As an international organisation, Hamworthy is very much aware of its responsibilities to its employees, the communities and the environment in each of the diverse areas in which it operates.

Our people
The Group places considerable value on the involvement of its employees and keeps them informed on matters affecting them as employees and on the various factors affecting the performance of the Group. There is a well developed Group
intranet that regularly disseminates a significant amount of employee related information and is accessible at all our locations for those who do not have personal access. Employee feedback is encouraged on a range of relevant matters. The Group seeks to develop a culture of openness and honesty and, as a matter of principle, to provide an environment which allows individuals to develop to the
best of their abilities.

Equality
The Group’s employment policies include a commitment to equal opportunities regardless of sex, age, race or ethnic origin.

Disabled people
It is the policy of the Group to give full and fair consideration to applications made by disabled persons taking into consideration the respective aptitudes and abilities of the applicants concerned. In the event of a member of staff becoming disabled every effort is made to ensure their continued employment within the Group and to provide specialised training where appropriate.

Training
The Group is committed to employee training and retraining and this year has spent £0.6 million (2008 £0.5 million) in this respect. This is in addition to the cost of on-the-job training which, whilst substantial, is impractical to quantify.

Whistleblowing
The Company operates a whistleblowing policy. This provides the necessary access for, and protection of, employees wishing to bring matters they suspect as being malpractice or impropriety to the attention of the relevant person.

Health and safety
The health and safety of Hamworthy employees is of the highest priority. The Group has strengthened its approach to safety throughout the Group and nominated a senior executive to lead its efforts to improve safety. The Executive
Committee reviews the safety performance of each business every month and has implemented a consistent reporting system both for accidents and for ‘near misses’ where a potentially unsafe situation arose but no accident occurred. Safety performance has now been included as one of the Group’s key performance indicators. All of the Group’s principal business sites have achieved accreditation under OHSAS 18001 health and safety standard.

Suppliers
It is the Group’s policy to agree terms with its suppliers that are appropriate for the markets in which they operate and to abide by such terms where suppliers have also met their obligations. Creditor days as at 31 March 2009 were 46 days
(2008: 49 days). We seek to engage with our major suppliers and attempt to understand and, if appropriate, encourage their approach to environmentally friendly and ethical sourcing of materials. During the year we created a new position of Group Operations Director: a major part of this job will be devoted to improving the Group approach to purchasing, including consideration of responsible sourcing.

Shareholders
The Company meets with institutional shareholders and analysts as appropriate and uses its website to encourage communication with private, existing and prospective shareholders. Hamworthy plc welcomes feedback from investors about its published reports and website. Please address your feedback to our investor relations team by e-mail to investor@hamworthy.com or in writing to Hamworthy plc, Fleets Corner, Poole, Dorset BH17 0JT.

Our environmental impact
We are very conscious of the environmental impact that our activities may have on the communities in which we operate and we constantly strive to minimise the effect of this. It has been the Group’s policy to achieve accreditation under the ISO 14001 environmental standard at all the principal sites and that has been achieved during the year. Many of our products have a direct environmental benefit and they are often designed to ensure that our customers can meet relevant environmental legislation. Examples include advanced waste water systems to protect the world’s oceans and gas handling systems which reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds or enable cost effective transportation of natural gas which is the lowest CO2 contributing fossil fuel.

Our communities
We actively encourage our employees to become involved in the activities of the communities in which they live and work. We made direct charitable donations of £600 during the year (2008: £1,600) comprising the following payments:

Headway Dorset £200
Second Chance £200
Langside School £200

Paul Crompton is a director and trustee of Lewis Manning Trust in Poole. The Company made no political donations during the year.

Our ethics
Hamworthy seeks to be an ethical and responsible part of the business community. We will carry out our business fairly, honestly and transparently. We have established a group wide ethics policy with which all employees are required to comply.