frc_socialimpact

FRC Group’s Social Impact Report

LEADINGWITHIMPACT

2009/10

2 Introduction

ContentsIntroduction IntroductionFRC Group: the what and the how People who matter Why a social impact report? FRC Group performance Methodology

Being great for people who are unemployed Salaried training programmes Work placements More social impact in a new area Targets and priorities for 2010/11

Being great for people living in poverty More than just furniture Liverpool Oldham Targets and priorities for 2010/11

2010/11 What has happened in the first quarter of 2010/11

Auditor’s assurance statement

AppendicesAppendix 1: Stakeholder engagementAppendix 2: Why a social impact report?Appendix 3: Performance of individual training programmes

2 36 8 10 16 20

23 24 50 54 56

57 58 59 72 74

75 76

78

83849095

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IntroductionWelcome to FRC Group’s report on the social impact we have created between April 2009 and March 2010.

This is our 12th Impact Report and this year we have really focused in on the things that we do that are directly related to our mission. This approach reflects the current reality inside FRC Group, where over the year we have developed a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the social impacts that we create.

Reporting this information publicly is as much of an exercise in honesty and integrity as it ever was but what has changed is the focus of the report. We hope you will find this document gives a satisfying and more in-depth insight into how we have performed against our mission of creating opportunities for people who are unemployed and living in poverty.

Let’s be really clear – we haven’t stopped doing the other things and you’ll still find information in the report about how we do business, what kind of employer we are, how impact on the environment etc. These things are all part of the way FRC Group does social business and we still set ourselves targets and check our performance.

We have set out to go into more detail than ever before about the key areas of social impact. Have we pulled it off? We would love to hear your feedback on how you think we have done.

Everyone at FRC Group plays their part in making social change happen everyday and we are very proud of what we achieved this year. We hope that you enjoy reading our report and that it conveys to you the bravery, creativity, passion and professionalism of all of our people.

Shaun Doran Chief Executive Officer

Welcome

“Reporting this information publicly is as much of an exercise in honesty and integrity as it ever was”

Shaun Doran, Chief Executive, FRC Group

4 Introduction

We would like to thank the following people for all of their hard work in contributing to the production of FRC Group’s Social Impact Report 2009/10:

All the people who make FRC Group

a truly great place to work, the staff, trainees, work placement participants and volunteers.

All the people who worked hard to

collect and analyse the data in this

report, particularly Collette Williams, Sam Stanford and Sam Adams of FRC Group’s People & Learning Team.

Adrian Henriques of JustAssurance,

who audited the report. Adrian’s statement can be found on pages 78-81.

Amy Stokes, Stephanie Hosny

and all at Brava Design who designed the report.

Zoe Richards of Zoe Photography

who took the photographs used in the document.

This report was prepared by Verity Timmins of FRC Group in July 2010.

Acknowledgements

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Acknowledgements

FRC Group runs businesses that create profits and opportunities to transform the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment. Making a difference to people’s lives through social business is our core purpose. This social impact report tells the ‘warts and all’ story of the year - it isn’t a glossy marketing brochure or just a selection of the highlights. To underline our commitment to transparency, the report is examined by a professional sustainability auditor. His statement of how our report performs is found on pages 78-81.

The report is broken down in to two chapters, corresponding to the two elements of FRC Group’s mission statement:

1. Being great for people who are unemployed

2. Being great for people living in poverty

Where you will read more about how FRC Group achieved these impacts.

Chapter 2:Being great for people living in poverty

• Over 9,000 items of furniture saved by Bulky Bob’s to become ‘pre-loved’ furniture

• More than 3,000 sales to shoppers in the Revive store buying ‘pre-loved’ furniture

• 117 families in crisis situations were given free of charge essential furniture items

• 5 Bulky Bob’s on the Road events were held taking ‘pre-loved’ furniture out into communities

Chapter 1:Being great for people who are unemployed

• 54 people trained

• 67% of “completers” (trainees who completed the programme) went into a job, further training or education

• 242 qualifications gained by trainees

• Former trainees – 90% said they had developed or improved their self-confidence and self-esteem as well as team working and communication skills during their training programme

• 54 people took part in work placements giving more than 7,000 hours of meaningful work

• 9 places created in the Bulky Bob’s prison workshop

Executive summary

6 Introduction

Furniture Resource Centre delivers a one-stop furnishing service for social landlords and charities which provide furnished accommodation for people who are in need of furniture to make their house into a home. Delivering to customers all around the UK, Furniture Resource Centre provides a seamless project management service which furnishes homes from carpets and curtains to furniture and appliances, even including cutlery, crockery and bedding. The products supplied through Furniture Resource Centre are brand new, contract standard items which furnish properties of all shapes and sizes from individual tenancies through to communal living premises such as sheltered accommodation units.

Bulky Bob’s is a collection, reuse and recycling service for domestic bulky household waste. Operating contracts for local authorities, the items we collect from householders are predominantly furniture and appliances that are no longer wanted. The Bulky Bob’s model maximises the volume of items that are reused and recycled, to prevent good quality items and useful materials from going into landfill.

Revive is our high street store selling great quality ‘pre-loved’ furniture and appliances. We aim to reuse as many of the items we collect though Bulky Bob’s as possible. Revive is not a typical second-hand shop. It is a good quality retail environment where people can get fantastic value for money.

Bulky Bob’s and Revive work very closely together.

The businesses within FRC Group

FRC Group: the what and the howFRC Group’s mission statement is to “run businesses to create profits and opportunities to improve the lives of people in poverty and unemployment”. This is our starting point which guides all of our activity and it keeps us focused on what matters. Furniture Resource Centre Ltd, the parent company for FRC Group activities is a registered charity.

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How FRC Group people behave is crucial to delivering positive social change and doing business in the way we intend. FRC Group’s values – Bravery, Creativity, Passion and Professionalism – are our beliefs in action. They are visible in the behaviour of our people and how we act as a business. We use our values to attract, recruit and reward staff.

The way FRC Group does business is also important and we set aims according to how the Group should act.

There are to be:

Great for the Planet by understanding the ways our businesses impact on the environment and managing our impacts to reduce environmental harm.

A Great Place to Work by taking what our employees say about working at FRC Group seriously and creating an environment in which people can develop their personal and professional skills.

Great to do Business with by providing first class service to all of our customers, asking for feedback from suppliers and customers and acting on what they tell us.

What we do Our valuesHow we do it FRC Group achieves its mission statement by running social businesses that are successful as commercial businesses whilst also delivering social benefits. This is what we do. The most straight-forward description of what FRC Group aims to do is to be “Great for People”.

We are also clear about how we do business. We have aims to be “Great for the Planet”, “a Great Place to Work” and to be “Great to do Business with”.

FRC Group’s primary purpose is to bring about a positive change to the lives of people living in material poverty and unemployment. We want to be Great for People by creating training and work placement opportunities for people from long-term unemployment and socially excluded groups, and by getting good quality furniture to people who need it.

8 Introduction

Trainees:Unemployed people

Work placement participants:Young people, ex-offenders, homeless people, people with a history of substance abuse, people with disabilities

Revive customers receiving discounts:People in receipt of benefits, pensioners, students, people referred from other support agencies

People referred to ReviveLiverpool & Bulky Bob’s Oldham:For free of charge furniturein crisis situations

At the centre of our focus are our stakeholders whose relationship with FRC Group is linked to making a positive change in the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment. Our work with these stakeholders brings about the social impacts that link to our mission statement.

Great for people

People who matterOur stakeholders are all the people who matter to FRC Group and the people that FRC Group matters to.

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People living locally to where FRC Group operations are working:General public affected by local environmental impact from our vehicles and building and our operations and from our reuse and recycling activities.

The global community and future generations:We are all affected by the global environmental impacts of our business.

Great for the planet

Staff: Permanent employees of FRC Group.

Trainees: People employed on fixed term training contracts.

Work placement participants: People working with us on short-term unpaid work placements.

Volunteers: People working in FRC Group on a long-term voluntary basis.

Trustees: Our board members who provide governance as volunteers.

A great place to work

Furniture Resource Centre customers: The social housing providers whobuy furniture and related items from us and the tenants who receive and usethe furniture.

Bulky Bob’s customers: The local authorities that contract with us to provide collection, reuse and recycling services for furniture and white goods, and the householders who receive the collection service.

Revive customers: All the people who shop in Revive.

Bulky Bob’s Oldham furniture customers: All the people who buy ‘pre-loved’ furniture from Bulky Bob’s.

Our suppliers: The companies who supply us with goods and services.

Great to do business with

We have many other stakeholders who have an important relationship with FRC Group. These relationships are linked to our organisational aims about how we do business rather than directly to the creation of social impact. In day to day reality, stakeholder involvement and impact creation are not as simple or separate as this diagram suggests, but to set the framework for this report, stakeholders are identified with their primary area of common interest with FRC Group.

How we do business

10 Introduction

FRC Group has been going through a period of change best characterised as ‘maturing’ as an organisation. We’ve confidently moved into a new area of the furnished accommodation market in recent years while still maintaining the furnished tenancy work that was our starting point. Bulky Bob’s has won a new contract with Liverpool City Council and the relationship between those organisations has changed. It is fair to say that ten years ago, Bulky Bob’s Liverpool came in to being as something of an ‘upstart’ and as a result of strong political will and commitment. But having won the contract against stiff competition from two large national players in waste management, Bulky Bob’s has matured.

Looking to future development, Bulky Bob’s is more confident than ever that its business model can compete in the mainstream and can change the way bulky waste is treated.

And this is reflected in how we are thinking about our impacts. FRC Group has had a great reputation for publishing information that gives a fair and honest perspective on how it is doing. Looking back at the first social accounts we published, we have learned a lot about this technique and we are using the tools and techniques available

now with more confidence and clarity from twelve years of organisational experience. With this Impact Report we are making a break with some of the things we did in the past. Our intention is to give a more insightful analysis about the really important things that we do.

In looking back at the scope of our earlier reports, we see that the commitment to transparency on the one hand, created a lack of clarity about what was really important. It contributed to an element of ‘mission creep’, in which we considered everything we did to have some intrinsic social or environmental impact. In the 2008/09 report we reported against 50 individual targets. Within a 69 page document it was easy to lose sight of the 14 which related to creating social impact and measuring the impacts that were created. These social impacts seemed in our last report to be on a equal footing with three different targets about giving our staff environmental training and seven targets all relating to health and safety.

This is not to say that these parts of our business are not at all important, that we don’t need to do work on them or that we shouldn’t work towards these types of operational targets. The problem is that in an ‘impact’ report they were a diversion from the main story – how well has FRC Group done in achieving its

organisational mission statement to improve the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment?

FRC Group has brought impact to the top of its agenda over the last two years. The “Leading with Impact” agenda within the business has renewed the focus on existing and new areas of social impacts. It has confirmed that this is the main thing that FRC Group is about.

Creating social impact is the main focus of FRC Group’s mission statement and we are now very clear that we create social impact in two ways: by giving training and work placement experiences to unemployed people; and by making quality ‘pre-loved’ furniture available to people on low-incomes.

So this report addresses those social impacts in much greater depth than we have done recently. There is useful information to help the reader put this in context, such as headline information about our financial and business performance and our environmental performance. We don’t take this change of focus lightly and have included a fuller description of how we have defined the scope of this report and what is

Scope, materiality and relevance

Why a social impact report?

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material in Appendix 2 on pages 90-94. This appendix describes in more detail how and why we have come to this deci-sion about what is really impact and what is just business activity or the way we do things. It also addresses how this change of focus within FRC Group has naturally flowed through to our way of reporting our impacts.

To summarise where we are now and how it is different from where we were, the matrix on pages 12-15 compares the elements of our 2008/09 “Impact Report” with the content of this report.

“Our intention is to give a more insightful analysis about the really important things that we do”

Verity Timmins, FRC Group

12 Introduction

2008 / 2009

Element of the 2008/09

Impact Report

Numbers of customers served through Furniture Resource Centre.

Numbers of low-income householders buying ‘pre-loved’ furniture through Revive or Bulky Bob’s Oldham.

People in crisis situations receiving free of charge basic furniture items.

The outcomes of the previously unemployed people who receive training through our training programmes.

The outcomes for people who take part in work placement programmes to gain experience.

Having an environmental management system. Publishing the carbon efficiency of various different elements of our fleet of vehicles and developing new targets. Training staff in efficient driving and other environmental issues. Reducing FRC Group’s waste. Developing a procurement strategy for Furniture Resource Centre.

2009 / 2010

Is it an impact that is at the heart of FRC Group’s core purpose of changing the lives

of people living in poverty and unemployment?

No. FRC Group can no longer claim that it creates this social impact. The impact is created by the social housing provider who sets up the furnished property. FRC Group is a supplier through Furniture Resource Centre.

Yes. Lots of information about this on pages 58-74.



Yes. Some information about what we are doing in this area on pages 23-56 but we need to get more stakeholder engagement to inform our analysis.

No. These all relate to how we manage our business to be environmentally responsible. They are about how we create impacts – in this case how we reduce negative environmental impacts. These impacts are not linked to FRC Group’s core purpose but they are essential parts of running a successful business and are vitally important for maintaining performance and understanding how to improve.

Where we are now and how it is different from where we were last year

13

Stakeholders who receive this information and the method of communication

Customers, suppliers and prospective customers are given this information when needed. Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

In our 2009/10 Impact Report. Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.




This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting. Information about these issues is regularly communicated to staff at all levels through on going training, newsletters etc. Customers, suppliers and prospective customers are given this information on request or proactively by FRC Group.

14 Introduction

2008 / 2009

Element of the 2008/09

Impact Report

Measuring and publishing our carbon footprint.

Publishing our performance against |contractual targets for Bulky Bob’s to reuse and recycle the waste it collects.

