Our people

Our principles

At Drax we believe that our people are one of our key assets and all of our practices and policies are designed to maximise the contribution of our human resource to achieve our business objectives. Our core principles are underpinned by commitments to our staff.

We commit to comply with all relevant legislation and regulations, and strive to achieve best practice in the areas of employment practices, for example, through the avoidance of any and all discriminatory practices, recruitment and termination of employment, and staff training and development.

We commit to working constructively with the recognised trades unions representing our staff, to ensure that all parties are engaged and committed to the Company’s objectives, and that we maintain a positive industrial relations climate which mitigates the risk of disruption to the Company’s operations. This includes our commitment to be fair in the settlement of any grievances or disputes.

We commit to using a variety of communication techniques, both one-way and two-way, to ensure that all staff are kept fully informed of developments in the Company’s operations. The communication methods include monthly team briefs to all staff, plant-wide meetings at least six monthly on Company performance and major initiatives, written communications such as leaflets and newsletters, e-mails, 360^o feedback and employee opinion surveys. We undertake to fully consult staff on all changes that have a material impact on their employment.

We commit to operating fair and transparent remuneration policies which ensure that staff are paid an appropriate rate for the work they undertake, and that we compensate appropriately where staff work unsocial hours to support our operations.

We commit to maintain and support a range of share plans which encourage all of our staff to build a personal stake in the ownership of the business. In the case of executive directors and senior staff this includes a commitment to own shares to a significant percentage of their annual salary.

We commit to operate a suitable level of occupational health services on site to promote the well-being of all our staff and to ensure a professional response to any and all emergency situations that occur. We ensure that our first aid response is the best that we can make it by training our staff to the highest level we can.

Our programmes

Over the past 12 months we have introduced or maintained a number of activities to support our human resources principles. We have recruited a new head of human resources and a senior occupational health nurse to strengthen the team supporting these activities.

Through the recruitment of a further six young apprentices in September 2007, we have continued to support our technical apprenticeship programme. The year also saw eight apprentices from our first intake after re-introducing the programme complete their apprenticeships. We were especially pleased to see one of our second year apprentices win the Empower’s Apprentice of the Year Award 2007 in the power generation category.

For the second year running, we have conducted a thorough 360^o appraisal process for the management of the organisation and provided detailed feedback to all participants. Our Company-wide staff appraisal process identified competency gaps which have been addressed through nearly 2,000 separate training and development events.

In addition, training and development of our staff has been taken further through the design of the first stage of a competency-based management development programme to be implemented over the next 18 months to all those with supervisory responsibility for employees or contractors.

Throughout the year, we have met regularly with the officials of the recognised trades unions to address issues of mutual interest and to maintain a positive and constructive industrial relations climate.

A comprehensive pay benchmarking exercise was conducted in the early part of the year in support of our annual pay review process, ensuring that accurate data was available for managers involved in the process.

The use of the Share Incentive Plan was reviewed in the early part of the year and widened to provide the opportunity for employees to purchase Partnership shares which also attracted an award of Matching shares at a ratio of one Matching share for each Partnership share purchased; this was in addition to an award of Free shares. All staff were eligible to participate and the level of take up of the Partnership and Matching elements was significant at 91%; the take up of the Free shares award was 100%. Further details on the Company’s share plans can be found in the Remuneration Committee report.

Drax’s commitment to employee share participation received independent recognition at the ifsProShare Annual Awards ceremony held on 20 November 2007, at which we won the award for the “Most Effective Communication of an Employee Share Plan (for companies with 0 to 1,000 employees)”.

We continue to ensure that all our policies and procedures are reviewed to comply with legislative requirements and to move towards best practice. During 2007, we developed a new service for employees to support the whistle blowing policy introduced in 2006, enabling staff to log concerns confidentially with an external agency. The service was launched plant-wide in January 2008.

We will continue to ensure that we have the right complement of skills and experience to deliver our business objectives. We will focus on deriving mutual benefit from the employer/employee relationship through a range of initiatives, including opinion surveys, appraisals, good lines of communication and above all we will aim to increase transparency in the relationship.

Personal safety statistics

Notes:

1. Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations

Health and safety

Health and safety is at the heart of our corporate responsibility. Protecting our employees, contractors and all visitors from injury and promoting employee well-being is fundamental to our business philosophy. We are committed to developing and maintaining a positive health and safety culture in which statutory requirements are viewed as a minimum standard and leading performance our goal.

Although we have made significant progress in working together with our own staff and contractors on all aspects of health and safety, we were deeply saddened by the death of a civil works contractor following an incident at the power station site at the end of September 2007. The Company has given its full co-operation to the relevant authorities in their investigation of the incident. Although these investigations have not yet concluded, no indication has been given to the Company that it will be prosecuted for any offence arising from the incident.

Attaining leading performance

The lost time injury rate for 2007, was 0.34, compared to 0.08 in 2006, but against an increase of nearly one-third in the total hours worked. Although this represents a deterioration, the safety programmes implemented in the last few years are becoming well entrenched and are delivering sound performance and our safety record compares favourably to that of our sector peers and international benchmarks.

In March 2007, we were delighted to announce that the Company’s Health and Safety Management System was certified to the internationally recognised Occupational Health and Safety standard OHSAS 18001. Drax is amongst the first of the coal-fired power stations in the country to hold the standard, which is approved by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance. In addition to this, the Company was equally delighted to be awarded the RoSPA Gold Award for the third year running.

Processes underpinning performance

The Production Integrity Management Systems programme launched during the year will provide the platform the business needs to deliver continuous improvement of business critical systems which are fundamental to the safe and effective operation of the power station.

“Spotlight on Safety” is our implementation of the internationally proven DuPont™ STOP™ programme. This behavioural safety programme coupled with the recently launched “Safety Kick-Off”, start of shift safety briefings and “Take-2” dynamic point of work risk assessment initiatives give us the framework we need for open engagement between operatives and supervisors to develop the defensive behaviours which are a fundamental component of the robust world-class safety culture we aspire to create.

Communicating the safety message

Our “Weekly Safety Bulletin” briefing process provides a fast track for safety communication to all those working on the site, through which we draw attention to specific safety issues and our performance record, and recognise achievements. In addition, the safety representatives and management team members of the Health and Safety Advisory Committee continue to play a vital role in facilitating staff consultation on health and safety issues.

Our ongoing safety exchange relationships with ScottishPower’s Longannet power station and E.ON’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station continue to provide new ideas and stimulation to drive our health and safety improvement efforts forward.