Community support

Supporting our local communities is an intrinsic part of our business, we believe that through community support we can help to strengthen and improve the areas in which we work.

As a direct labour employer we always seek to provide opportunities and employment for local people and recognise the benefits a diverse local workforce can bring. We work in conjunction with our existing partners, CITB, Connexions, local schools, colleges, local community groups and regularly attend local job / careers fairs to discuss training and employment opportunities with people seeking work in our areas.

Providing apprenticeships for young people is also a key strategy for Milnerbuild, we currently employ one apprentice/trainee to every six full-time employees (11% of our total workforce). Through our apprenticeship programme we can develop the next generation of employees with the right skills to support the business, we aim to not just act as a stepping stone but to provide genuine long term career opportunities for young people to work within the communities we serve.

We are also keen to support initiatives which promote local business and supply chains. Through developing effective communication strategies with our clients to promote our business activities and engage potential suppliers, we have been able to maximise the use of the local supply chain and capitalise on spend within the local community. Supplier expenditure is actively monitored as one our performance measures for continuous improvement. During 2010 we increased our supplier expenditure from local areas (by 4%) to 97%.