Publishing a diversity policy and carrying out monitoring and training. Our values culture. Holding performance reviews with staff. Improving health and safety performance.

Increasing sales and profitability in Furniture Resource Centre.

Expanding Bulky Bob’s into new areas. Achieving good customer satisfaction levels with all customers. Gathering feedback from customers and users of products and services.

2009 / 2010

Is it an impact that is at the heart of FRC Group’s core purpose of changing the lives

of people living in poverty and unemployment?

Yes. The carbon footprint is included in the table on page 17. This is a clear environmental impact but not directly related to FRC Group’s core social purpose.

No. The reduction in negative impacts is increasingly a feature of how local authorities structure the contracts and so they must claim the ownership of this impact.

No. While these are very important parts of being a good employer and running our business well, they do not directly link to the main social impacts that FRC Group seeks to create.

No. This information is commercially sensitive and relates to how FRC Group does business.

No. While these are essential parts of running a successful business and are vitally important for maintaining performance and understanding how to improve, they do not directly link to the main social impact that FRC Group seeks to create.

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Stakeholders who receive this information and the method of communication

In our 2009/10 Impact Report. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

This information is highly commercially sensitive and is available to certain stakeholders on request. Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

This type of information is given on request to customers, prospective customers and other interested parties. Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

Staff are kept up to date through monthly communication meetings. This information is part of the group of key indicators which are discussed at each monthly Senior Management Team meeting and each quarterly Board meeting.

16 Introduction

FRC Group performanceThe main chapters of this report focus on how well FRC Group has done in creating the social change that is described in the organisation mission statement. To put some of that information into context here is a summary of some key pieces of information about FRC Group’s scale and its business performance.

This is a consequence of the results coming from the implementation of a new strategic business plan in 2008/09. We budgeted to reach a break-even position in 2009/10 but have actually exceeded this.

Achieving the independence that comes from financial sustainability has been the cornerstone of FRC Group’s model of social business. We measure the percentage of income from sales and this year can report the highest proportion of income earned through commercial activities.

In previous reports, information about the number of staff and the environmental performance of the company have been found in dedicated chapters. This year we are taking a different approach to reporting by focusing on the mission -related social impacts that FRC Group creates. As a consequence, this report does not contain detailed information about FRC Group as a workplace, its environmental impacts or its relationships with customers. Information is still collected and used to manage the performance of the Group, but it is not included in this report which focuses

on the social impacts we create. This section gives an overview of some of these important pieces of data that are important to some of our stakeholders.

Included in the table on page 17 are two headline indicators:

• The number of permanent staff members

• The carbon footprint of FRC Group

Permanent staff members

The number of permanent staff in the business are relatively stable over the last five years. In 2009/10, 11 people joined FRC Group as permanent staff members and 7 people left. This compares with 6 starters and 7 leavers in 2008/09 and 14 starters and 8 leavers in 2007/08.

FRC Group’s health and safety performance is important to our staff, customers and suppliers. In addition to having our own control procedures in place, we were audited by Liverpool City Council in March 2010.

The auditor, Carl Hope, Senior Health & Safety Advisor said,

“Once again, I was impressed by the

level of consideration given to H&S

matters in all aspects of your operations

and the various systems in place to

motivate staff and encourage good

practice; all of which reflect in the audit

score achieved.”

This year FRC Group has returned to making a profit. The profit in unrestricted funds is the best performance since 2001/02.

08/09

6 7

09/10

11 7

Number of permanent staff members who have joined & number of staff who have left

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Scale and business performance

Year

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

2006/07

2007/08

2008/09

2009/10***

Income

£7,490,451

£5,045,661

£4,758,731

£4,085,568

£3,449,274

£3,324,402

£3,623,922

£4,358,064

£5,177,396

% income from grants

10.0%

4.0%

7.0%

7.0%

4.6%

4.2%

5.0%

4.4%

3.8%

% income from sales

90.0%

96.0%

93.0%

93.0%

95.4%

95.8%

95.0%

95.6%

96.2%

Unrestricted funds profit/(loss)*

£431,299

£28,265

(£11,124)

(£149,267)

(£205,024)

(£320,599)

(£159,881)

(£49,604)

£81,927

Permanent Staff

Data not available

78

94

81

71

69

68

62

66

Carbon footprint (CO2 equivalent emissions in tonnes)**

Data not available

Data not available

280

319

307

298

300

322

344

* The unrestricted funds figure is used as it shows the year to year trends in operational performance.

** Figures for previous years have been recalculated using the most up to date conversion data relating to that year in accordance with the Defra guidelines.

***2009/10 figures not yet audited.

18 Introduction

bespoke items that it buys. The next step is to bring in a formal policy. Furniture Resource Centre and Bulky Bob’s have regular customer satisfaction surveys in place to gather feedback about how the service is performing. Furniture Resource Centre contacts its largest customers on a regular basis to ask them about the service they have received. In the last year we did this at ten points in the year and spoke with a sample of between 10 and 16 customers each time. Bulky Bob’s carries out regular follow up calls with a sample of householders who have recently used the collection service. This information is used within the operational teams to maintain high standards.

2009/10 at FRC Group

According to the business plan for this year, FRC Group was aiming to hit a number of commercial and social targets and milestones. We wanted to create more social impact by training more unemployed people and getting more furniture to low-income families. We set a budget that would see FRC Group reach a break even position following six years of making a loss by selling more furniture to Furniture Resource Centre customers and by retaining the contract for Bulky Bob’s service with Liverpool City Council.

Carbon footprint

FRC Group runs an environmental management system to control its environmental impacts. The most significant issues defined in the system are carbon footprint, waste and recycling and the impacts of FRC’s supply chain.

FRC Group’s carbon footprint is included in the overall performance table on page 17. It is calculated based on the energy use from our buildings (gas and electricity) and the fuels used in our fleet of vehicles. We use the standard carbon conversion factors published by Defra in their Environmental Reporting Guidelines.

There is a direct relationship between the scale of commercial activities and the carbon emissions that are created as a result. This year our carbon footprint increased by 8% as a result of a 21% increase in sales.

FRC Group is working to reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill through both Bulky Bob’s and Furniture Resource Centre operations. In relation to the supply chain for Furniture Resource Centre, FRC Group has identified that it should develop a sustainable procurement strategy. This is something that is within the longer-term aims of the environmental management system. FRC Group conducts regular visits with its major suppliers, particularly of the

19

The actual performance was even

better than we had planned:

Furniture Resource Centre made 5,411 deliveries and towards the end of the year began the recruitment process for a new post – Sales & Marketing Director – to continue to grow Furniture Resource Centre’s market share. In response to increased sales and also investment in future business development, a more senior operational post was created in Furniture Resource Centre. The Operations Manager has brought about a number of system changes to prepare Furniture Resource Centre to continue to flourish.

Bulky Bob’s made over 65,000 collections in its three operations and outperformed the targets for reuse and recycling set by Liverpool City Council, Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council and Warrington Borough Council. The big story of the year for Bulky Bob’s was that we won a new contract with Liverpool City Council to continue delivering the bulky household waste collection service. Preparing for the tender submission to Liverpool City Council and the accompanying presentation to the decision making panel of Councillors dominated the first part of the year. The whole Bulky Bob’s operation was reviewed and

remodelled to ensure that the bid we submitted gave the best quality service, created the most social impact, created high levels of environmental performance and a good value price – a tall order but we committed the time and resources necessary to submit the very best bid that we could have done. We were successful and began operating under a new six-year contract in November.

November was also when we announced our partnership with Impetus Trust a venture philanthropy organisation which works with a small portfolio of charities to apply venture capital techniques to growing the social impacts they create. The first phase of the partnership is a 12 month development stage during which Impetus Trust will provide £50,000 unrestricted funds to invest in supporting FRC Group’s growth and will give access to a range of associates who will provide pro-bono consultancy support.

The focus for the work with Impetus Trust is to grow our social impact creation by growing the scale of both Furniture Resource Centre and Bulky Bob’s.

Between November and April, FRC Group received tailored support from Impetus Trust associates in a number of ways.

OC&C, strategy consultants, developed a strategic plan for the expansion of Bulky Bob’s, Shaun Doran received support from a professional coach who works with CEOs in multinational organisations to improve their performance and we were supported to carry out an organisational review.

We started the year with a plan to train more than the 45 people we had trained in 2008/09 and we achieved this aim by training 54 people. We did this by creating an additional 9 places on new training programmes in retail and administration. These new training programmes in part off-set the reduction in places on the Liverpool Driving Change programme. In 2008/09 we offered 12 places on the programme but reduced this to 9 places for the group recruited in October 2009 as a result of the remodelled Bulky Bob’s operation.

20 Introduction

The purpose of the report is to provide information to the people that matter to FRC Group and to the people to whom FRC Group matters – our stakeholders. The report set out to provide information about how we have performed in delivering the social impacts that are the core purpose of FRC Group.

We gathered information from different groups of stakeholders in relation to the social impacts we create – trainees, partners who refer people to complete work placements, agencies who refer people to shop in Revive, support organisations who refer people in need for donated furniture. There are stakeholders in this groups that we did not talk to this year: we did not gather formal feedback from people on work placements because we have not yet identified sufficient resources to support that activity; and we did not formally survey our Revive customers because there was uncertainty about the future shape and location of Revive (see page 61 for more detail) and did not feel it was the right context in which to seek their comments. A breakdown of how we engaged with stakeholders is in Appendix 1 on pages 84-89.

In a change to the way our previous reports have been structured, this report does not list the many operational targets that exist in each area. Instead, the

following chapters describe what the social impact that we are looking for is and then describe what the year’s performance has been.

To indicate how this fits with expectations we are going to use the following symbols as we have in the past. The difference is that these will relate to the other information as well as to some specific targets.

This reflects how we are using targets within the business. FRC Group has become more streamlined in its use of targets. In the past we have had too many targets that we have reported on at all levels within the business.

The approach now is to identify the ‘golden thread’ of key indicators and key of data.

These are reported to the senior strategic level within FRC Group – the Board of Trustees. The senior team receives a slightly wider and more detailed set of data and the day to day operational targets are used within departmental teams. People throughout the business understand how their work and the targets they work to, link to the key strategic objectives.

A consequence of having a narrower scope for this report is that the Local Multiplier analysis that has been done in previous years is not included. We use this tool to measure the proportion of income generated by our Bulky Bob’s contracts that is spent within a 20-mile radius of the operational hub. This is information that is available to the relevant stakeholders but is not included within the scope of this report.

Since 2006, FRC Group has worked with Adam Richards of Liverpool John Moores University to analyse the social return on investment created by different parts of FRC Group’s work. The main are for analysis using this tool has been the chain of social change created by Bulky Bob’s in Liverpool through its training for unemployed people and the ‘pre-loved’ furniture it makes available to low-incomes shoppers offering them an alternative to more expensive high street products or taking out credit.

How this report is produced?

MethodologyThis report relates to the financial year April 2009 to March 2010 and is the culmination of the data gathering that goes on throughout each year. We collect performance data in all areas of our business each month and report on them throughout the year to the management team and also to FRC Group’s Board of Trustees.

We met or surpassed

the target

We made some progress

but still aim for more

We missed the mark

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Social return on investment techniques will be playing a larger role in understanding FRC Group’s social impact performance in the future. We are currently working on a review of the key performance information used within the business to measure social impacts. Rather than using SROI as an analytical tool to understand historic performance, FRC Group will be using it to set ‘budgets’ for the social return that we expect in different areas and to then produce quarterly information to monitor performance.

When FRC Group is setting social impact budget expectations alongside its financial budgeting process, our use of SROI techniques will be more sophisticated and more complete in relation to the full range of social change that happens as a result of our activities.

The SROI analysis for Bulky Bob’s Liverpool 2009/10 is not included in this report. The work has not been completed in time for the report writing and audit process. In broad terms the analysis is being carried out in the same format as it has in previous years when it has been audited at the same time as the Impact Report. The information coming from the SROI analysis is of great interest to many of our stakeholders and we will publish this information on our FRC Group website later in the autumn when it is complete.

22 Introduction

Being great for peoplewho are unemployed This chapter explores what we have done this year to offer opportunities to unemployed people and how successful we have been in bringing about the change we are looking for.

24 Being great for people who are unemployed

FRC Group has run training programmes in a structured way since the mid-1990s and in the earliest days of Furniture Resource Centre, when it was a volunteer-led furniture reuse charity it was clear that value was being created by improving the skills and experience of unemployed people who were volunteers. A driver for the development of a social business model was to be able to pay people rather than ask them to volunteer and give them meaningful training at the same time including recognised qualifications rather than to only be able to offer volunteering opportunities.

The scale and scope of the training programmes has increased over time but FRC Group is committed to this model of creating positive social impact. By employing people for a fixed time in real jobs with real responsibilities, paying them a salary, offering them opportunities to gain qualifications in both transferable and industry specific skills, helping them to develop personal qualities that will make them more employable, and crucially supporting them to find jobs and further training opportunities at the end of their contract, FRC Group is bringing about tangible social change by improving the lives of the trainees.

Running FRC Group’s training programmes is not either a cheap or easy option. Trainees earn a market

rate for their work and receive expensive training on top of that. Trainees receive on the job training and are also away from the day to day operations for short periods of time when they participate in intensive courses. FRC Group runs training programmes for fixed time periods and then once a cohort of trainees have completed the programme a new group of trainees are recruited. It’s really important that we keep these opportunities available for the people we haven’t met yet. Lots of trainees ask us why they can’t stay on rather than finding a job elsewhere. We tell them that if the people before them had stayed we would not have been able to recruit and train them!

