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Standard Life plc - Annual Report and Accounts 2007
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Driving for operational excellence

We're continuing to streamline our processes and enhance efficiency to reduce our costs, while maintaining our reputation for excellent customer service. An important example was bringing together our UK life and pensions, banking and healthcare operations into a new UK financial services division, to help in creating stronger customer propositions, working more efficiently and improving profitability.

We're maintaining our high standards of customer service while meeting our cost targets and creating a more efficient business. For example, our Group Corporate Centre costs decreased to £57m in 2007 from £89m in 2006, meeting our commitment to reduce these costs to the 2005, pre demutualisation, level.

At the time of flotation we also announced that we would reduce UK life and pensions expenses by £30m by the end of 2007. We have achieved these cost efficiencies, reducing expenses by £31m, excluding the cost of new products launched since 2005, including Wrap.

Under our Continuous Improvement Programme we saved £27m against the expected £15m savings in 2007 and, together with savings targets already achieved in our Group Corporate Centre and our UK life and pensions business, we remain on track to achieve total annual savings relative to 2006 costs of £146m by 2009.



Group Chief Executive's statement ... continued