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Camelot

Serving the nation’s dreams

Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

It has been a uniquely challenging year for all of us at Camelot. We have won a new Licence to operate The National Lottery for a further 10 years from February 2009 and we have started the complex process of transition to the new Licence systems. At the same time we have maintained our business-as-usual operations to maximise returns to Good Causes.

Importantly, we have not lost sight of our approach to corporate responsibility during this demanding time which has included ensuring that our commitments to protecting players were met and a continuing focus on reducing on the environmental impact.

Total National Lottery sales in 2007/08 were up 1.1% at £4,966.3m, helping to ensure returns to Good Causes of £1,454m – an increase of £35m on the previous year. The total amount raised for Good Causes since The National Lottery began now stands at over £21 billion.

Corporate responsibility continues to be at the heart of this success story. It is based on our values and informs our way of working – from the design of our games to the way they are marketed and sold, and to the support we give winners.

The success of The National Lottery has always been based on large numbers of people spending relatively small amounts of money. In 2007/08 around 70% of the UK adult population played our games on a regular basis but with an average weekly spend of just £3.05. We are the fourth biggest lottery in the world in terms of sales, but on per capita spend we are just 54th - underlining the success of our responsible play strategy.

Responsible play remained a top priority this year. We enhanced the safeguards on our interactive channels, continued to produce strong results in our Operation Child scheme for preventing underage play, and worked to set standards in the international lottery industry. Much of this work goes beyond the requirements placed on us by our regulator.

We have continued to ensure that our impact on the environment is reduced, with our energy consumption per employee down by 12% and total CO2 emissions down 36%.

Our achievements have received further external recognition. Our score in Business In The Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index is 96.5%, putting us in the highest category of BITC rankings – Platinum. BITC also re-accredited our Big Tick for Environmental Leadership and our commitment to ensuring that the lottery is promoted in an appropriate manner was recognised when we were named "Highly Commended" in the HBOS Responsible Marketing Award, securing a further Big Tick.

Endorsement of our working practices has come from two major surveys. The Guardian placed us third in its list of Britain’s Top Employers and for the fourth year running we appeared in the prestigious Sunday Times list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For.

The next Licence will bring new challenges. We will be introducing groundbreaking new games and new ways of playing them. We are already in the process of installing a new state-of-the-art communication system across our over 26,200 retailers and the rollout of a new lottery terminal has already begun. These new systems will all be operational by the time the Licence begins in February 2009.

With transition well underway we have now started looking in more detail at business transformation. This is the re-organisation of the business to make sure we can deliver the plans we set out in our successful bid for the third Licence. Our commitment to corporate responsibility and placing stakeholder engagement at the heart of this is of particular importance because we want people to feel creative, motivated and passionate about what they do.

In this report we explain our corporate responsibility process, how we work to foster a responsible culture within Camelot and how we seek the input of our staff and external stakeholders. All those elements feed into how we address our social and environmental impacts – and, most importantly, ensure that our games are played responsibly.

We also outline how we have responded to the challenges we face by reporting on our performance and by setting targets for the year ahead, when the third lottery Licence will begin.

We also publish a shorter review based on this report. It is independently assured by Deloitte & Touche LLP (Deloitte) and contains essential and summarised information about our performance.

As ever, the advice and input of our Advisory Panel for Corporate Responsibility (APCR) has been invaluable and I would like to give my thanks to all its members. The APCR has approved this Review and has for the second year running commented on our corporate responsibility performance. You can read their statement on Statement by the APCR page.

Our aim in this Report is to be both informative and comprehensive, but we are always keen to hear suggestions for how we can improve it further. We would welcome any feedback you may have – you can find details of how to give us your views at the back of the document.

Dianne Thompson CBE
Chief Executive, Camelot Group plc
July 2008

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