Our Annual General Meeting - Have your say

The provision of services by the external auditor and the potential costs and benefits of entering a tender process are considered at least annually by the Audit Sub-Committee. This consideration takes into account the effectiveness of the current audit process and an assessment of the auditor’s independence and objectivity.

During 2021 the Audit Sub-Committee decided that due to a forthcoming audit partner rotation, this was an appropriate time to carry out a tender process.  The audit had previously been put out to tender in 2015 when KPMG were appointed. There is a legal requirement to undergo a tender process within 10 years of an auditor's appointment, in this case before the 2025 year end. In addition we are legally required to change the audit firm at least every 20 years.

We went through a rigorous audit tender process which included six firms in total.  Of these firms three were mid-tier firms.  Through the process one mid-tier firm was excluded and another withdrew from the process.  A mid-tier firm did remain under consideration until the latter stage of the process in 2022, however it was decided that Deloitte LLP were best placed to provide members of the Society with the required level of audit assurance.

In a future tender process, we would also seek to invite suitably experienced firms to tender from both within the “Big 4” and from outside this group. Our selection of a future audit firm will be driven by our assessment of the factors noted above regarding auditor effectiveness, independence and objectivity, together with our assessment of whether the firms concerned have sufficient insurance technical capability to audit a Group such as ours.

We're here to help our customers through the difficult times as well as the good. Our online support pages were created to help our customers through bereavement, to manage their finances and find out more about how we can support with disability or illness.

2022 has been a very difficult year for many, due to the cost of living crisis and inflation being at a more than 40-year high. We recognise the impact this will be having on many of our customers, and we want to be there for them. Customers experiencing financial worries, perhaps because of price increases, loss of income or unemployment, can get in touch with our customer service team to find out what support is available. This could include a payment holiday on their policy or quicker access to their funds.

Our Young Person’s Education Grants are available to help with the costs associated with further education. These expenses can be a barrier for many, and the cost of living crisis will be impacting families further. Customers can apply for up to £250 to support someone aged 15-19 with a laptop, travel costs, equipment and much more. In 2022 we awarded over £52K to 210 young people, helping them to invest in a better future.

Our Over 50s Life Cover policy gives customers access to a range of support services, at no extra cost. This includes guidance following a bereavement, emotional support to help deal with a terminal illness and practical information if a customer or their family member needs specialist care.

We use our voice to speak up on issues that are affecting our customers. So, we led on an industry-wide solution to the difficulties faced by the families of teenagers with mental incapacity in accessing their child trust funds (CTF). Many of these young people have degenerative conditions and the money that is held in their CTFs could purchase an important piece of life-improving equipment or be used to create happy family memories. We’ve enabled over 700 families to access their money through the industry’s Fair Access Protocol since September 2020.

In recent years we saw the uncertainty caused by global events such as the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lead to sudden drops in markets globally. Whilst there were maybe falls in the value of our equity funds as a result of future global events, there may also be subsequent periods of recovery.

OneFamily does not provide financial advice. However, options available to members who invest with OneFamily can be found on our website under the relevant ISA products (Junior ISA / Stocks and Shares ISA/ Lifetime ISA).

Through clear and defined strategies, we’re working towards providing responsible investment opportunities, while supporting businesses striving to be better for the environment - benefiting both our members and the environment.

We launched our new climate-friendly investment funds in 2020, which enable us to invest in shares in companies that have set an agenda to help tackle climate change.

During 2021 we launched our new ISA and lifetime ISA products that enable us to use these same climate friendly investment funds to provide further options for our customers to invest with us more sustainably.

The way we invest our ISA Funds is based on aligning with the United Nations Paris Accord limiting temperature change to 2ºC above pre-industrial levels.

To qualify as deserving to sit within our Climate Change fund, each organisation is ranked on 5 different factors: green revenues, adaptation score, carbon intensity, fossil fuel reserves and brown revenues. Learn more about our climate-friendly investment options.

In 2021 we reviewed our portfolio of £200m fixed income assets that back our non-profits liabilities, restructuring it to be more ESG focused. We will continue to review our remaining investments so that they are also more ESG focused.

We are committed to continually improving our operations and regularly review our practices. We have implemented the following in our offices:

• Recycling initiatives: centralised collection points on all floors to encourage and enable efficient recycling.
• Motion sensor LED lighting installed in the Brighton office to reduce electricity consumption.
• A ‘no waste goes to landfill’ policy – currently operating in the Brighton office with a view to roll out across all sites if possible.
• In our Brighton office, we have removed all paper towels from the washrooms and replaced them with energy efficient hand dryers.
• We have removed our under-desk bins to encourage more centralised recycling across our Brighton & Swindon sites.
• Our policy across all sites is to purchase products made from recycled materials wherever possible.
• Continue to replace aging office equipment with energy-efficient products e.g., photocopiers/printers, laptops, and monitors.
• We are replacing our existing boiler and chiller system, with a more modern energy-efficient system; this will be complete in Q2 2023.
• Continue with video conferencing and online meetings thereby reducing emissions relating to travel (as opposed to F2F meetings).
• Purchasing of carbon offset fuels for our Generator diesel tank and participation in carbon offsetting to compensate from the emissions released from our generator tank fuel in the Brighton office.
• Compliance with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme, where we assess our energy use and identify efficiencies and with Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting, where we measure our carbon footprint and look at ways to reduce / offset this.

