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Standard Life plc - Annual Report and Accounts 2007
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Investing in the community

Our business has an impact on the communities we work in and they provide us with key resources that help us succeed as a business. We have been committed to supporting a wide range of initiatives in our community for over fifteen years. In 2007, three areas came to the fore - developing financial capability, building employment skills and supporting health and wellbeing.

On the Money - Pupils from St Philomena's Primary School, Glasgow and author Jonny Meres help launch the On the Money book.

Developing financial capability

Last year, through storytelling we introduced primary school children to the financial topics of saving, debt, fundraising and running a business. Working with Learning and Teaching Scotland and Scottish Book Trust we developed On the Money - a collection of stories by well-known children's authors. To get the message to as many children as possible, On the Money came in a range of formats - including books for schools, DVD audio versions and translations.

Building employment skills

We support programmes that develop employment skills, while building the strengths of our own people. In Canada we celebrated the first anniversary of our partnership with the West Montreal Re-adaptation Centre which gives people with learning difficulties the chance to work. We also second our people to community groups and charities to do specific projects over a period of 3-12 months. Two of the seven groups we helped in 2007 were The Rock Trust and The Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition.

Health and wellbeing

We are sponsoring the Royal National Institute for Deaf People's (RNID) Volunteer Resource project. The aim of this project is to pay for training in organisations like the Samaritans and Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB), that will help them communicate with people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Alongside this the project encourages deaf and hard of hearing people to volunteer themselves with these organisations. Our people also raise money for charity, with the incentive that the Group matches every penny donated. The main recipients in 2007 were Cancer Research UK who received £261,557 for the Colorectal Cancer Unit at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh and NCH The Children's Charity, who received £123,085 for their Young Carers Project in Motherwell. In addition, Standard Life Healthcare supported three hospices, donating a total of £13,866, and in our European and Canadian businesses we donated a total of £131,964.