The reality of running training programmes is that this proportion of FRC Group’s overall workforce is recruited not for their previous experience and their specific skills but for their potential to make the most of the training on offer. These trainees spend much of their time learning, whether on-the-job or in more formal training environments. Then when they have gained experience and skills they leave FRC Group to go on and start a new chapter of their lives. What this means in practice is that FRC Group has to work even harder to ensure that its businesses meet the high service standards expected by its customers.

For staff and managers, the reality is that after 6 or 12 months, they lose colleagues who have become really good at their jobs and they have to start training up a new person. The importance of the passion and commitment of everyone at FRC Group to making the training programmes work should not be underestimated.

Training for unemployed people has been at the top of the agenda for FRC Group this year. In reviewing ‘impact creation’, the importance of the social impact created through our training programmes has become more prominent than ever. Offering training to more people has been the main aim. This was a message coming from the “Leading with Impact” consultation sessions with staff and from the direction of FRC Group’s Board of Trustees, plus the rising unemployment rates as a result of the recession meant that more people were in need of training to help get them into work. This year, we built on the expertise FRC Group has developed through running its flagship programme “Driving Change” and created new training programmes in retail and administration as well as offering more places in our warehouse training programme.

Why training programmes for unemployed people?

Salaried training programmesTraining unemployed people is central to achieving our mission, this year we wanted to train more unemployed people so we ran more training programmesin order to make more places available.

25

FRC Group recruits trainees in the two operational bases - Liverpool and Oldham. These are areas of higher than average unemployment.

Liverpool. Early in 2009 the Liverpool City Region (LCR) Employment and Skills Platform identified these characteristics of the local employment and skills agenda:

• An unacceptably low employment rate of 68.1%

• Persistently high levels of worklessness and high concentrations of deprivation and low skills attainment

• More than 37% of working age adults are without an NVQ 2 qualification, compared to 33% in the North West and 31.9% in England

Oldham. In 2009 Oldham was ranked as the 42nd most deprived local authority area overall. In contrast with Liverpool, Oldham is not classed as a deprived area overall but has pockets of severe deprivation.

A number of wards have high levels of unemployment and concentrated income-deprivation. The number of these small areas of concentrated deprivation where 50% of people are living in income deprived households increased from 3 in 2004 to 11 in 2009 out of a total of 144.

Prior to 2009, 86% of participants in the training programme in Oldham have been from 9 wards with the most deprived areas.

Why is the training we offer needed?

“How will I use the training I’ve got? Well, I’m more employable and more confident”

Trainee on the Warehouse Training Programme, Liverpool


Number of people who took part in the training programmes

Who did we train?

We created 9 new places, 2 in retail training, 5 in administration training and 2 in warehouse training.

FRC Group is a place where “your past should not determine your future”.

Trainees are not recruited in the same way as a company would recruit permanent staff. We do not look for experience and qualifications but at their commitment to making the most of the training programme, their passion to change their lives and their future potential.

Training more people by creating more training programmes and more places was our intention.

The number of places on the Driving Change programme in Liverpool reduced by 3 in October 2009 when we revised the Bulky Bob’s operational model.

4508/09

5409/10

27

How is the training funded?

FRC Group is a social business which uses the opportunities created by its business activities and also the profits arising from its commercial activities to create social impact. We look for funding to support our training programmes but we also fund both the obvious and more hidden costs of the programme through our profits. For the different training programmes that ran during this period, FRC

Group itself invested up to 57% of the costs of trainee wages, training qualifications etc. FRC Group also invests resources in the hidden costs of the training programme. For example, FRC Group funds the cost of two key coordinator posts – one in Liverpool and one in Oldham - that would not exist if FRC Group did not run training programmes.


We recruited 35 people onto training programmes. We recruited through two routes. The first route, during the first five months, was onto programmes that were funded by Liverpool City Council. Due to the timing of recruitment phases, there were no programmes that recruited between April and September in Oldham.

For these programmes that began in the early part of the year, we were able to recruit directly and we worked with local JET centres, Job Centres and other community groups to raise awareness of the recruitment periods. In this way 6 trainees were recruited to work on 6-month long training programmes in Bulky Bob’s Liverpool Warehouse, Furniture Resource Centre Warehouse, Revive and in administration at Furniture Resource Centre and the People & Learning Team.

From October to March we recruited 29 trainees who were all funded in part through the government’s Future Jobs Fund (FJF). FRC Group was one of the few organisations to have a Future Jobs Fund contract directly with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Future Jobs Fund was created in response to the unemployment arising from the economic downturn. The main model of contracting was for a small number of prime contractors with the

Who did we recruit?

29

DWP to then sub-contract with small and local training providers.

FRC Group’s People & Learning Manager, Collette Williams, applied directly to DWP for FRC Group to have its own FJF contract and was successful. In fact, the bid received the full marks available and a contract was awarded to FRC Group. The emphasis of the application that was submitted was to build on FRC Group’s expertise in delivering the “Driving Change” and the recent expansion of FRC Group’s training programmes in to warehouse training, administration and retail, reflecting the target of creating more training and more diverse training opportunities.

Having an independent contract with DWP was the best outcome for FRC Group because we wanted to be in full control of our training programme.

We have always worked well with partners to deliver training programmes as part of sub-contracting arrangements but there are benefits from having a stream-lined performance reporting system and the independence and control that is associated with having a full contract. It also means that the full value of the funding directly supports individual trainees.

Trainees who were in part funded through the FJF programme were recruited only through Job Centres. A condition of the programme is that applications must come through Job Centres and that there are strict criteria of who is eligible according to how long they have been out of work. FRC Group is used to working with funding streams where there are criteria surrounding trainee eligibility but recruiting solely through the Job Centre gave less scope for FRC Group to raise awareness of the positions with certain groups in the community.

It is a reality that when we bring in external funding to support the training programmes, that the programme must meet the aims and expectations of the funding partner as well as FRC Group’s aims. FRC Group is careful to ensure that the aims of the funding stream are broadly in accordance with FRC Group’s mission statement.

In both Liverpool and Oldham, we have found that the diversity of applicants is restricted when recruitment is restricted by coming through an intermediary agency because it does not allow for the type of community engagement work that FRC Group has done in the past to raise interest in the programme.

In past reports we have had diversity targets for our training programmes and have failed to achieve them in recent years. It is important, right across FRC Group, that we monitor diversity within both the staff team and trainees. However, annual targets for recruiting trainees from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups have not been achieved and are no longer being set. These targets are an example of how we have been distracted from our core purpose in the past.

FRC Group’s intention is to change the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment and it does not differentiate between people of different ethnic groups.

As pictured in the diagram on pages 30-31, trainee recruitment does not neatly dovetail with the beginning and end of the year to which this report relates. Different cohorts of trainees began their training in the year, ended it in the year, or in the case of some of the 6-month programmes, both began and ended within the period.


Trainees on programmes between April 2009 and March 2010

Number of trainees who started the programme Number of trainees who left the programme

Programme

Liverpool

Driving

Change

Bulky Bob’s

Warehouse

09/10

FRC

Warehouse

09/10

Revive

Administration

Oldham

Driving

Change

Administration

Bulky Bob’s

Warehouse

JuneMay

1

AprilMarFebJanDecNovOct

12

SeptAugJuly

7

July

1

1

2

1

2

6

2008 / 2009 2009 / 2010

31

OctSeptAugJuly

4

3

JuneMayAprilMarFeb

1

1

Jan

4

3

1

2

2

Dec

1

2

1

1

Nov

7

Oct

9

1

Sept

10

Aug

1

2010 / 20112009 / 2010


This year is characterised by the expansion of training programmes into new areas, building on the work that began in February 2008 when the warehouse training programmes in Bulky Bob’s and Furniture Resource Centre were added to the long-standing Driving Change programmes in Liverpool and Oldham. Programmes in retail and administration began in July 2009. The approach that has been taken to fund the expansion into new areas of training has been to seek as near to 100% funding of the costs of salaries and training while these programmes mature. This funding allows FRC Group to develop these new programmes and understand what impact they create and how they can become more financially sustainable. In contrast, FRC Group

itself funds 57% of the cost of the “Driving Change” programme from commercial revenues. This is an established programme which forms the cornerstone of FRC Group’s training for unemployed people.

FRC Group’s approach to funding for training programmes is to find funding to fit the programme rather than to try and fit the programme to the funding. The FJF application process placed a cap on the maximum funding that would be allocated per person but our bid did not always request that maximum amount. The amount of funding we requested was below the maximum amount available for 58% of the trainee positions in the funding bid.

We recruit people on to the training programmes who are unemployed and need to gain experience, qualifications and confidence to help them compete in the jobs market. Some of the people we recruit have been unemployed for a long time, some come from backgrounds which create additional perceived barriers - they might be an ex-offender, have been homeless or have had substance abuse problems.

This year we have recruited more under-25s than in previous years. A feature of the current recession is that more young people are out of work - around 1 in 5 under 25’s is unemployed.

This is also related to the Future Job Fund programme which is targeting young people to try and prevent them from being out of work for many years which would adversely affect their future careers.

Who are the trainees?

33

An ex-offender and unemployed for 2 years before coming to FRC Group on a work placement. He stayed on as a longer term placement until the warehouse training programme was recruiting new trainees in January 2010. He has no qualifications.

Unemployed for 4 years. She has a hearing disability which contributed to feeling unconfident. Has a number of qualifications from being on previous courses but wants experience in a real work environment.

Unemployed for 1 year and has a young baby.

Unemployed for 7 months with no qualifications. He is an ex-offender.

Unemployed for 1 year.

Unemployed for 8 months. He tried college but didn’t enjoy it. He wants to get a job but lack of experience has been holding him back.

Unemployed for 2 years.

Trainee 1: Liverpool Warehouse Training Programme

Age 23

Trainee 3: Liverpool Administration Trainee

Age 35

Trainee 5: Oldham Driving Change Trainee

Age 22

Trainee 2: Liverpool Driving Change Trainee

Age 22


Age 21

Trainee 6: Oldham Administration Trainee

Age 19


Age 29


FRC Group’s approach to training programmes has developed over many years. Following on from the successful introduction of the Warehouse training in 2008/09, this year we expanded the range of programmes on offer further by offering retail and administration training programmes in addition to Driving Change and Warehouse training. All programmes share a common approach and a set of core skills which are then supplemented with industry specific skills, experience and qualifications.

The training programmes

AdministrationTraining

RetailTraining

Driving ChangeTraining

WarehouseTraining

CORETraining

Programme

AdministrationTraining

RetailTraining

Driving ChangeTraining

WarehouseTraining

Real on-the-job training: With real responsibilities

Transferable skills: First aid, health and safety, manual handling, environmental awareness, job search skills, equal opportunities, numeracy and literacy

Support: Dedicated support from People & Learning Team as well as Line Manager

Personal skills development: Communication, confidence, team working

FRC Group Training Programmes

35

Driving Change training: 12 month programme working in Bulky Bob’s Liverpool, Warrington or Oldham

• Driver training: LGV Class II Theory test, practical test, hazard perceptiontest, Drivers Certificate of Professional Competence, tachograph training. These qualifications enable trainees to drive vehicles up to a maximum weight of 12 tonnes

• Loader training: Car theory test, car practical test

• Choice of specialist training: Forklift truck licence - counterbalance and reach, ADR licence (transporting hazardous goods), HIAB (loader crane)

Warehouse training: 6 month programme working in Bulky Bob’s Liverpool, Oldham or Furniture Resource Centre

• Forklift Truck Licence: Counter balance and reach

Administration training: 6 month programme working in Furniture Resource Centre, FRC Group People & Learning Team or Bulky Bob’s

• Information Technology certificate

Retail training: 6 month programme working in Revive Liverpool

• Retail Principles certificate

• Customer Care certificate


The purpose of training programmes is to give people the best chance to move out of unemployment. To meet FRC Group’s mission statement we wish to change the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment.

In practice there are numerous successes that we look for with each training programme participant:

• Going into a job or further training or education at the end of the programme

• Completing the training programme

• Gaining the qualifications that are on offer

• Improving their employability skills and qualities such as confidence, team working or communications

How did we do?Going into a job or further training or education at the end of the programme

The target for those completing the programmes to then go into a job, education or further training was 89%. We achieved 67% going into either a job or further training or education.

This is marginally lower than the 71% of completers who went into a job or further education or training in 2008/09. Against the benchmark of our own performance from the previous year and under similar conditions in the wider economy this is an outcome which elicits two responses. As a passionate and ambitious organisation that wants all our trainees to achieve their full potential, anything less than 100% of our programme completers going on to a positive outcome of a job or further training is a disappointment. In contrast, during a time of high unemployment and working with people who come to the programme because they need extra support to help them compete for jobs, this is still a great outcome.

To set this in context, the graph on page 38 illustrates the recent trend in national unemployment statistics and FRC Group’s recent trend in the percentage of trainees who go into a job or training after completing the training programme.

37

71%

08/09

67%

09/10

Target 89%

Percentage of trainees who completed the programme then went into a job, education or further training

“As unemployment increases, it is more difficult for trainees to find jobs”


The highest performance for an individual programme was the Warehouse Training in Liverpool where 67% of completers went into jobs at the end of the programme. A full breakdown of performance by each of the individual programmes is available in Appendix 3 on page 95. Finding appropriate external benchmarks for FRC Group’s training programmes is complicated as training programmes funded by public money have for the most part been reduced to 13-week programmes. Comparing our performance to that of 13-week programmes run by other organisations would not be ideal but if this data were available it would be a benchmark of sorts. Unfortunately, key stakeholders in our training provision – Oldham Council and Future Jobs Fund – were unable to help us to identify any benchmarks that would be suitable. Future Jobs Fund does not collate performance information across its programmes but looks at each one individually, and their performance is confidential.

The in-depth approach FRC Group brings is the exception in this arena, indicated by the prestigious National Training Award that was won in 2008. The experience we are beginning to build in these different programmes is setting a baseline of performance during the economic downturn that we can benchmark against in future years.