Our commitment to minimising our environmental impact also extends to the employee benefits we offer to colleagues:

• We continue to encourage our employees to use public transport wherever possible by providing ‘easit’ travel discounts (for the Brighton & Hove area) that provide discounts on public transport (buses & trains).  We offer a cycle to work scheme, season ticket loans and an electric car salary sacrifice scheme.
• Employee Pension – we moved to a Worksave Pension Plan to set the default investment fund to the Legal & General Future World Multi-Asset Fund, which has a sustainable focus on ESG at the heart of the investment approach

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) programme continued to grow in 2022, following its successful launch in 2020. We’re focused on creating the right environment for our colleagues to feel like they truly belong.

• Our ED&I advocate group facilitated the support of key events in the ED&I annual calendar including Time to Talk day, Mental Health Awareness week, Pride month and Black History month
• We ran a session on the effects of the menopause and will continue this work in 2023, working with external specialists to help managers support those who are impacted by menopause symptoms
• An internal data capture tool was created to understand more about our colleagues and help shape our future activities
• We signed up as part of the 10,000 Black interns programme, with two internships taking place during the summer. We received great feedback from the interns on how colleagues were always ready to offer advice and support. Lessons were also learned, which will be utilised for the 2023 cohort
• We continued our relationships with Stonewall, Race at Work Charter, Women in Finance and the Disability Confident Scheme. We also signed up to Diverse Sussex and the AFM’s Mutual Diversity Alliance

ED&I Awards

We were highly commended in the 2022 UK and Europe annual awards run by InsuranceERM.com for our contribution to Diversity & Inclusion excellence. This was a fantastic achievement following the launch of a more strategic focus on ED&I, which included:

• Appointing an executive sponsor for each pillar of ED&I - gender, multigenerational, LGBTQ+, race, social mobility and disability

• A mentor programme for female talent to support internal promotion into senior roles, as a continuation of our involvement in the Women in Finance Charter

We were also Financial Times - Diversity in Finance Award winners in the Championing Social Mobility category. The awards aim to showcase the best initiatives, campaigns and success stories over the past 12 months when it comes to diversity and inclusion in the financial services sector.

Our focus on gender equality in the workplace forms part of our broader Diversity & Inclusion strategy to increase awareness and best practice, promoting equality for all.

Our 2022 gender pay gap report can be found here.

This is a Government initiative which encourages organisations to promote the right practices and culture in the workplace. The report illustrates the difference between the average and median pay of all men and women in a workforce expressed as a percentage of men’s pay. The gender pay gap reflects that OneFamily, like most financial services organisations, currently has more men in senior leadership roles. The financial services sector has a larger gender pay gap than many industries.

OneFamily’s 2022 gender pay gap has increased to 18.8%, from 14.6% last year, which highlights how fragile the balance is in an organisation of our size; and reinforces the need to continue being proactive in supporting and developing our female population. The national median average in 2022 was 14.9% (ONS, 2022), which we recognise is now lower than our median, and we are continuing to look at initiatives to support the development of our female population and ensuring that all colleagues continue to be paid fairly and proportionately.

At the end of 2022 our Board comprised 1/3^rd female and 2/3^rd male directors. At the senior management level, we have 34% females and 66% males.

As an organisation we remain committed to addressing and reducing the gender pay gap over time and we know there is more we can do as an organisation. We will continue to support diversity through:

• Aligning our Diversity & Inclusion strategy with our business strategy;
• Driving accountability through our senior executive team;
• Monitoring our recruitment strategy and practices to ensure balanced shortlists;
• Improving our family friendly policies and develop new policies and support in areas such as menopause;
• Understanding the challenges that prevent females from progressing to senior roles;
• Enhancing development initiatives and opportunities to support progression; and pay equality.

We’ve created long-term partnerships with charities that share our goals to support access to education, enhance financial wellbeing and improve life chances for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Through these partnerships, we’re able to provide funding to each charity as well as hands-on support through employee volunteering and mentoring. The partnerships allow us to develop meaningful relationships with each charity, rather than just providing a one-off donation.

In 2022 we launched our national charity partnership with RedSTART, a charity that shares our belief that access to financial education and support is key to financial wellbeing and a fundamental right for everyone. RedSTART was selected via a customer vote in June 2022. We’re supporting the charity with funding, and we’ll be providing employee volunteers for their new Change The Game programme, which aims to find out how learning about money in primary school can help people later on in life.

We also support IntoUniversity, a charity that runs an innovative programme to support young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods with further and higher education, employment and work-based training. They currently have 39 centres and extension projects across England and Scotland, supporting over 46,500 young people each year to reach their full potential.

We’re working with IntoUniversity to provide funding and support their mentoring scheme, which matches students who attend their Brighton learning centre - and who are applying to university - with a mentor to guide them through the application process and help them to prepare for university life.

Our 3 local charity partners in Brighton were selected via an employee vote in 2021, and we’re continuing to support each charity financially and through employee volunteering.

The 3 local charity partners are:

• Spear Brighton Trust – a charity that inspires and supports unemployed young people to overcome disadvantage, helping them with the attitude, confidence and qualifications to succeed in work.
• Team Domenica – a social enterprise charity whose mission is to help people with learning disabilities discover their career potential, to create employment opportunities and remove barriers to work.
• The Clock Tower Sanctuary – a charity that works with young homeless people (aged 16-25), providing a space where they can feel safe and 'just be', whilst also getting access to services and support.

OneFamily employees are encouraged to spend time working with our charity partners and other causes in their own local communities with three days of volunteering leave each year, as well as opportunities to fundraise and take on long-term volunteering roles.

You can find out more about our charity partners at https://www.onefamily.com/our-story/charity-partnerships/

A thorough and robust appointment process, led by our Senior Independent Director Graham Lindsay, was undertaken by a sub-set of the board’s Nomination Committee in 2021 in advance of the previous Chair’s planned resignation from the Board in June 2022.  Having also sought an independent external perspective, it was recommended that there was no need to seek an external candidate.