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In welcoming you all to today's summit here in the Treasury, let me say first of all what a privilege it is to welcome here for the first time His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales.
And in particular, in the year when it celebrates its 30th anniversary let me celebrate the achievement of the Prince’s Trust.
And I know, modest as he is, that the greatest satisfaction the Prince will have is not from the congratulations of us here, but from the many lives that have been changed, the many families whose prospects have been transformed and the many communities that have been renewed as a result of his vision.
And let me also say how pleased I am to see so many people from the private, public and third sectors here today, and let me praise the pioneering role of Julia Cleverden and business in the community.
You are community leaders as well as corporate leaders.
And I want to thank you for the work you do, the service you give, the dedication you show and the difference you make to our communities – reflecting what I believe is a new ethic that is alive and growing in the corporate sector in Britain:
- Managers who want to show that the bottom line for business is not only making good money but doing good as well;
- Company directors who understand that reputation and success depends on the investments made not just in new products but in the communities you serve;
- Employees of companies who want not just to be employees but to contribute to a better society — 88 per cent of British employees believing, according to one recent survey, that it is important that the organisation they work for is committed to its values.
All coming to the modern view that trust and reputation are critical to business success, and that corporate social responsibility is not an add on, a side show or incidental, but integral, mainstream and at the heart of what you do – the smart solution for business today: a recognition that in the modern world, the good economy and the good society go together.
Britain is now leading the world in corporate social responsibility.
And corporate social responsibility starts from the view that if each of us has a talent, each of us has responsibilities we owe to each other, so that the talents of our country are put to use.
Today’s themes are sustainable environment, employability and scalability – and I want to focus on three broad dimensions of corporate social responsibility where companies can make a difference in environment, employment and community life, and how working together we might do more:
- First, investing in local communities;
- Second, partnerships with social enterprise and third sector; and
- Third, encouraging volunteering.
First, investing in communities, and I am pleased to join the Prince today in supporting the Community Mark scheme that will recognise properly for the first time the businesses who are doing most in their communities - helping us to get every company to fly a flag not just saying "investor in people", but "investor in communities".
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And I want to congratulate the best companies who have made a difference.
Last year 300,000 companies supported enterprise education and summer schools, including in my own constituency.
In this year's Enterprise Week, in just a few weeks time, I will launch the new website between government and business in the community to highlight the range and richness of education and business partnerships.
The truth is that much of the best work in communities takes place through third sector organisations and their alliances with you, including social enterprise - a term not widely recognised five years ago.
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Fifty five thousand social enterprises founded for a social purpose, united by a commitment to social innovation and today finding new ways to tackle existing social challenges with - as I have found in my own constituency with our school for social entrepreneurs - a major role to play in environment, jobs and investment.
And next month, our social enterprise action plan will ask how we can spread the message about the difference from business to schools which social enterprise can make.
Finally, just as we are ready to do more to encourage partnerships with social enterprise, so we are ready to consider more to encourage volunteering.
Today, hundreds of thousands of young people are volunteering in community service across Britain.
And I’ve met many of them: they want to change not just their communities, but to change the world.
Talk to anyone in any company and what do they say about the impact of volunteering?
Not just that it is helping to change other people's live, but it is helping to change their lives and their perspectives as well.
And there is something more that volunteering does, that is something bigger than even the individual act of volunteering - the rebuilding, and in some cases the building for the first time, of social networks.
So let me thank companies both large and small, supporting the 2 million employees last year who took up the chance to volunteer and mentor young people.
The best companies have shown the private sector can contribute to this process – removing barriers to volunteering by your employees both on the supply-side, in terms of finding the opportunities available, and freeing resources and time within your organisations.
But today with only one quarter of firms offering volunteering schemes, now is the time to scale up our activities, raise our ambition higher and make even more of a difference.
And there are questions we can ask and answer: how can we encourage what the best do to spread to all, especially to small and medium sized businesses; and do we need to do more for example to measure the social impact of volunteering?
And I would add also that to be a credible persuader, government needs to lead by example, for instance by encouraging volunteering by employees, whether they are based in central government, local authorities, or arms-length bodies.
Indeed, I believe we have a goodwill mountain just waiting to be tapped – as we have found with the new national youth community service – "V" – the first public private partnership of its kind anywhere in the world, matching private sponsorship with up to up to £100 million of public investment to transform quantity, quality and diversity of volunteering opportunities for our young people.
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And I can report in just six months “V” has already:
- Allocated £13 million;
- Supported over 60 groups; and
- Created over 55,000 new volunteering opportunities.
This is on top of the 100,000 Olympic volunteers already signed up.
And – with now more than 35 corporate partners – “V” is on course to attract one million new young volunteers over the next 5 years.
And it is time to take our partnership to the next stage.
So today I issue a challenge to all of us.
A vision for our country to pioneer and be the first to achieve the day when it becomes the norm for:
- Every person to be asked to give some of their income to a charitable cause;
- Every young person to volunteer some time while in education;
- Every employer has a volunteering scheme for their employees; and
- Every retired person considers helping others with their life’s experience and skills.
Supported at each point by an enabling and empowering government that does what it can to make this possible.
The government not of “Whitehall knows best”, but of the volunteer, the community group, the responsible business knowing better, the good society.
So let me conclude as we start today's summit, by saying I am optimistic about our future.
Optimistic because of the number of people here today - and I look forward to studying in detail your conclusions.
Optimistic because of the dynamism and power of what I see as the great forces of change today in British civic society - not just the expanding corporate social responsibility of companies that we see so strongly today, but the growing role of social enterprise and community interest companies.
And the proliferation of local community and environmental action, the innovation and diversity of the third sector as a whole.
And optimistic because I believe more than ever that each of us - individuals, businesses, and government - are ready to take more responsibility together to help ensure Britain’s future prosperity and success.
Thank you