The recent trend in national unemployment statistics and FRC Group’s recent trend in the percentage of trainees who go into a job or training after *completeting* the training programme

No of people unemployednationally (millions)

% of trainees going intojobs, further training or education

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

2008 2009 20100%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

39

Completing the training programme

Overall, a target of 89% retention rate was set for 2009/10. We achieved 81%, (93% in 2008/09).

Completing the programme is a good indicator for future success for our trainees. Those who stay for the full length of the programme tend to gain all of the qualifications available, their attendance proves their commitment and work ethic to future employers, and they are more likely to receive the best possible reference from FRC Group. There are some people who leave early for very positive reasons – the best of all is that they have got a permanent job somewhere.

This year there were 5 early leavers in total. In each case the person was dismissed. This is not something that happens quickly or is taken lightly and given the tough realities that some of our trainees come from there is a reason to expect that not all of them will be able or ready to stay the course. We worked with each of these people to try and prevent the process reaching the stage of dismissal but our training programme must reflect the reality of the world of work. Three trainees were dismissed over attendance issue and two trainees were dismissed because of substance misuse in the workplace. 08/09

Target 89%

09/10

81%

93%

Percentage of trainees who completed the programme


Gaining the qualifications that are on offer

Overall the trainees gained 242 qualifications, improving the average number of qualifications per trainee from 4.2 in 2008/09 to 4.5 in 2009/10.

The average number of qualifications per trainee increased. This measure of how well the training programme is an interesting indicator of the general trend in the number of qualifications that are achieved per trainee. It weights each qualification equally but in reality we know that there are key qualifications which will make a big difference to someone’s future – the LGV Class II licence or the fork lift truck licence are examples. In the future we would like to be have a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between achieving certain qualifications and achieving success in the job market.

This year there were more qualifications available even in our traditional Driving Change Programme because additional training qualifications available in the LGV Class II training. A new Drivers Certificate of Professional Competence for Large Goods Vehicle Drivers has been brought in. This means that trainees have to sit an additional Case Study test and additional Driver CPC Practical Driver Test.

A factor in the driving and warehousing training programmes is that they include expensive training that gives trainees professional qualifications to act as a launch-pad when they finish the programme. For example, the costs involved in gaining the LGV Class II driving licence for participants on the Driving Change programme is over £1,400 without taking into consideration the cost in creating time for Bulky Bob’s Driver Mentor Assessors to supervise trainees during the many hours of driving practice they complete before taking their tests.

The average number of qualifications per trainee

4.208/09

4.509/10

41

Top trainee

Being nominated as “Top Trainee” is a sign that the trainee is performing to a consistently high level and our culture is not to simply award this each month as a routine. To be meaningful this award is given on an ad hoc basis when it is deserved. It would devalue the award by simply choosing a trainee each month.

In 2009/10, 4 trainees were nominated for “Top Trainee” reflecting the achievements they are making against the various goals of the programme – gaining work experience that will lead to a good reference and track record, gaining qualifications, developing personal skills.

Adrian McLoughlin, Administration Trainee in Bulky Bob’s Liverpool was nominated for Top Trainee by Mick Hart Warehouse Supervisor. This is what Mick had to say about Adrian: “Since Ade started as a trainee in January he has had 100% attendance. Ade starts work at 8:00 every day when he’s not due to start until 8:45. He is very professional when speaking to customers and drivers on the phone. He has been very creative when changing all the files in the Bulky Bob’s office - which are now all organised and look great. If he is unsure of anything he will always be brave in asking for help. Adrian is an asset to the Bulky Bob’s team and is great to have around.”

Trainee of the year 2009

We also gave out an award as part of our annual staff awards ceremony for the Trainee of the Year. Jay Clarke, Driving Change Trainee in Liverpool was our Trainee of the Year 2009.

“Jay Clarke has excelled in all of his

training and has had an excellent

attendance record. He is well respected

by his team mates and the feedback

about him has been fantastic. He is a

hard worker who gives 100% dedication

to every role he carries out.”

Collette Williams,

People & Learning Manager

There are a number of other ways of understanding the outcomes that have been achieved. To complement the quantitative data that we collect, we also spend a lot of time listening to our trainees and keeping in touch with them when they have left to understand more about the wider impacts for them of their training experience. We hold regular reviews with each trainee during their training programme, we conduct a leaving or exit interview with them and then we ask them to take part in follow up surveys once they have left. It is difficult to keep in contact with our trainees after they leave us but we are able to gather some information from those who we are in contact with.

As part of FRC Group’s wider staff reward mechanism there is an opportunity for trainees to be nominated as “Top Trainee” each month, usually by their supervisor or by the People & Learning Team. This is a valuable source of information to reflect on how the programme is working. The reasons for the nominations give an insight into the changes that peers and managers see in the trainees.

Evaluating performance is not just about the statistics


We carried out a focus group with 12 trainees out of the 28 who were on training programmes at that time. The focus group was held in Liverpool included trainees based in Liverpool who were on the Driving Change, Warehouse Training and Administration Training programmes. Some of the trainees were coming to the end of their training programmes and some were coming towards the last few months of the year-long programme.

The questions in the focus group, carried out by Adam Richards of Liverpool John Moores University, were about what the trainees think are the short term and long term impacts of being on the training programme and what trainees think about the culture at FRC Group.

The trainees commented that in the short term the training programme keeps them active, stops them becoming lazy and getting into the habit of staying in bed. Trainees saw the programme as a stepping stone to work, commenting on the useful experience they get and the qualifications, particularly the LGV, driving and forklift truck licences.

Reflecting on what it means to them in the longer term, trainees report that they are earning money and can spend it on their families, although some commented that the salary needed to be supplemented with tax credits. Many trainees mentioned that the experience and qualifications they gain will be useful in the future. Some of the trainees on six-month programmes commented that this length of time was not long enough for them to reach their potential and that they couldn’t apply for the twelve-month programmes because they did not meet the recruitment criteria.

There were a number of comments from trainees that if a full-time position

was available they would like to stay at FRC Group, but generally the group felt that this was an unlikely outcome.

In general, the trainees said they did not feel that FRC Group’s values culture or University for the People had improved their training experience, but on further questioning it seemed that this was not the case for all trainees. Conflicting perspectives were given when asked specifically about FRC Group’s culture and the system of recognising great performance by giving values awards to people who have gone the extra mile. A general perception was that the values awards consistently go to the same people and that ‘a lot of people aren’t recognised’. However, the majority of the trainees in the focus group had received one or more values award.

University for the People offers a programme of hobby and cultural experiences to everyone at FRC Group. Each month, different events are available. Trainees in the focus group were aware of University for the People and one trainee reported having had tickets for a pantomime with his family. The general feeling was that there was less resource available for University for the People than there had been in the past and that the stories of former events were better than those currently on offer.

Feedback from current trainees

“Trainees saw the programme as a stepping stone to work, commenting on the useful experience and the qualifications they get.”

43

Follow ups

A common outcome for trainees is that during the course of the programme they develop stronger personal skills and this is clearly shown in the information that comes from the follow ups with trainees. On two occasions this year we carried out “follow up” surveys with all of the trainees who had left with the past twelve months. The first survey was in August 2009 when we sent surveys to the 34 trainees who had left between August 2008 and August 2009. 10 ex-trainees responded either to the postal survey or participated in a telephone survey asking the same questions.

In March 2010 the same method was used to contact the 26 trainees who had left between March 2009 and March 2010. 11 ex-trainees responded to either the postal or telephone survey in March.

There would have been some overlap between these groups as some people would have fallen into both *timeframes*. The information that comes from combining these two sets of responses gives some indicative data about what ex-trainees think they got from their time on the training programme.

• 9 (43%) had gone into either a job or training or education at the end of their time at FRC Group and 8 were still in employment or education or training.

• The ex-trainees who took part in the survey had a lower success rate of going into jobs than we have had in either 2008/09 or 2009/10. We think that there is a higher incentive for trainees who did not get a job and still don’t have a job to keep in touch with FRC Group than for those who are employed. The possibility of hearing about jobs at FRC Group or elsewhere is a large factor.

• For the ex-trainees who had gone into a job or training or education, it was very positive that the majority were still in a job, training or education.

• 47% said they were using or had used the training and qualifications they had gained.

• 75% said the felt the training programme had helped them to get a job or would help them to get a job in the future.

• The feedback from these trainees gives really positive feedback about the personal skills trainees develop alongside the formal qualifications.

• 95% of trainees felt they had developed or improved their motivation.

• 90% felt that they had improved or developed their self-confidence, self-esteem, team working skills and communication skills.

• 85% had improved their relationships with peers and 80% had improved their relationships with authority figures.

• 75% had improved their quality of life.

21 people took part in the follow ups and of those:


“Love being here, love the people, have a good laugh and keeps me out of trouble”

“FLT (fork lift truck licence) will be handy, getting back to work has been great”

“Everyone was great from management down to trainees. You done great for me, and all you could”

During the training programme and when they leave, we ask trainees about what difference the training programme makes for them. These comments give an overview of the type of feedback we had this year:

“Would like to see program extended to a 2 year placement. All skills learnt could be used more positively if over longer period”

Are you financially better off?

“Yes, I pay bills, get out, and support my baby”

“Yes, I go to the match, do stuff with the kids”


What happened to these people?

Completed the programme in July 2010. Gained 4 qualifications including Fork Lift Truck Licence. He got a job the week after completing the programme, driving forklift trucks in a warehouse.

Completed the programme and improved her confidence. Wants a career in administration but during the training programme she realised her IT skills still need to improve. She enrolled on an IT course at the end of her training.

Has gained 9 qualifications so far and is due to complete the programme in October 2010.

Has gained 9 qualifications including LGV Class II licence. Due to complete the training programme in September 2010.

Gained 4 qualifications but did not complete the programme. He left early because he had found a job. He went to work in administration and now works in retail.

He is due to complete the programme in August. He has gained 3 qualifications and has developed his administration and communication skills.

He completed the programme, gaining 10 qualifications including car licence and fork lift truck licence. He is employed as a reprographics printer.

Trainee 1: Liverpool Warehouse Training Programme

Age 23


Age 35

Trainee 5: Oldham Driving Change Trainee

Age 22


Age 22


Age 21

Trainee 6: Oldham Administration Trainee

Age 19


Age 29

47

Past Impact Reports have been almost exclusively focused on the immediate impacts within or relating to the year in question. The long-term impact of the training programmes is an important measure of how well they are performing. The “Driving Change” programme has been running consistently for the longest time – since 2000 in its current form. While it is not possible to keep in touch with all of the participants, information is available to give an indication of the longer-term impacts that are being created.

One group of our ex-trainees that we can keep in touch with are the ones who become permanent members of FRC Group’s staff. 21% of our permanent staff this year were people who had been trainees in the past. These people are a living proof that our training programme works. 11 of these 14 people completed their training programmes between 5 and 14 years ago.

We also tried to get in touch with 17 trainees who had left the training programmes in 2007 – people who had finished their training between 2.5 and 3.5 years ago. We tried to speak with these 17 people by telephone but found that many people were no longer using the same mobile phone number that they had been in the past. In total we followed up with 5 trainees – 2 of these

were people who are now permanent staff members at FRC Group.

All 5 of these ex-trainees had gone into work at the end of their training programmes and all 5 are still in work now. Two work as Loaders at FRC Group, 1 works for a gardening company, 1 works for the ambulance service and 1 works for a building materials supply company.

When asked “What were the main things they got from their time at FRC Group?”, the ex-trainees reported these things: experience, confidence, dealing with customers, gaining the driving licence, team working, planning routes and working by yourself.

This feedback is only a very small snapshot of the wider and long-term impact of the training programmes. We would like to have more information about the long-term effects of being part of one of the programmes. Keeping in touch with ex-trainees is not easy. We follow up with them up to 18-months after they complete a programme and we find that around that time a number of them have either moved of changed telephone numbers. There are a group who become FRC Group employees who we can keep in touch with. In future years we will look at ways to bring in more resources to dedicate to tracking some of the longer-term leavers.

And the longer term?

Based on feedback from previous “Driving Change” participants, we have begun to measure some indicators of the improvement to trainees health as a result of the programme. Previous trainees had reported that they ate more regularly and better as a result of being on the training programme, that their sleep was better, that they reduced the amount of alcohol they drank and the number of cigarettes they smoked. Baseline measurements were taken with the Driving Change trainees recruited in Liverpool in October 2009 and in Oldham in November 2009. These measurements will be repeated with these cohorts when they have completed their twelve-month programmes and we will report the findings in the next Impact Report.

What else?


At a time when FRC Group has decided to put more emphasis on training for unemployed people by creating more training places and more variety of training, “the exam question” is what is it about FRC Group’s training that makes the difference? We want to understand better which are the really impactful elements of our approach to training so that we can try to improve the programmes further and offer the very best training programme we can.

We believe that the combination of different elements in FRC Group’s programmes is what makes them successful - real experience, formal training, personal development and developing transferable ‘employability’ skills, developing motivation and earning a real wage all play a part in creating the positive change in people’s lives.

Between 1995 and 2008 FRC Group’s training programme consisted solely of Driving Change which is a 12-month programme. The length of the programme was seen as a *non-negotiable* feature of the FRC Group approach to training as we considered it to play an essential role in ensuring success. The length of time needed to prepare for the LGV Class II Licence and be comfortable and experienced in the large vehicles was a big part of why it needed to be a long programme. We want to be sure that

the programme length is what it needs to be for the trainee to change their futures and not get hung up on fitting it to the annual calendar.

The past two years have seen the introduction of a range of 6-month programmes. We would like to understand in more detail what the factors for success are and the role that the programme length plays in this. We are now running programmes at both lengths and gathering data. We will be using this experience to set the future strategic direction of our training programmes.

