National Grid 2015 Annual Report Download - page 7

Careers Lab links
working professionals
with schools to bring
the world of work to
life for secondary
school children.
Seepage 24.
to bring the world of work to life for secondary school
children. Our US initiatives include partnering with
seven local community colleges to deliver energy
utility technology training programmes that are
designed to equip people for jobs in the energy
industry. We are doing a great deal of work in this
area, as you can read on page 24.
All this is business as usual for us – the BITC
recognition is not the result of any special new
initiative we have done to win the award. But it would
not have been possible without the efforts of our
employees. I was delighted to see that the results
ofour 2015 employee opinion survey – a good
measure of how satisfied employees are with their
employer – included an engagement score of 75%
– our highest since westarted conducting Group-
wide employee opinion surveys.
I would like to thank all our people for making a
positive impact, through their work for National Grid,
their volunteering and fundraising achievements,
andby getting involved in activities that really matter
to us and to society.
Priorities for 2015/16
Safety: continue to build on our strong performance
so we can achieve a consistent world-class
safetyperformance;
Customers and stakeholders: improve the service
we provide for our customers and continue to build
trust among our stakeholders;
Performance Excellence: focus on being efficient
inour end-to-end processes so we can continue to
improve our overall performance and efficiency; and
Regulatory filings: prepare and file applications
fornew rate plans in New York, Long Island and
Massachusetts.
Steve Holliday
the robust data we can produce with the new
systems is an essential foundation to the future
performance improvements and regulatory filings
that we need for profitable growth in the US.
It is increasingly recognised in the US that investment
levels in some areas will need to rise compared with
theearlier part of this decade, and we have seen
increased activity this year, making it our highest
everyear of US investment.
In December 2014 the NYPSC approved $200 million
gas infrastructure investment in Long Island to speed
up the replacement of ageing pipe and extend the
use of natural gas to more customers.
The NYPSC also published the results of the
regulatory audit of our New York gas companies.
These audits are a regular feature of the New York
regulatory process. The audit was broadly
supportiveof our performance and structure and,
asis usual, made some helpful recommendations
forfurther improvement. We have responded with
animplementation plan to provide these benefits
onbehalf of New York customers.
As you can read on pages 18 and 19, our customer
satisfaction scores were mixed. We exceeded our
UK electricity and gas transmission targets. However,
we did not meet our US targets and I recognise this
is an area in which we must improve.
Responsible Business of the Year
As Sir Peter has described in his statement,
NationalGrid was named Responsible Business
ofthe Year 2014, which is BITC’s top award. I am
extremely proud of this achievement, which is terrific
recognition of how we are running a responsible
andsustainable business, bringing long-term
benefits to society. Although BITC is a UK body,
theaward was given to the entire Company and
recognises the excellent work we’re doing across
ourentire service area in the UK and US.
For example, in the UK we are completing a test line
for the T-pylon at our training academy. It is smaller
than the existing lattice towers and provides
communities with added choice. Our property
business entered into a new arrangement with the
Berkeley Group to develop a number of our sites in
London and the surrounding area. The first phase of
investments could lead to the development of over
7,000 new homes, including affordable housing,
alongside schools and public spaces.
Our EmployAbility programme provides supported
internship opportunities for students with additional
learning needs. Now into its second year, we have
extended the programme and will continue to do this
across more of our UK sites.
We are helping schools, parents and children
seeengineering as a modern, dynamic, desirable
sector with a great future. Our careers education
programmes in the UK include Careers Lab, an
initiative we developed that has now been taken up
by BITC. It links working professionals with schools
Principal
operations
pages 27–36
Our people
pages 24–25
Strategic Report
NATIONAL GRID ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2014/15 05