The Queen Awards Citybus

Its been a very busy day for our Liz who celebrated her 94th birthday today. After blowing out all her candles she eschewed the usual gun salute and instead celebrated by phoning Richard Stevens and bestowing the Queens Award for Enterprise to Plymouth Citybus.

OK so it probably didnt play out quite like that but…

Plymouth Citybus honoured by Queen for helping people find jobs

Company is given the highest award a business can receive - the Queen's Award for Enterprise. Plymouth Citybus has won the highest honour that can be bestowed on a company after receiving praise for helping disadvantaged people get into a job.

The Milehouse-headquartered firm, which employs 561 people in the city, has received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise. It was honoured in the Promoting Opportunity category for its work assisting the “most vulnerable and disadvantaged” find employment. As the firm put it: “Plymouth Citybus doesn’t just help people get from A to B. It helps people move through life.”

It was also rewarded for its ground-breaking work to help disadvantaged people get to their place of employment and for providing services that would otherwise have been scrapped when subsidies were removed.

Richard Stevens, managing director of Plymouth Citybus and Go South West, said: "We are over the moon to have not only been shortlisted for a Queen’s Award, but go on and win one for social mobility.

“It is a huge honour and really goes to show the amount of pride each and every member of the team takes in providing a valuable service. I am extremely proud that Plymouth Citybus and Go Cornwall Bus (a sister company) again punch above its weight and achieve something that is truly remarkable. We will soon be putting plans in place of how we celebrate this with all.”

Plymouth Citybus' Social Mobility programme, thought to be the only one of its kind run by a bus company in the UK, is designed to give city people from disadvantaged backgrounds an equal chance to do well. Its aim is to help people who feel marginalised by a lack of opportunities - including young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, disabled residents, those from ethnic minorities and women – to find jobs and education. The company works with people in long-term unemployment to guide them through the process of getting into a job through using the firm’s Work Academy in partnership with City College Plymouth and the Department for Work and Pensions. It has helped 50 long-term unemployed people go on to attain jobs at Citybus or with other companies.

The firm also ensures equal opportunities for progression at Citybus, and wants to employ more women drivers, aiming at a figure of 20% of all drivers, and drivers from ethnic minority backgrounds and is a leader in Plymouth on equal opportunities, successfully closing the gender pay gap. The company also partners with PLUSS, a social enterprise which helps disabled people get into work, to deliver training programmes, and with the Ministry of Defence on the Career Transition Partnership to aid military personnel obtain employment on leaving the Armed Forces. Its apprenticeship and training programme is targeted at young people in Plymouth’s most disadvantaged areas.

Citybus also works with schools, including All Saints Academy, and its Go-Inspire initiative, in partnership with Widening Horizons, sees it host children from six schools to give them an experience of how Citybus works and the sort of jobs available. It is the only bus company in the country to work with local government and charities to provide the innovative Access Plymouth scheme. Alongside Plymouth City Council and PLUSS, it helps to get those with disabilities to work and health and social engagements with a door-to-door transportation service.

The firm’s Training Team regularly visits people with disabilities to give them confidence and help them learn how to use the bus, thus giving people freedom they previously hadn’t experienced. Drivers are also trained in dementia and disability awareness. Citybus also offers free travel to jobseekers attending Job Centre appointments and has extended commercially-operated routes to maintain links to hospitals, schools and shopping centres that would otherwise have been lost due to the withdrawal of subsidised services.

Not letting the award go straight to his head the boss was out and about driving buses on the 21 to show support for his troops. Surely it cant be much longer before he gets a knighthood?

All joking aside congratulations to all at the company for this achievement.