We asked the 21 survey participants who had left between 1 and 12 months earlier to identify the top three things about the training programme.

Two of the top answers related to professional qualifications - 16% said the Fork Lift Truck Licence and 14% said the Driving Licence – and the third highest response was the improvement in their self-confidence (12%).

The employer’s perspective would help to illuminate what the key thing that makes the difference actually is. There are issues of confidentiality and it would be very difficult for FRC Group to be in

touch with a current employer of one of our ex-trainees to ask about what made them employ that person without compromising the ex-trainee. We know anecdotally that some ex-trainees see participation in a training programme as something with stigma attached and would be very uncomfortable with this type of engagement. FRC Group does recruit permanent staff who were once on our training programmes but we would not be the most impartial respondents!

In the past we have engaged with independent people within the logistics industry to gain their perspective:

“The Road Haulage Association

is delighted to support FRC Group’s

training programme. We are in no doubt

that a training programme that includes

so much more than simply the ability

to drive ensures that an individual’s job

prospects are greatly enhanced. We are

equally sure that the training on offer will

lead to sustainable jobs for your trainees

in the future.”

Geoff Dunning, Director

of the Road Haulage Association

The big question: what makes the difference?

49

“As a national Logistics company

who has won awards for the quality

of its driver development programmes,

we have always been interested in

looking at what other companies

provide to their own employees or

customers. The company that stands

out to me is FRC Group in Liverpool.

The programme is not just thorough,

but is delivered with a true passion

of seeing the individual develop and

succeed, and it’s this energy and

commitment which has made FRC

Group the model business that we

can all learn from.”

Nigel Finch, Former Head of Human

Resources, BIBBY Logistics

It is possible that we could gather this type of information in future years. There are two large local employers that we are working with who may start to recruit people for their logistics and warehouse operations from FRC Group’s training programme participants. These relationships could offer an opportunity to gain this insight into the employers perspective without being directly linked to a particular trainee.


Structured training programmes are not the only way that FRC Group seeks to bring about positive change in the lives of people living in poverty and unemployment. For a variety of reasons, a full-time training programme is not always the best entry for some unemployed people back in to the world of work. Some people are not ready for that stage yet, perhaps because they are coming from a background of homelessness, substance abuse or are coming from the criminal justice system. For others, paid employment is not the aim, but instead they wish to participate in meaningful mainstream activities – this is particularly true of adults who are receiving social care and support who wish to spend their time in purposeful alternatives to the traditional ‘day care centre model’.

For several years, FRC Group has responded to requests to create these short-term opportunities for people to gain unpaid work experience by offering work placements. In 2007 the number of people taking part in these short-term work placements increased significantly from 8 in 2006/07 to 62 in 2007/08. The recent developments in the work placements has been that the numbers of people have remained fairly static but the length of time people spend with FRC Group has increased.

Work experience and personal skills development

Work placements

Number of hours the participants completed on work placements

4,550 hours08/09

7,347 hours09/10

51

Retail routes In 2008/09 69 participants completed approximately 4,550 hours work while in 2009/10 54 participants completed approximately 7,347 hours.

The increased number of hours reflects that a new type of work placement has developed. In previous years, placements were typically between 2 and 12 weeks but FRC Group is now working with a small number of people over a longer period of time. An example of this is the work that has been carried out by a person who was initially referred to complete a 12-week work placement with us through the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre. This was a referral from Judge David Fletcher for someone who had completed a community sentence but who the Judge felt would benefit from undertaking a voluntary placement in a work environment. Once this initial placement was continued, the participant wished to continue for two main purposes. In the first place he was enjoying the work and the team environment and wanted to progress to becoming part of the Warehouse training programme but there was a gap of 15 weeks before the next recruitment for that programme. Secondly, the person knew that part of avoiding a return to offending behaviour was to keep active and away from old patterns so there

We secured funding through Riverside Central Community Chest Fund to run a retail work experience programme for young people who are residents at the Powerhouse Foyer in the Toxteth area of Liverpool. The programme was to offer real work experience in Revive as well as qualifications in health and safety, retail operations and customer service. Our plan was to coincide the start of this programme with the move to a new Revive store and unfortunately, this placement programme was delayed as a consequence of the uncertainty about when exactly we would be moving. In the early part of 2010, we decided to go ahead with the first placements in the existing store as we did want to delay any further. We held two recruitment events at the Powerhouse Foyer to raise awareness of the opportunity and we hoped to have people starting early in 2010/11.

was huge benefit in being occupied away from his old neighbourhood for several hours a day.

Work placements are offered to people from various backgrounds. In total we worked with 16 referral agencies. We work with a number of partners who offer longer term support to people who are not employed, especially young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs). We also work with Business in the Community and the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre to provide work placements for people who are coming out of the criminal justice system. These placements are usually longer relationships and have in a small number of instances led to people becoming part of one of our salaried training programmes.

It is possible that we could gather this type of information in future years. There are two large local employers that we are working with who may start to recruit people for their logistics and warehouse operations from FRC Group’s training programme participants. These relationships could offer an opportunity to gain this insight into the employers perspective without being directly linked to a particular trainee.


The social impact of placement opportunities

FRC Group is recognised for the valuable social impact it creates through work placements.

The importance of mentoring support for those people who are with us for a longer term is still clear. Following on from receiving an award from Business in the Community in 2009 in recognition of his work supporting people on work placements, Mick Hart who supervises the Bulky Bob’s Liverpool warehouse has this year received an award for his “Outstanding Contribution” in all the work he does with people who come to us on work placements from the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre. John McIlveen, Senior Probation Officer said, “Mick is a fantastic partner to the CJC and the work he does with our placements is fantastic.”

53

Sysco refer people to come for a short -term work placement at FRC Group:

“FRC Group are our preferred provider for work experience placements in warehousing. Over the years ALL of our young learners have enjoyed the experience, gaining valuable work experience to assist their future job search activities.

Several of our young people have gone onto either college or full time work, as a direct result of their time spent at FRC group. They all indicate how professional the organization is, as well as providing a safe and supportive environment in which to work.

(DR) was a young man who joined Sysco in October 2009. He was given an opportunity to do work experience at FRC Group later that year, and eventually progressed onto an apprenticeship with a local company in February 2010.

Special mention needs to be made of Mike Hart and the warehouse staff. They take a genuine interest in the learners, and make them feel they are part of the team. This boosts the young person’s self belief, and makes them better prepared to apply for job opportunities that arise.

I look forward to continuing our successful partnership in helping young

In 2010/11 we will carry out a review of our work placement activity to establish how to create the most social impact through this area of work. As part of this process we will undertake more engagement with our placement partners and with people who have been on work placement programmes. This will also consider how we ensure that there is sufficient resource to support work placement participants, how we establish the most impactful partnerships for the referral of people who wish to complete a work placement and how we build more suitable measures of impact around the new structured placement programme.

people to enter the job market during 2010 and beyond.”

Steve O’Brien, Employer Liaison Officer, Sysco

How we can create the most positive social impact from work placement opportunities that we offer is an ongoing topic of consideration for FRC Group. In the past three years of offering work placements at a greater scale we have learned some key lessons. The main priority is that we must offer a meaningful work activity which is providing people with real work place experience. We are very clear about what meaningful work opportunities exist at any one time and we are strict about only taking as many people as we can properly support.

Offering meaningful work is essential and we have found ways to bring in additional activities in to the Bulky Bob’s warehouse operation that will enable us to support more work placements. Getting the balance right on this is a constant concern. We want to support more people by giving them real work to do but we do not want to run our business reliant on voluntary labour for both ethical and commercial reasons, and we want to ensure that people on work placements are getting a fair deal.


This year we have learned more about how work placements can fit in to the social value that we create and our business models. A driver from “Leading with Impact” was to examine how we can create additional work placement opportunities by building new elements of activity into the Bulky Bob’s warehouse operation and also by looking at all areas of activity to see how meaningful work placements might be created.

A new development has been in the pipeline since the summer of 2009 which will also see FRC Group creating social value by partnering in a new project to offer people meaningful work activities and training. For many years, Bulky Bob’s Liverpool has donated unwanted bicycles that are collected through the bulky household waste stream to Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Liverpool. The bicycles are used as materials in a prison workshop where prisoners recondition them (along with wheelchairs). The bicycles are then sent to developing countries in Africa and also to Eastern Europe where they are donated, particularly to children.

In the summer of 2009, Bulky Bob’s Liverpool approached HMP Liverpool to open discussions about how Bulky Bob’s could bring additional meaningful training opportunities to some of the prisoners. Over the year, staff from Bulky Bob’s and Liverpool Prison worked hard to create

the “Bulky Bob’s Upholstery Workshop” within the prison. The workshop will offer training opportunities to up to 14 prisoners at any time. The training the prisoners will receive, from a qualified upholstery trainer, will enable them to gain skills and experience prior to their release back into society.

The Workshop will also bring some of FRC Group’s distinctive approach to training into the prison environment as much as possible. The workshop is branded and decorated to reflect the environment at Bulky Bob’s sites in Liverpool and Oldham. The trainees will wear Bulky Bob’s t-shirts during their workshop sessions, will drink from the branded mugs that all FRC Group staff have and will learn about the values of FRC Group and the positive benefit they are creating in the community from repairing ‘pre-loved’ furniture.

This is an exciting development for FRC Group. The intention is that prisoner’s will be better prepared for the job market on their release and that the skills that are learned could provide an opportunity in the future for some of the prisoner’s to become self-employed. Bulky Bob’s hopes to offer opportunities to the trainees once they have completed their time in the workshop. An idea of how this could work in the future is that if an ex-workshop trainee wishes to develop

their own business doing repairs, we hope that by guaranteeing them a certain amount of work per month for the first six-months, we could help them to build up a sustainable business. Bulky Bob’s could then be able to offer that regular amount of work to a new person and give them the same opportunity.

There may also be opportunities for people coming out of Liverpool Prison who have completed the Bulky Bob’s Workshop training to be able to apply for the training programmes offered throughout FRC Group. This is possible but we do not want to raise false expectations in either the prisoners or the Liverpool Prison staff. In the current circumstances, the eligibility criteria for funding programmes that receive some funding from the Future Jobs Fund programme mean that these opportunities are only open to people who have been claiming Job Seekers Allowance for certain amounts of time (there are variations according to age).

The Bulky Bob’s Workshop will create social impact for the prisoners in terms of the training they receive and will also create social impact for low-income shoppers at Revive in Liverpool (more on this part of the project in the next chapter, see page 70).

Meaningful training opportunities in Liverpool Prison

More social impact in a new area

55

In addition to setting up the new Bulky Bob’s Workshop, there are two other ways that FRC Group will creating additional value within the training workshops provided by Liverpool Prison:

One: There is an existing workshop which offers simulated training in industrial cleaning techniques. Bulky Bob’s will supply upholstered furniture and mattresses that are in need of professional cleaning to that workshop. These are items which would not have been of good enough quality to sell in Revive (or of good enough quality to donate to families in crisis situations in the case of mattresses). This element of the project means that the skills learned in industrial cleaning are applied to real situations rather than in a classroom setting.

Two: Liverpool Prison is keen to offer training to some of the more vulnerable prisoners who have mental health problems. A workshop will be set up within the medical care facility in the prison. Painting small wooden furniture items to ‘upcycle’ pieces that are physically robust but are not aesthetically pleasing. Bulky Bob’s picks up many pieces of wooden furniture which are old-fashioned or scratched. With a coat of paint, these items are transformed in to more appealing items. This activity provides prisoners with practical skills

that will be useful in a domestic setting and is an opportunity for creative and therapeutic work.

These new developments are supported by HMP Liverpool and will begin operating early in 2010/11. We are excited about this new way in which FRC Group can bring its experience in training into a new area.

The Bulky Bob’s Workshop opened in March 2010, offering 9 places to prisoners. The Workshop will be officially launched in 2010/11.


Targets and priorities for 2010/11

29 training positions across FRC Group.

53 people trained overall.

65% of all leavers to go into a job or further training or education.

75% of all those who complete the training programmes to go into a job or further training or education.

Develop a strategy for work placement activity at FRC Group.

Offer 9 places at any one time in the Bulky Bob’s Workshop in Liverpool Prison.

Being great for peopleliving in poverty This chapter explores what we have done to help alleviate poverty by providing furniture to people on low incomes and how successful we have been in meeting our aims.

58 Being great for people living in poverty

Furniture was the starting point when Furniture Resource Centre was launched as a local furniture donation project in 1988 in Liverpool and furniture is still at the centre of how FRC Group creates social impact. By giving people who would otherwise not be able to afford it access to great quality furniture, FRC Group makes a positive social change in the lives of more people than through any other part of the Group’s activities.

Furniture itself is simply a means to an end though. The ‘end’ is to alleviate material poverty. By giving people on low-incomes access to good quality furniture they can build a more sustainable home. Having an unfurnished or poorly furnished property puts people at risk of becoming homeless.

A furnished home creates an environment in which people can build a life in a community, put down roots and flourish.

In the past, Furniture Resource Centre lobbied and influenced the agenda for social housing providers to create furnished tenancies for people who had no furniture. This work was for many years a big part of the social value that FRC Group created but as time has moved on, Furniture Resource

Centre’s role is as a supplier of goods and services rather than as an influencer, integral in the establishment of furnished tenancies that change people’s lives. In 2006, we worked with Yorkshire Metropolitan Housing Association and Adam Richards of Liverpool John Moores’ University to analyse the social return on investment (SROI) created by the Yorkshire Metropolitan’s furnished tenancy programme. This SROI analysis was about the positive social value the housing association created by choosing to offer this service to their tenants.

