During the year we launched our global inclusion charter. The charter explains what employees can expect from the Company, as well as what National Grid expects from employees and builds on work in progress throughout the UK and US.

In addition, an inclusion and diversity transition group has been established to develop the necessary communications, governance and human resource processes to support our efforts. Training has continued to offer greater awareness of inclusive behaviours and we have recently launched a new inclusive leadership learning programme.

Employee network groups led the effort in creating and managing a fortnight of events called mobilising inclusion. These events provided an opportunity for employees to learn about all the ways we are different and how we could become more inclusive. We also had the first winner of the Chairman’s award for inclusion and diversity, recognising all the efforts that employees have put in across the business.

We are fortunate to have vibrant employee networks focusing on gender, ethnicity, faith, disability, sexual orientation, families and new starters. They are helping us to understand better the different communities represented within our workforce and to provide support and information to our employees.

At 31 March 2009, 22.6% of our employees were female and 13.2% were from ethnic minority groups. This compares with 22.5% and 12.3% at 31 March 2008 and 23.7% and 7.3% at 31 March 2007 respectively. The results prior to 2008 did not include KeySpan, so are not directly comparable.

Link to gender and ethnicity data for Senior Management team

Our progress has already received external recognition. We were in The Times/Aurora Where Women Want to Work TOP 50 list for the third year running; made the Stonewall Top 100 for the first time and were short-listed for an ethnicity award. In the US, we scored 100% in the US Human Rights Campaign’s 2008 Corporate Equality Index.

In our 2009 employee survey, 70% (2008: 61%) of respondents considered they were treated fairly by National Grid, while 78% (2008: 76%) of respondents considered that their colleagues treated them with respect and dignity.