Corporate Social Responsibility
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| PUK Volunteer Day 2007, rebuilding a school's play area and gardens. |
Central to PUK's values
Corporate responsibility is central to the values of Partnerships UK; it underpins the way we manage our business and sits alongside our mission to accelerate the development, procurement and implementation of public private partnerships. As a public private partnership we wish to make a positive contribution to society, and to deliver real benefits to our people, to business and to the community more broadly.
We have established a Corporate and Social Responsibilities Committee in order to develop and manage our institutional CSR policy and programme, to manage our CSR funds, to develop and manage our sustainability policy and, more generally, to direct, monitor and ensure performance and integration of corporate responsibility throughout our operations.
PUK's CSR programmes
Our approach to both the local community and wider society is through the following programmes:
- Matched Giving - we match money raised by staff for a charity, school or other not-for-profit organisation, up to a maximum of £500 per event.
- Give As You Earn Scheme – we manage tax-free donations to charity through the company payroll.
- Corporately organised events and programmes – we challenge our people to put some time back into the local community e.g. support local schools or local community playgrounds.
- Volunteering – we encourage our people to participate in personal fund-raising activities.
- Partnering with a local charity – our chosen partner for 2008 is a homeless charity called The Passage. See more below.
Caring about the environment
We are committed to minimising our impact on the environment. We have adopted practices designed to promote sustainability and preserve natural resources and the environment; these include:
- Raising awareness of PUK staff to reduce unnecessary consumption of resources (e.g. energy and water) and to minimise and recycle waste.
- Donating to community charities instead of sending christmas cards.
- Joining Business in the Community (BITC) and we are aiming to develop alliances with other organisations in the PFI arena.
The Passage, our partner charity for 2008 
The Passage runs London's largest voluntary sector day centre for homeless people. Each day the Passage helps more than 200 homeless and vulnerable men and women. Passage House, a 49-bed emergency hostel was officially opened on 1 March 2000. For the past three years The Passage have also run Montfort House, which contains 16 self-contained studio flats with staff support on site for those preparing for independent living. It costs £3.5 million a year to keep The Passage going, only half is funded from statutory sources; the rest comes from donations from individuals, church organisations, charitable trusts and companies.
Its mission is to provide resources, which encourage, inspire, and challenge homeless people to transform their lives. Its routes stem back to Vincent de Paul, who was a missionary priest and a major social reformer in 17th century Europe. In 1863 Vincent's Daughters of Charity opened the building on Carlisle Place, Victoria, which is currently the home of The Passage Day Centre, The Passage Outreach Project and Montford House, and the work for homeless people can be traced back to that time. The Passage recognises that the values it holds are not exclusive to Christianity but they are distinctive and must be reflected in all its activities, policies and collaborative ventures.
The Passage fulfils its mission by providing:
- Day Centre services offering basic care around primary needs and expertise in assessment of:
- Health
- Housing,
- Pastoral and spiritual care,
- Education, training and employment.
- Outreach services to contact rough sleepers.
- Hostel accommodation moving towards re-settlement and further steps to independence.
- Supported semi-independent accommodation moving towards independence and re-integration.
To find our more please visit http://www.passage.org.uk.