The current reality is that today, FRC Group is creating social impact by getting furniture to people who need it through the Bulky Bob’s operations. Bulky Bob’s Liverpool and Oldham are based in the communities in which they operate and both meet the needs of the local community in different ways. In this section, we will describe what we have done to help alleviate poverty by providing furniture to people on low-incomes and we will consider how successful we have been in meeting our aims.

How are we creating social impact?

More than just furnitureFurniture itself is simply a means to an end.The ‘end’ is to alleviate material poverty.

59

Bulky Bob’s and Revive

Liverpool

Bulky Bob’s Liverpool and Revive are part of the same chain of activity that creates social impact by giving Liverpool people access to great quality furniture. The majority of the furniture that we make available is ‘pre-loved’ furniture collected through the Bulky Bob’s service.

We made more great quality ‘pre-loved’ furniture available to low-income families. From the bulky household waste collections it carries out, Bulky Bob’s sent 7,261 items of ‘pre-loved’ furniture to be sold in the Revive store this year – an increase of 26%.

Revive is located in a ‘bargain shopping’ high street area of Liverpool near to a number of low-cost furniture shops. It is ideally located for the main bus routes coming in to the centre from some of the most deprived areas in North Liverpool.

The aim of Revive is to provide a good quality product in a good quality environment at prices that mean people with little money to spend on furniture are able to buy the things they need to improve their homes.

Number of pre-loved furniture items Bulky Bob’s sent to be sold in the Revive store

5,76108/09

7,26109/10


In 2009/10 3,152 sales were made to customers in Revive. Last year we had 3,434 customers so this is a reduction of 8.2% - during a year when we had hoped to be able to serve more customers. In the current economic conditions we know that more people are on low-incomes and we expected Revive to experience greater demand for items. Bulky Bob’s Liverpool team worked hard to increase the num-bers of items that were sent to Revive by making changes to the way the operation worked and also by re-examining the selection criteria to ensure that no reus-able items could slip through the net. The changes worked because the number of items that were sent to Revive increased by 26% from 5,761 in 2008/09 to 7,261 in 2009/10.

The absolute number of customers reduced but we were able to get more good quality ‘pre-loved’ furniture into Liverpool. For the 3,152 customers, it is great that they were able to buy more products.

The next measure of how well we did is in understanding who our customers were. Revive targets low-income shoppers by offering a range of discounts to encourage them to shop with us.

So how are we doing?

Number of sales made to customers in Revive

3,43408/09

3,15209/10

61

Engaging with our customers We did not carry out a formal customer satisfaction survey this year. Most years we have conducted a survey with a sample of our Revive customers to find out a bit more about why they shop at Revive, what difference the furniture makes to them and what they think of the shop, the products and the service. 2009/10 was a year of uncertainty for the Revive store. The building the store was in was earmarked for redevelopment by our landlord and we were aware that the time was approaching when we would need to look for an alternative site.

As a result we did invest in any further improvements to the store, knowing that we would soon be moving to a new unit and painting and decorating would be a waste of time and resource. Owing to the credit crunch the development plans for the site were delayed and we ultimately remained in the original store for the full year. This was also the period during which we were bidding for the new bulky household waste management collection contract with Liverpool City Council. Revive is such a key part of the Liverpool operation and it was only sensible to understand the outcomes of the tendering process before committing to a new location for the store. We took the decision that it was the wrong time to ask customers for their feedback when the store would soon be in a different unit.


Anyone can shop in Revive and pay the full price for our products but we offer discounts to help target the furniture at those in most need. Customers who are in receipt of benefits, students and pensioners receive a 10% discount and customers who are referred to us through a wide network of some 80+ referral agencies receive a 20% discount and a free delivery service.

Who are our customers?

The make up of our customers

Non low income households receiving no discount

Low income households receiving 10% discount

Referred customers receiving 20% discount

Crisis referrals receiving 100% discount

5%

21%

74%

08/0973%

20%

4%3%

09/10

63

Number of people in crisis given free of charge basic furniture items

In March 2009, a new category of customers was created when we launched a programme to offer free of charge basic furniture items to people in crisis situations. These customers are shown on the chart as “Crisis referrals receiving free furniture”. The crisis furniture programme ran throughout 2009/10 and gave basic essential items to 117 people who had no resources to be able to purchase items. There is more detailed information about the crisis furniture programme on pages 66-67.

By adding together the number of customers receiving free furniture and those receiving the 20% discount, it shows that Revive’s impact on those in most need of support increased.

117

The percentage of customers receiving no discounts reduced from 21% in 2008/09 to 20% in 2009/10 and a new opportunity was brought in which increased the percentage of people in most need who got furniture.


Revive aims to reach people in most need of great furniture items and prices that offer excellent value by working with partner agencies to refer their clients to Revive. Around 80 organisations have made referrals in the past. These are social support organisations such as homeless hostels, resettlement services, domestic violence groups, mental health services, probation services, Citizen Advice Bureaux etc.

We carried out a survey with a small sample of the agencies who refer people to come to Revive to receive the 20% discount prices. The 8 referrers we spoke to were those organisations that had made recent referrals. We asked them to summarise the feedback from customers:

Feedback from customers who receive 20% discounts was positive about the free delivery they receive, the price and the quality of furniture.

Discounts for people referred from support agencies

Feedback from customers who receive 20% discounts

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Not NeededReally Useful

PoorOK

GoodExcellent

PoorOK

GoodExcellent

Free Delivery

Prices

Quality Of Furniture

65

Why do you refer people to Revive The discount structure receives general support and the free delivery is seen to be very important. The impression of the quality of furniture is for the most part excellent or good.

To better understand where the 20% discount referral fits into the thinking of the support organisations, we asked why they refer people to Revive. The responses were spread between four categories with price being the most important factor and choice the least important.

18%

23%

35%

24%

Choice

Location

Price

Quality

* Other 0%


In March 2009 we issued the first five vouchers to be used by people in crisis situations to get free furniture through Revive. During 2009/10, 117 people used the crisis vouchers to get the essential furniture items they needed through Revive. If Revive had sold these items rather than give them free of charge, the sales value would have been just less than £11,000.

The scheme was developed first with Liverpool City Council’s Children’s Services Family Support Teams to address a material problem for many of the families they were working with. These families have children who are at risk of being taken in to local authority care and the family support teams work with them to try and resolve some of the issues that have led to this situation. For many of these families there are immediate housing problems or problems with the state of the home. These material problems are time consuming for the social workers to address but they are the foundation of then moving on to dealing with substance problems, parenting problems, employment and training etc. Prior to developing the Revive crisis vouchers, social workers would spend a lot of time calling around to try and get hold of unwanted furniture and then organising the logistics of moving it from someone who was donating it to the home of the family.

The crisis vouchers scheme has been designed with two main purposes – to get furniture to people in the most acute urgent need as quickly as possible and to reduce the time that workers spend on trying to resolve these issues so they can work on the bigger problems. The experience for the Revive customers should be one of choice and dignity. Once a referral is received and approved, a voucher is issued which the family can take to Revive to use as payment for the items they choose from the ‘pre-loved’

furniture in store. Their experience as customers is broadly similar to any other shopper except that the small amount of new furniture in the store is not available to them.

Over the course of the year, we extended the scheme to work with a wider group of referral agencies as long as the people they were referring were resident within the Liverpool City Council. By the end of the year, 10 different agencies had referred people.

Helping people in crisis situations?

67

Who receives a voucher?

• A family fleeing domestic violence is offered a tenancy in a new area and must move immediately.

• Family living in conditions that are not suitable for their children. The children are at risk of being taken into care.

• A person or family living in hostel accommodation who is offered an independent tenancy but does not have any furniture. They must begin paying rent on the tenancy immediately but can not afford to accrue rent arrears by continuing to live in the hostel for several weeks while they apply for a community care grant which may not be approved.

• A young person leaving foyer accommodation who has previously been advised to spend the £10 security deposit they will get when they give in their foyer key on a sleeping bag and as many blankets as they can buy in a charity shop so that they can survive for the first few weeks in their new property without any furniture waiting for a community care grant to come through.

Crisis vouchers are given to people who are in an urgent situation and have no furniture. These are some of the common circumstances in which a person or family would be given a voucher:


What difference does it make?

The feedback from agencies referring people in crisis to receive free basic furniture is positive.

“The crisis furniture provided by the FRC Group continues to have an incredible positive impact on the lives of our service users and their families. Moving into an empty property with little or no possessions can be both daunting and depressing. It is in these first critical weeks, before grants are received, that tenancies often fail. Being able to access start up items for a new tenancy helps the service users to begin to see their property as a home. It provides them with the means to start using the property and encouraging them to start building up possessions of their own. The scheme helps them to realise that they are valued and part of the community, reestablishing links and building confidence and self esteem.”

JE, Big Issue in the North

“The scheme goes a long way to getting young people set up and able to hold down a successful tenancy”

RE, Powerhouse Foyer

Feedback from the professionals about the difference it makes to their work has been positive:

“It has been a valuable resource due to the fact that in turn getting the furniture it frees up a lot of time to focus and work on other matters that the families are dealing with.”

DM, Liverpool City Council

“ I personally find the scheme a fast efficient way of providing furniture for those most in need”

SJ, Powerhouse Foyer

69

An unexpected outcome was the number of vouchers that we issued that weren’t used. 205 vouchers were issued and only 117 were used. Initially we followed up with each voucher that wasn’t used but found that this was too time consuming and that there are various valid reasons why a voucher is not used. Whether the voucher is used or not is an indicator of whether it was really needed. We have found that some vouchers have been approved but that they have not been used because the person has not liked any of the furniture available in the store. If the voucher recipient does not feel in such need that they will choose from what is in the store then they in effect define themselves as not in crisis need. Our position is that

we make furniture available to people in most need of it not that we force it upon them, so from this perspective we accepted that some people would not use the vouchers.

As this is a new programme we also expected that workers would make every effort to put referrals for their clients in for approval. We think that in some cases these vouchers were not used because they were inappropriate referrals and the people did not need furniture as urgently as their worker may have thought.

There were also many situations where illness, changing family circumstances, delays in accepting tenancies etc prevented voucher from being used.

Taking furniture out ‘on the road’

In addition to selling and donating furniture through the Revive store, four “Bulky Bob’s on the Road” events were held in Liverpool. These events took sales of ‘pre-loved’ furniture out to community venues around the city. These events at Garston (twice), Toxteth and Fazakerley, were well attended and we received some positive feedback about the furniture. As well as taking the furniture out to community venues which (in the case of Garston and Fazakerley) are on the edges of the city, we offered a free delivery service on the day to help people get the items home straight away.

We took furniture out into the community to reach people who would not necessarily shop for furniture in Revive.

SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER 2009 10AM – 1PMGARSTON URBAN VILLAGE HALL70 BANKS ROAD, GARSTON, LIVERPOOL L19 8JZ

BULKY BOB’S ON THE ROAD

Working with

Printed on 100% recycled (NAPM registered) Forest Stewardship Council certification ISO 14001.

Good quality pre-loved furniture at low cost prices

Get your hands on a bargain

DO YOUR BIT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT BY REUSING

FREE DELIVERY ON THE DAY IF YOU LIVE IN THE L19 OR L24 AREA

If you buy it, we‛ll deliver it on the same day

ON THEFURNITURE

SALE


Increasing social impact at Revive

These were ideas around how to increase and improve the products on offer and ideas of additional benefits that could be created.

Two: Partnership with Liverpool Prison

Since the summer of 2009, Bulky Bob’s has been working with HMP Liverpool to develop new workshop activities within the prison. The prison workshops will create social impact in a number of ways. The skills and training opportunities for the prisoner’s are discussed on pages 54-55. The three prison workshops – upholstery, industrial cleaning, and wooden furniture – will increase the amount of reusable furniture that can be sold in Revive. In this way, they will contribute to FRC Group’s purpose of creating social impact by improving the lives of people living in poverty.

The additional social benefit will be created in two ways. The workshops will greatly improve the quality of items that are sold in Revive. Some are items that would have gone to Revive anyway but will now be a better quality product and some of these items would have originally been below the quality threshold for Revive.

The workshops began to operate in March 2010. 2010/11 will see the workshops officially launch and the products from them reach the Revive store.

One: More and better products

Over the course of the year, we introduced some additional products into Revive to offer a more complete product range. These were a small selection of window coverings and a range of carpet tiles. The carpet tiles offer a cheap floor covering which people can very easily fit for themselves. In keeping with the ethos of Revive, these tiles are ‘reused’ - we source them through a social enterprise which deals with tiles uplifted from large commercial refurbishments. The tiles are the highest quality grade in reused tiles.

We also worked on two longer term projects to increase the amount of furniture available to Revive.

The “Leading with Impact” staff consultation events, generated ideas about how to increase the social benefits created by the Revive store in Liverpool. Four of these were put in to practice this year.

71

Three: Upcycling

During the year, Bulky Bob’s has conducted a number of different exercises to establish the best way to increase the amount of wooden furniture that is available for reuse through Revive. We have identified that some of the wooden items we collect are robust but not modern or attractive. The simple idea was to paint and refurbish these items in a way that would make them attractive to customers but in a way which kept cost to a minimum so that we could still afford to sell them in Revive to low-income shoppers.

We worked with a number of partners during the year who used furniture and materials provided to ‘upcycle’ items. Many beautiful pieces were created as a result of working with a local artist and stylist, Zee Shore and from the projects run by Toxteth-based Arts in Regeneration (AiR). Bulky Bob’s donated furniture and some materials to projects run by AiR around Liverpool to give volunteers the chance to learn some skills related to the wider theme of ‘beating the recession’.

We learned the parameters we should work to in order to keep the end prices of these pieces within the range of prices at Revive. Early in 2010/11 we will integrate a furniture painting element into the Bulky Bob’s Liverpool operation. We have made a relationship with a Merseyside commercial painting company, Hankinson Group and will begin reusing their waste paint. We have also begun a relationship with Cath Kidston to use fabric roll-ends which we intend to use to recover dining chair seats. This will greatly enhance the quality of these items.

