We provide market-competitive salaries and a wide range of benefits and we are one of the few UK companies to offer free private medical insurance to the majority of employees of all grades.  Around 1,631 of our UK employees took part in this scheme during 2005 (2004: 1,860).

Our Employee Assistance Programme provides a confidential, no-cost advisory service 24 hours a day and was used by 217 of our employees in 2005 (2004: 284).

We seek to align the interests of employees with those of our shareholders, and reflect this in our remuneration structure.  In 2005, 77 senior managers were allocated options under the group’s Executive Share Option Scheme (2004: 83), 996 employees participated in various savings-related share option schemes (2004: 1,073) and 1,753 UK employees were awarded free shares under the Share Incentive Plan (2004: 1,686).

Our employees own around 1.2 per cent of the issued share capital of the group and the real success of these schemes is highlighted by the fact that over 85 per cent of UK employees held shares in the company at the end of 2005 (2004: 85 per cent).