A decade of building communal bridges: Business in the Community has changed corporate attitudes to philanthropy, Roger Trapp writes

FOR DAVID Sieff, Marks and Spencer's corporate affairs director, charity and community work is 'something you're brought up with'. Companies like his, alongside the chocolate makers Cadbury and Rowntree and others, have made community involvement a central part of their philosophy.

But in the last decade such activity has grown far beyond the confines of the famously philanthropic organisations to embrace all but a handful of the UK's leading companies.

This expansion can be largely attributed to the work of Business in the Community, which was set up in the wake of the inner-city riots of the early Eighties and celebrates its tenth anniversary on Wednesday.

The organisation is not without its detractors. Some companies - notably BTR, whose chairman, Sir Owen Green, says that no special body is required to establish the company's citizenship - remain resolutely outside. Even those participating actively have been critical of BITC's attempts to become involved in too many projects.

But there is now little doubt in the upper reaches of the business community of the worth of the initiative. Even Hanson - a company more noted for its acquisitions than charitable contributions - has played a significant role for several years.

Stephen O'Brien, executive vice-chairman of BITC, said hundreds of companies are working on its schemes. Although the organisation is only a part of many of these companies' community involvement, it is generally acknowledged that it has played a vital role in co-ordinating the efforts of those who were already inclined towards this sort of activity as well as encouraging more to take part.

BITC encourages building relationships between business and local groups, rather than donating cash. At Marks and Spencer, for instance, 20 to 30 staff are at any one time on full-time secondment.

Similar programmes are in force at such leading BITC supporters as Grand Metropolitan and Unilever, where Sir Allen Sheppard, GrandMet's chairman and chief executive, and Mike Heron, Unilever's UK and Ireland director, are keen advocates of the work.

Although David Sieff accepts that there are sensitivities arising from fears that businesspeople, with their ability to make quick decisions, would run roughshod over local groups, it is widely felt that the result has been an effective melding of the strengths of the private and public sectors.

'BITC has been able to play a moderating role. It has helped to break down the confrontation,' Mr Sieff said.

Local enterprise schemes and partnerships between business and education in the inner cities are among the projects to have benefited from the co-operation.

With the collapse of the welfare state, UK businesses are increasingly following their US counterparts and stepping in where the Government once trod.

But the movement is not all about altruism. It is no coincidence that education and training are among the areas most favoured by industrialists. Mr Heron, who chairs BITC's education leadership team, said improved education not only raises the quality of the workforce available to his company and others, but also makes the community more affluent.

He sees no problem with businesspeople becoming school governors and getting involved with the education professions to set academic standards.

Hanson became an early sponsor of the City Technology College concept on the grounds that there was 'a strong argument for increasing competition in education'.

Education is also a field more susceptible than most to the performance measuring that companies are increasingly keen to apply to all areas of their business.

For instance, Howard Chandler, GrandMet's corporate affairs director, said the company could the effectiveness of the GrandMet Trust by looking at simple results. Of the 60,000 people who have gone through the programme over 10 years, 75 per cent have finished their courses and 75 per cent of them have obtained jobs, he said.

Others, such as British Gas, say they are aware of the need to treat community issues in a businesslike manner and assess the effect of community support against certain objectives through market research.

Most admit, however, that they can only obtain a vague idea of how the work affects their standing in the community. But it is clear that the modern company ignores its surroundings at its peril, as GrandMet found when it bid for Pillsbury of the US. One of its first tasks was to convince the local population that it would not abandon the target company's community programmes.

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