Liverpool is the largest Bulky Bob’s operation and is often the test bed for new developments. Once these new elements are proven, we hope to replicate the outcomes in Oldham.

Four: The Revive Help Shop

Another outcome of “Leading with Impact” was an idea around the potential to add new types of social impact to Revive. The concept was to offer extra services to Revive customers while they are in the shop and to test the idea that people might be more likely to access advice on sensitive issues in a neutral environment that did not carry any stigma. We carried out a small survey with Revive customers in the summer of 2009 to find out whether they would use advice services in Revive and what sort of services they were most interested in.

Money, debts, benefits and health issues were all raised as issues for customers. Over the rest of the year we worked to identify organisations that could offer drop in advice services on these issues. These services begin in 2010/11 under the banner of the Revive “help shop”.


In Oldham, Bulky Bob’s provides ‘pre-loved’ furniture directly to the public by selling and donating it from the Bulky Bob’s depot. This is on a smaller scale than in Liverpool. In 2009/10 1,784 furniture items were sorted from the waste stream to be sold and donated, compared with 1,313 in 2008/09.

The collection activity is on a smaller scale in Oldham than in Liverpool and because collections are all made from outside of properties, the quality of reusable furniture is lower too. This is something that will change in 2010/11 when Bulky Bob’s will be able to collect from inside people’s properties and we hope to see an increase in the reusable furniture as a result.

The majority of the furniture is donated through referrals from support organisations in the town. This is in a different format from the way it works with Revive in Liverpool. Donations of up to five items of furniture are made through referrals from specific agencies such as First Choice Homes Oldham. When people are referred they can choose up to five items but they need to pay a delivery charge. A function of not having the large scale Revive operation in Oldham is that there is no dedicated delivery resource for ‘pre-loved’ furniture.

We are getting furniture to people who need it and making sure that this community resource is well used. We are working with the referral agencies to explore alternative ways of working that will increase the social impact we create through ‘pre-loved’ furniture. For example, a function of the “5 item” rule and a flat delivery charge is that people choose five items when they may in reality need less. We will work with the referral agencies to develop a more flexible system that has the capacity to help more people.

Bulky Bob’s

Oldham

Number of pre-loved furniture items Bulky Bob’s sent to be sold and donated

1,31308/09

1,78409/10

73

Bulky Bob’s is very keen to run more of these events and has had a lot of interest from different areas of Oldham about holding further events in the coming year.

Towards the end of 2009/10, the Bulky Bob’s Oldham Manager left the company as he was relocating to London. Creating social impact through the sales and donation of ‘pre-loved’ furniture items is a key priority for the new manager. We want to hold more “on the road” events and develop stronger partnerships with support agencies to ensure that the furniture is available to people in most need.

An additional task will be to improve the system for capturing information about this part of Bulky Bob’s Oldham’s activity. We know how many furniture items are removed from the waste stream, thus giving the total number of items which are sold or given free of charge. We do not yet have detailed information about the people who are buying or receiving the items. The intention is to bring this *inline* with the types of systems used by Revive in Liverpool so that we can record the number of people who are shoppers from low-income groups.

In addition to selling and donating from the Bulky Bob’s depot we also ran the first “Bulky Bob’s on the Road” event in Glodwick. The event was a big success. 37 items were sold and we received some fantastic feedback:

“I am mother of five and full time

working woman, I want to pass my

comments on today’s Bulky Bob’s Open

day... (in Glodwick) yesterday... because

for last one month I was looking for

something for my kids bedroom which

should be cheap and nice, so I went

there and I saw some really good stuff

and I buy it for my home and the best

thing it was free delivery.

I think this type of open days will be

continue in future, because people

like me, and other who can’t afford

expensive furniture they should buy

*it it* will save our money and it will

improve our environment.”

RB, Oldham resident

Bulky Bob’s on the Road was held for the first time in Oldham.


Targets and priorities for 2010/11

3,300 customer sales in the Revive Liverpool store.

76% of these customer sales to be to people on low-incomes who receive 10% discount on standard prices.

4% of these customer sales to be to people who are referred and receive 20% discount on standard prices.

6% of these customer sales to be to people in crisis need who receive free of charge furniture items.

360 customers to buy or receive furniture from Bulky Bob’s Oldham.

66% of these customers to be people in crisis need who receive free of charge furniture items.

What has happened in the first quarter of 2010/11? ???????????? ?????????????

2010/11 FRC Group, the story so far.

76 2010/11

FRC Group’s core business activities have not changed, although work towards two new Bulky Bob’s operations has been progressing well.

Bulky Bob’s has been successful in applying for funding through the Realliance programme to employ an experienced interim manager to redesign elements within the Bulky Bob’s warehouse operation. The improvements this consultant will bring in will improve Bulky Bob’s performance and create additional social impact by developing new activities that are suitable as elements within either a training programme or work placement.

Furniture Resource Centre has appointed a Sales & Marketing Director to ensure that it increases its share of the new markets it is working in. Furniture Resource Centre has also had its largest contract – with the Procurement for Housing buying consortium – renewed.

The Revive store has moved into new premises very close to its former location. The new store has all of the benefits of being in the same location but has more space and has been refurbished to a high standard. The Bulky Bob’s workshop in HMP Liverpool is open and a formal launch event will be held later in the year.

A highlight of the year so far has been FRC Group being named as “Impact Champion” in the first annual SE100 index of social enterprises. The “Impact Champion” recognises the social enterprise that is doing most to understand and measure its impact. Tim West of Society Media said “The judges were impressed by the extent to which measuring impact and value is at the heart of FRC Group, running through its veins and helping it to prove and improve itself on an ongoing basis. Ultimately, this is not some kind of dry accounting method but a tool to sharpen the business and the way it can make a positive difference to the lives and communities of the people it supports. The team at FRC is using social reporting with a commitment, confidence and expertise that is an example to all on how this should be done.”

The real goal for FRC Group is creating social impacts through these activities. How are we doing so far?

A quick update

What has happened in the first quarter of 2010/11This report reflects on the financial year that ended in March 2010 but it is published in the early autumn so here is a quick update on what has happened in the first quarter of the year when the report was written.

77

Being great for unemployed people

Being great for living in poverty

• 28 people are currently in salaried training positions across FRC Group.

• We are on target to train 53 people over the course of 2010/11.

• Our first big success story with North Liverpool Community Justice Centre – a trainee who first came to us on a work placement through a NLCJC referral has found a permanent job at the end of his training programme.

• 9 people have started training in upholstery at the Bulky Bob’s Workshop in Liverpool Prison.

• The review of work placement programmes has started and will report to the Board later this year with recommendations about how we progress.

• Revive has instigated the creation of a new pitch for a Big Issue Vendor in the London Road area of Liverpool and is offering support to the vendors on that pitch.

• 759 people in Liverpool and Oldham have bought great quality ‘pre-loved’ furniture.

• 49 people in Liverpool have used a crisis voucher to receive essential furniture items at no cost.

• Advice partners have begun delivering drop-in money and employment advice to Revive customers.

• HMP Liverpool workshops have started to turn out items for Revive of improved quality.

“The team at FRC is using social reporting with a commitment, confidence and expertise that is an example to all on how this should be done.”

Tim West, Society Media


Auditor’s assurance statement

79Auditor’s assurance statement

FRC Group1 commissioned justassurance2 to undertake independent assurance of its 2009/10 Social Report (‘the Report’). justassurance was paid £5,000 for this work. justassurance has no other relationships with FRC Group that might compromise its independence.

The assurance process was conducted in accordance with AA1000AS (2008). We were engaged to provide Type 2 moderate3 assurance, covering:

• Evaluation of adherence to the AA1000APS (2008) principles of inclusivity, materiality and responsiveness (the Principles).

• The reliability of key performance claims.

• We used the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Quality of Information Principles as Criteria for evaluating performance information.

The directors of FRC Group have sole responsibility for the preparation of the Report. Our statement represents our independent opinion and is intended to inform all FRC Group’s stakeholders including management. We adopt a balanced approach towards all FRC Group stakeholders.

We were not involved in the preparation of any part of the Report. We have no other contract with FRC Group and this is the seventh year that we have provided assurance.

The work was performed by Adrian Henriques4.

1‘FRC Group’ here refers to Furniture Resources Ltd.

2‘justassurance’ here refers to Just Assurance Network Ltd, trading as justassurance. Two Tomorrows Group Limited

provides assurance services to justassurance. Two Tomorrows is a licensed AA1000AS assurance provider and oversees

justassurance’s assurance work using AA1000AS (2008).

3There are two levels of assurance: High - where sufficient evidence has been obtained to support a statement that the

risk of our conclusion being in error is ‘very low but not zero’; Moderate - where sufficient evidence has been obtained

to support a statement that the risk of our conclusion being in error is reduced, but not reduced to ‘very low’.

4Further information about competencies can be found at www.twotomorrows.com

Scope and objectives

Responsibilities of the directors of FRC Group and of justassurance

80 Auditor’s assurance statement

Our work was designed to gather evidence with the objective of providing assurance as defined in AA1000AS (2008).

To prepare this statement, we reviewed the scope of the Social Accounts, visited the Atlantic Way and London Road sites in Liverpool, assessed areas of risk, interviewed managers, staff and trainees and scrutinised underlying data and documents, considered the efficacy of the management systems and reviewed the consistency of the Social Accounts with supporting information. We provided some feedback to FRC Group on aspects of drafts of the Report and where necessary, changes were made.

We are satisfied that we have been allowed unhindered access to the financial accounts, documentation and reports covering FRC Group’s activities and stakeholder engagements and to its managers and staff.

On the basis of the work we have done, we believe this report adequately represents FRC Group’s stakeholder relationships, impacts on its stakeholders and its responses to their concerns, in the areas which it covers.

However the scope of the Report is significantly reduced from that of previous years’ reports. FRC Group only wishes to claim credit for beneficial impacts where these are wholly attributable to FRC Group and would not have happened without FRC Group being involved. This has meant in particular that FRC Group’s furniture supply operation has received only minimal attention in the Report.

Nevertheless the actual performance of FRC Group in relation to most of its areas of impact not covered in detail, including health and safety and the environment, remains very good. In addition the performance claims reported appear to be reliable.

To its credit, FRC Group has made very clear in the Report the reasoning which has led to this change. Some of the implications of this change are discussed in the following observations.

Without affecting our assurance opinion we also provide the following observations:

One:*Inclusivity* concerns the participa-tion of stakeholders in developing and achieving an accountable and strategic response to sustainability

In the reporting year, FRC Group conducted less stakeholder engagement than in previous years. No staff survey or survey of Revive customers took place. However engagement continued in relation to trainees and ex-trainees, who can be hard to reach. The plans for future engagement should redress this in future years.

Basis of our opinion

Findings and opinion Observations

81

Two:Material issues are those which are necessary for stakeholders to make informed judgments concerning FRC group and its impacts

The Report carefully analyses and squarely addresses two key areas in which FRC Group has a positive impact that is directly aligned with its mission: training for the disadvantaged and addressing the needs of the poor through the supply of furniture to those in need.

Limited coverage is provided for environmental, health & safety, staff issues and furniture supply activities. Nevertheless, in these areas FRC Group has very largely maintained the policies, systems and excellent actual performance that have been reported in previous years.

In the future FRC Group’s supply chain could pose environmental, social or ethical risks; these should be addressed through appropriate policies.

Three:Responsiveness concerns the extent to which an organisation responds to stakeholder issues

The revised scope of the Report leads to the expectation that the indicators and reporting for the main focus need to be further developed. For example the role of the many facets of disadvantage including diversity, some of which are collected, are not currently included in the reporting of trainee activities. Plans for the extension of SROI evaluations will also help in this connection. In addition, benchmarks for performance would assist with the contextualisation of performance.

Targets for key areas of performance have been stated. Given the current economic climate, these do not anticipate a significant improvement in performance.

In future years, the reporting of stakeholder issues outside the core focus should be considered, even if this is not provided to the same extent as it has been in previous years.

Just Assurance Network Ltd London, July 22nd 2010

Adrian Henriques,

Auditor,

justassurance, London;

August 2010

82 Auditor’s assurance statement


Appendices

84 Appendices

Our stakeholders and we consulted with them in 2009/10

Crea

ting

soci

al im

pact

Gre

at fo

r peo

ple

Number of respondents to formal consultation

51

11

10

5

0

0

0

Total number

51 (on training programmes through the year)

26 trainees left between March 2009 and March 2010

34 trainees left between August 2008 and August 2009

17 trainees completed the programme between February 2007 and February 2008

69

c. 3,000 customers based on the number of sales made

Exact number of customers and recipients of free of charge furniture is not known as records kept were of numbers of ‘pre-loved’ furniture items

Trainees:

unemployed people

Ex-trainees:

people who have been on the training programmes in the past

Work placement participants:

young people, ex-offenders, homeless people, people with a history of substance abuse, people with disabilities

Revive customers

receiving discounts:

people in receipt of benefits, pensioners, students, people referred from other support agencies

Referrals:

people referred to Revive Liverpool and Bulky Bob’s Oldham for free of charge furniture in crisis situations

Appendix 1: Stakeholder engagement

85

Plans for engagement in 2010/11

Regular reviews, exit interviews, focus groups as part of social return on investment research

Follow up surveys will be carried out by post and telephone

Plans for feedback will be developed within strategy for the future of work placement opportunities

A formal customer survey will be carried out

A formal customer survey will be carried out in Revive, a simple feedback form will be developed for recipients to complete A focus group will be held with referral agencies as part of the social return on investment research

How

All have regular reviews (approximately every 6-8 weeks) and leavers have leaving / exit interviews

Took part in a survey by telephone or post

Took part in a survey by telephone or post

Took part in a telephone survey

No formal feedback was collected


No formal feedback was collected from the recipients Feedback was gathered from agencies in Liverpool making referrals for crisis furniture

86 AppendicesH

ow w

e do

bus

ines

sH

ow w

e do

bus

ines

s

A g

reat

pla

ce to

wor

kG

reat

for t

he p

lane

t


0

0

66

1

6

Total number

Unknown

c.6.7 billion current world population

66

1

6

People living locally to where FRC

Group operations are working:

general public affected by local environmental impact from our vehicles and building and our operations and from our reuse and recycling activities

The global community

and future generations:

we are all affected by the global environmental impacts of our business

Staff:

permanent employees of FRC Group

Volunteers:

people working in FRC Group on a long-term voluntary basis

Trustees:

our Board members who provide governance as volunteers

87


No engagement planned

No engagement planned

A formal staff survey will be carried out All staff will have a “Look Both Ways” appraisal

The volunteer will be included in the planned staff survey

How

No feedback was collected


Feedback gathered through staff performance appraisal “Look Both Ways” which all staff completed

Informal feedback collected

Informal feedback collected throughout the year

88 AppendicesH

ow w

e do

bus

ines

s

Gre

at to

do

busi

ness

wit

h


On ten occasions feedback was formally requested from large customers. On each of these ten occasions between 10 and 16 large customers took part.

