CSR case study

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Centro

Article 13 criteria for selection:

Engaging in the regeneration and social inclusion agenda in an innovative way to deliver to its business objectives as well as making a difference to the local community.

Business Insights

Turnover: Net operating income (2001/2002) = £18.7 million

Core Service: Centro is the corporate name of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive.

Profile: Centro is responsible for promoting and developing public transport across the West Midlands county and works within the political/financial framework formulated by West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority (PTA)

Business objectives:

Provide public transport that is easy for everybody to use and that encourages people to get access to jobs, training, education and other activities, which improves the well being of the West Midlands.
Deliver high standards of quality which need to be achieved to provide a realistic alternative to the car for many journeys in the West Midlands.
A core, high-quality, integrated public transport network to serve the centres and major development areas - essential for the economic regeneration of the West Midlands.

[Source: 20 Year Public Transport Strategy]

Mission:

“To increase the use of public transport through partnership to improve the economic, environmental and social well-being of the West Midlands”.

Regeneration and social inclusion insights

Many businesses begin engaging in regeneration or social inclusion issues as a response to external pressure, to build a licence to operate or to secure a workforce for the future.

However, as seen in the business objectives above, for Centro the need to address these issues emerged from the targets and strategies set as a response to “customer” pressure, the “customer” effectively being local and national government.

On global, national, regional and local levels, there is growing need to consider the wider impacts of transport and its interconnection with other issues such as access, quality of life, employment, regeneration, social inclusion etc.

This is reflected in the West Midlands Local Transport Plan which stresses that the transport system needs to underpin the economic revitalisation of the West Midlands Metropolitan Area. It should also ensure that transport contributes towards social inclusion by increasing accessibility for everyone.

The 20 year Public Transport Strategy also highlights the importance of access to jobs, training, education and other activities, and how the public transport network is essential for the economic regeneration of the area.

So it is clear that Centro and the PTA have a clear remit to look at the issues of regeneration and social inclusion. But how did they go about it?

One of the ways in which Centro has looked at these issues is through a new piloting initiative called WorkWise.

One of the factors contributing to the exclusion of individuals and communities is lack of access to jobs. Centro recognised that inadequacies in the transport network can exacerbate the problem.

However, contrary to expectation, there was evidence that although there are public transport links available, people sometimes still do not travel. Therefore, there are other barriers that stop people using the services available.

Centro worked in partnership with the Regional Development Agency for the West Midlands (Advantage West Midlands – AWM), to conduct a study to find out what these barriers might be.

Alongside this, Centro developed a Workwise initiative aiming to work with local JobCentres so that transport was not a barrier for local people to access employment.

The initiative involved a range of stakeholders: the local Job Centres in Sparkhill (Birmingham) and Chelmsley Wood (Solihull), the local authorities in Birmingham and Solihull and the local community (including the voluntary sector). Issue-identification and implementation of this initiative was done in a variety of ways: through focus groups, newsletters and questionnaires.

Business benefits

This project addressed a key issue for the local community of getting more people into jobs, and making existing transport networks deliver to the overarching objective of economic regeneration and revitalisation of the region.

But for Centro, the participative process it engaged in with its stakeholders also provided new sources of information to inform its business planning. Therefore it led to recommendations for certain parts of the business, such as ticketing, as well as business development, by improving existing networks and piloting new ones.

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