Community

We spent £27.5 million during 2001 making a difference to the communities in which we work.

In 2001, we invested £27.5 million in a programme that supported our staff in their community involvement; boosted job creation, education and enterprise in disadvantaged communities; and delivered financial education to schools throughout the UK.

We believe that our staff are best placed to identify the full range of issues that matter in the communities where they live and work and 15,000 of them have chosen to donate time or money to help in these communities.

With the support of our unique programme that trebles contributions made through payroll giving and awards cash grants to those that volunteer and fundraise, nearly £5 million has been donated to over 5,000 organisations ranging from local playschemes to national medical research charities.

Our programme to support regeneration has focused on a number of key areas: business regeneration in inner cities, support for youngsters through The Prince’s Trust and a number of partnerships.

The Inner City 100 awards, supported by the Royal Bank and NatWest, demonstrated the potential for businesses to regenerate our deprived inner city areas and to change negative perceptions which these areas often create. The awards, presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, brought together 100 companies set up in disadvantaged areas that had created over 3,500 jobs in four years with revenues of over £500 million annually.

Alongside this programme we have been active in promoting investment in deprived areas and lead the field in banking for the not-for-profit sector.

We also helped a number of organisations such as Centrepoint, Community Service Volunteers, Fairbridge and Groundwork that have a track record in working with young people who need help to move into employment or education.

Projects included the development of environmental businesses, bringing excluded pupils back into mainstream education and helping the homeless to move into secure jobs.

The three-year £10 million partnership announced with The Prince’s Trust will enable thousands of young people to start up their own businesses and create a route back into employment or education for thousands more who approach the Trust for help. This partnership will also see our staff mentoring young people along their chosen path and our graduates working alongside the long-term unemployed on community projects.

We make a significant contribution in the field of education every year, both through encouraging youngsters to realise their potential and go on to further education, and in developing financial literacy amongst school-age children.

This year we committed to a three year programme to help students who have not considered higher education achieve their full potential.

Through a series of summer schools, university bursaries and a road show that will target over 2,500 schools, nearly 250,000 school pupils and students will be encouraged to think about further education as an option.

Our relationships are more than just handing over a cheque. By building long-term partnerships with the organisations that we support they are able to undertake radical changes in their programmes and to engage the expertise, energy and enthusiasm of our staff.

We continue to drive the agenda on financial education and exclusion with a £1.7 million package of support for the Money Advice Trust to ensure that high quality debt counselling and money advice is available across the UK.

Our Face2Face education programme in England and Wales, has now operated in over half of all secondary schools, with the help of over 4,000 of our staff and we are the only bank to have its materials for schools kitemarked by the charity set up by the Financial Services Authority to promote financial education.

Environment

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc recognises that concern for the environment and quality of life are important and our environmental policy commits us to ensuring that the strong business growth which we strive for on behalf of our shareholders, customers and staff is not achieved at the expense of the environment, quality of life or social equity.

We recognise that we impact on the environment in two ways, through our own operations and through our customers. A robust environmental management system has been developed to oversee our internal operations with a strong focus on developing strategies to cover our use of energy, transport and waste.

Through our lending decisions we have a major environmental input which is an important and integralpart of the credit assessment and approval process.

The environmental criteria addressed in our credit assessment process include resource depletion, climate change, pollution, waste, effects on human health and loss of species and habitat.

The first Environmental Report for the enlarged Group was published in December 2001 and is available on our website at www.rbs.co.uk/group_info/environment.

Sponsorship

Our most notable sporting sponsorships were the NatWest cricket series and The Royal Bank of Scotland’s involvement as Official Bank to seven golf tournaments on the PGA European Tour. The Group also sponsors the Lombard Trophy, Europe’s largest pro-am golf event, run in conjunction with the PGA.

In the arts, the joint sponsorship by the Royal Bank and NatWest of The Fall Guy at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, marked the theatre’s first production since it was extensively damaged in 1996. The Royal Bank also sponsored the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival, and Coutts entered a three year agreement to sponsor the Welsh National Opera.

We made a major investment in improving facilities for performers and spectators at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival, and The Royal Bank Street Party in Edinburgh on Hogmanay was attended by around 100,000 revellers from all over the world.