3 132

0

0

0

Total number

Confidential

3 local authorities Over 65,000 householders received collections

c. 3,000 customers based on the number of sales made

Exact number of customers and recipients of free of charge furniture is not known as records kept were of numbers of ‘pre-loved’ furniture items

Total number of suppliers not collated

Furniture Resource Centre

customers:

the social housing providers who buy furniture and related items from us and the tenants who receive and use the furniture

Bulky Bob’s customers:

the local authorities that contract with us to provide collection, reuse and recycling services for furniture and white goods, and the householders who receive the collection service

Revive customers:

all the people who shop in Revive

Bulky Bob’s Oldham

furniture customers:

all the people who buy ‘pre-loved’ furniture from Bulky Bob’s

Our suppliers:

the companies who supply us with goods and services

89


Regular telephone surveys will be held throughout the year with large customers

Regular contract meetings Telephone surveys will be completed throughout the year

A formal customer survey will be carried out

Feedback will be requested from customers through a survey

No formal feedback planned

How

Telephone surveys

Regular contract meetings Telephone customer satisfaction survey



Informal feedback is gathered in one-to-one meetings with key suppliers

90 Appendices

FRC Group started publicly reporting on its social business activities in 1998 by producing separate social and environmental reports. Since 2005, these reports have been combined documents addressing the social, environmental and business performance of all parts of FRC Group. These ‘Sustainability Reports’ and latterly ‘Impact Reports’ gave a comprehensive overview of how FRC Group performed in delivering social impact and whether we managed to be “Great for the Planet” a “Great Place to Work” and “Great to do Business with” at the same time.

The period covered by this report – April 2009 until March 2010 – was a time of reflection and consolidation at FRC Group. The focus of the organisation was on social impact creation, getting back to the core purpose that FRC Group was set up to serve, and this is reflected in the scope and focus of this year’s report.

Since 2008, FRC Group has been working in a variety of ways to renew its focus on the impacts it creates: “Leading with Impact” – a programme of staff consultation began in 2008 and resulting from that work a number of new initiatives were developed to increase the social and environmental impacts delivered throughout FRC Group; and in 2009 changes were made to the staff structure to focus

on impacts. This year the focus on impact reached a watershed.

Developed over many years, FRC Group has a broad understanding of the ways in which FRC Group impacts – socially, environmentally and economically – on the wide range of stakeholders across Furniture Resource Centre, Bulky Bob’s and Revive.

Over the course of 2009/10 we have reviewed our approach to ensure that the most important impacts FRC Group creates – both in terms of importance to our mission statement and to the stakeholders with the largest ‘stakes’ in the organisation – are well understood. We have brought our understanding of the relationship between our stakeholders, our impacts and our activities into alignment with the current reality of FRC Group’s businesses.

The dynamics of impact creation for both Furniture Resource Centre and Bulky Bob’s have changed in recent years. In the past FRC Group played the role of catalyst and influencer in persuading our customers to do something different with their money in order to create a social benefit. For Furniture Resource Centre this was through lobbying housing associations and local authorities to establish furnished tenancies that would enable vulnerable tenants to put down roots and build a

home for themselves. For Bulky Bob’s this was by working with local authorities to demonstrate that the bulky household waste management service could reuse and recycle in excess of 50% of the waste that is collected and create a social benefit by promoting furniture reuse.

Today’s reality for both of these businesses is that the context they operate in has changed. For FRC Group that means that the concept of our impacts has changed accordingly:

Furniture Resource Centre created a market to provide furniture for furnished tenancies but its role is now part of the supply chain for social housing providers. The need to lobby and influence no longer exists – housing associations have either established furnished tenancies or have decided not to. Furniture Resource Centre (along with a number of private sector competitors) now supplies products and services to social housing provider customers in the same way that they also buy services such as maintenance, cleaning, construction etc. The social impact created by Furniture Resource Centre today is in creating training opportunities for unemployed people rather than in creating furnished homes for vulnerable people – that positive impact is created by the social landlord choosing to offer furnished tenancies.

Scope, materiality and relevance

Appendix 2: Why a social impact report?

91

Bulky Bob’s Liverpool is now in its tenth year and is still making year on year improvements to the proportion of waste that it can reuse and recycle. The drivers for this have changed since 2000 and in the new contract Bulky Bob’s won with Liverpool City Council in 2009, the contract demands for reuse and recycling are high with additional financial rewards in place for achieving even higher rates. This alters the way Bulky Bob’s can ‘claim’ to create positive environmental benefit. In previous years when Bulky Bob’s was delivered approximately twice the level of reuse and recycling as the contract required, this additional environmental benefit was being created as a result of Bulky Bob’s actions. Now, the environmental benefit is created as a result of the contractual commitments.

As a result of the reviews that have been undertaken, FRC Group now has clarity about the balance between the interests of different stakeholders and the priorities of delivering different types of impacts. FRC Group needs this as it moves into a new chapter, characterised by two key developments: the appointment of Shaun Doran as Chief Executive and the establishment of a partnership with venture philanthropists Impetus Trust.

Shaun Doran has been part of FRC Group’s Leadership Team for 10 years.

Since 2004, FRC Group has been led by a small team of executive Directors, in which Shaun was Commercial Director. In the summer of 2009 a decision was taken by FRC Group’s Board of Trustees that the executive team structure should be altered and the posts of Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive were created.

Impetus Trust is the pioneer of venture philanthropy in the UK. Impetus selects ambitious charities and social enterprises and works with them to transform their impact. They use a highly effective model of investment - based on the venture philanthropy model - to substantially increase the impact of the organisations they work with.

Impetus’s venture philanthropy package consists of funding, hands-on management support and in-depth specialist expertise. Impetus’ partnership with FRC Group began in November 2009 as an initial 14 months with a view to making a longer-term investment at the end of the planning process. The objective of the partnership is to support the development of FRC and Bulky Bob’s models to enable substantial growth in social impact.

Over the past three years, FRC Group has been moving towards this new level of clarity about the nature of the impacts that it creates. The development of a medium-term business plan that repositioned Furniture Resource Centre in the market and clarified the development plan for Bulky Bob’s was developed in 2008; “Leading with Impact” began in 2008 to review FRC Group’s impact agenda; FRC Group was restructured in November 2008 to create a structure to deliver the commercial and impact ambitions of the organisation; management information within FRC Group was reviewed to clarify which pieces of information relate to activity and which relate to the impact that is created as a result of activity; and Impetus Trust were secured as an investor interested in creating a social dividend.

So what?

92 Appendices

The result is a clear policy on the balance between creating social and environmental impact, understanding of the difference between FRC Group’s core purpose and its aims related to how it intends to act and the difference between when FRC Group plays a central role in creating social impact and when it is playing a small role in the impact that is created by other partners.

The main features of FRC Group’s position are as follows: One: Double bottom line

FRC Group works to create returns on two bottom-lines – commercial and social. Derived directly from the mission statement, balancing commercial dividend and social dividend is the primary task for FRC Group. In the past we had described ourselves as a ‘triple-bottom line’ company. This is not an accurate description of how we work today and perhaps being a ‘triple-bottom line’ company is a symptom of how in the past we suffered from mission creep by not having such a clear understanding of what impacts FRC Group created and what was our main purpose.

Defining and understanding impact

Two:Social impact

Social impacts are created by FRC Group in the following ways:

• Giving low-income shoppers access to good quality furniture through Bulky Bob’s and Revive

• Providing salaried training opportunities in roles throughout FRC Group’s businesses for unemployed people

• Giving opportunities to people to develop skills and experience that improve their position in the job market, help them to access training or help them to reach

FRC Group:

Training programmes with unemployed people

Work placements for people who are far from the mainstream labour market

Giving access to good quality furniture to low-income shoppers through Bulky Bob’s

Other partners:

Furniture Resource Centre customers providing their tenants with furnished accommodation

Three:Reducing negative environmental impact

Reducing negative environmental impact:

Being Great for the Planet is an expression of how FRC Group works. Reducing negative environmental impacts is a not part of the core purpose of the organisation, rather it is a commitment about how it carries out activities which create commercial and social impact. This is not a change of policy for FRC Group but a change of description.

An example of this is the understanding of the positive environmental impacts created when Bulky Bob’s Liverpool diverts waste from landfill by reusing and recycling it. Bulky Bob’s is carrying out an activity under the terms of a contract with Liverpool City Council which demands that a minimum proportion of waste is diverted from landfill each month and rewards Bulky Bob’s financially for creating a higher rate of diversion. FRC Group considers that the reduce negative environmental impact from the reuse and recycling comes from the contract specification designed by Liverpool City Council so would not claim that FRC Group is creating additional benefit by reusing and recycling the waste but rather that it is achieving its commercial targets.

93

Being a great place to work:

Staff retention

Diversity

Values culture

Staff satisfaction

Personal/professional development

Being great to do business with:

Customer satisfaction: Revive customers, Furniture Resource Centre customers and their tenants

Bulky Bob’s local authority customers and householders

FRC Group:

Reducing carbon emissions from FRC Group activities

Reducing FRC Group’s waste

Other partners:

Reducing waste sent to landfill through Bulky Bob’s contracts

Four:Business activities rather than impacts

Being a Great Place to Work is part of how FRC Group operates rather than its main purpose. Being a good employer and creating a productive work environment which develops people’s skills is very important to FRC Group. It does not, however, link directly to the social impact that FRC Group seeks to create. In simple terms, FRC Group would not be achieving its aim to improve the lives of people in poverty and unemployment just by being a good employer. This is an area that has created confusion in the past because of the close relationship between FRC Group’s role in employing permanent staff and the social impact that is created by employing unemployed people on fixed term training contracts.

Being Great to do Business With is essential for the Group to meet its commercial objectives and is part of FRC Group’s ethos. This is another expression of how the organisation acts rather than relating to its main purpose.

94 Appendices

This report shows a marked change in contrast with the recent reports that FRC Group has published. In keeping with the refined perspective on impact creation, this report is more focused and more detailed than its predecessors. FRC Group has clarified that its primary purpose is to create social impact and that there are two main ways in which it does that:

One. Creating training opportunities for unemployed people that prepare them to be successful in the labour market or to access additional employment readiness training.

Two. Making furniture available to people who can not afford to buy new furniture that they need to create a home.

Our Social Impact Report devotes itself to exploring our performance in these areas in 2009/10. These activities are central to FRC Group delivering on its core purpose and are deserving of close and detailed examination. In the 2008/09 report only 11 pages of the 67 page report were devoted to covering these two topics. This scope of this Social Impact Report creates a space to explore these two main areas of social impact in greater detail.

The definition of scope of this report creates a clear line of distinction between impact and activity and between what is

of principal relevance to FRC Group’s mission statement and what is less relevant. This means that some areas of FRC Group which have featured in our previous Impact Reports and Sustainability Reports are not included in this document. With limited resources it is inevitable that a sharper focus and more detail in one area will mean that other areas do not receive attention. That is not to say that during the year FRC Group has not been interested in its carbon emissions, health and safety record, customer satisfaction and staff engagement. These are all important areas and performance is managed on a regular basis using a set of key performance indicators and reports. This information is routinely given to those stakeholders most acutely affected by it – for example regular contract reports to Bulky Bob’s customers report on FRC Group’s performance in delivering the core Bulky Bob’s service as well as issues such as health and safety, staff retention etc. To maintain our track record for making information publicly available, we will be working towards making use of the new FRC Group website (www.frcgroup.co.uk) to find ways to best communicate this information.

The scope of this report

95

Appendix 3: Performance of individual training programmes

Success by programme 2009/10

Liverpool Driving Change

12

9

3

58%

17%

25%

67%

22%

11%

Oldham Driving Change

7

6

1

57%

14%

29%

67%

17%

17%

Liverpool Warehouse

3

3

0

67%

33%

0%

67%

33%

0%

Liverpool Admin

2

2

0

100%

0%

0%

100%

0%

0%

Liverpool Retail

2

2

0

0%

100%

0%

0%

100%

0%

Leavers

Completers (trainees who completed the programme)

Early leavers

Outcomes - All leavers

% into jobs of all leavers in period

% of leavers in period who did not get job

% of leavers whose outcome is unknown

Outcomes - Completers

% of completers into jobs / FE

% of completers who did not get jobs / FE

% of completers whose outcome is unknown

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frc_socialimpact

Documents

way frc group

social business

social impacts

social change

key areas of social

sam adams of frc groups

following people

hard work