 2000, the Government launched its 10-year 'Revitalising Health and Safety' strategy to give fresh impetus to health and safety at work. The electricity industry reacted by developing 'SAFELEC 2010', to which we are fully committed, and which sets out how we as an industry will contribute to the Government's targets.

In 2005, all but one business achieved its internal Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) threshold. We have improved our minor accident performance overall during the year compared to 2004. However, we missed our SAFELEC 2010 target for major injuries (30 against a target of 21), reflecting the fact that our employees suffered a significant number of injuries such as broken bones during the year.

The E.ON Group has set itself an aggressive improvement plan for the next five years based on delivering performance comparable with the petrochemical sector by 2010. In response to this challenge, and our disappointing 2005 performance, we have re-energised the health and safety effort across E.ON UK and are completing a wholesale review of the way we approach the challenges of health, safety and attendance. The Health and Safety Performance Group has developed a Market Unit plan for E.ON UK to improve health, safety and attendance performance over the next five years right across E.ON UK.

The Market Unit plan is based on our fundamental belief that:

• all injuries and occupational illnesses can be prevented
• excellence in health and safety drives excellence in business performance

Our aspiration is to have zero injuries.

The Market Unit plan includes initiatives designed to deliver a step change in our health and safety performance. A key part of this plan is the adoption of 'Rule One' which encapsulates our intent to improve our performance. 'Rule One' simply states 'We Don't Hurt People'.

Our aim is, by 2010, to be the leader in health and safety performance within the E.ON Group. This requires a significant improvement in our performance from current levels as outlined in the table below.

We also aim to reduce our sickness absence rate which impacts negatively on our performance and success in the marketplace and costs E.ON UK around £15 million each year. During 2005 we introduced a range of initiatives that focus on wellbeing, such as voluntary health assessments for all employees including advice on stress and diet, while our Bikes4Work scheme offers employees a tax-efficient and affordable way to purchase a bike to use on their journey to work. We are now focusing on introducing a new attendance policy and training for managers to help them address absence issues both professionally and sensitively.

In addition to this, we also concentrated on a range of activities across the businesses including:

• Safety Day in Energy Wholesale where all employees and contractors were asked to step away from any non-essential operations activities to concentrate on considering the safety aspects of their work.
• In Central Networks a major programme of work was launched to bring existing systems together to produce a common way of working. This has had a considerable impact on resources as we merge two sets of safety rules and operational practices.
• In Retail and Business Services pedometer challenges were adopted with considerable enthusiasm which, coupled with healthy eating and lifestyle promotions, seek to improve the health of our employees.
• Within the Central Functions a series of workshops for the management teams were run to consider the role that leadership play in delivering excellent health and safety performance.

2006 will see a wider range of activities to ensure that we fundamentally improve our health and safety performance and practice.

Contractors

All contractors are required to work safely on our sites. Incidents involving them must be reported and investigated in the same way as employee incidents. Contractor performance is included in our TRIR measurement, and is monitored at local, business and Board level.

The wellbeing of our people

We aim to improve health and work-life balance by offering choices to individuals to select as they see fit, alongside a range of promotions based on encouraging healthy lifestyles and a positive balance. For example, all businesses promoted the Fitech health screening programme to staff during 2005, with 3,800 employees taking the opportunity to get a general health check. A typical session would look at general health profiles such as blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat ratio, diet and lifestyle, and risk of diabetes. A number of businesses also undertook pedometer challenges during the year to encourage people to take exercise breaks, particularly during lunch times.

Other benefits include the Employee Assistance Programme which provides a free and confidential advice service to employees.