SECTION 172 STATEMENT

Introduction

PEAK recognises the importance of effective corporate governance in supporting the long-term success and sustainability of the business.  The PEAK Board is made up of Statutory Directors, responsible for decisions of strategic significance and Operational Directors who have delegated responsibility for the day to day running of the business.

The PEAK Board sets the tone for the organisation, including culture, values and behaviours that are intended to protect and promote the long-term success of the business.

The Statutory Directors are aware of their duty under s.172 of the Companies Act 2006 to act in the way which they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the Company for the benefit of its shareholders and other stakeholders.  They understand the importance of identifying the impacts of their decisions and, where relevant, the likely consequences of the decisions in the long-term.  The Operational Directors are also fully aware of these requirements.

When making principal decisions, the Directors consider (amongst other matters):

• the likely consequences of any decision in the long term.
• the interests of the Company’s employees.
• the need to foster the Company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers, and others.
• the impact of the Company’s operations on the community and the environment.
• the desirability of the Company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct; and
• the need to act fairly between members of the Company.

Stakeholder Engagement

The Directors have identified several key stakeholders and the engagement activities undertaken through the year.

Employees

PEAK's employees are fundamental to the success of the business.  The Directors strive to ensure all employees feel engaged with, and listened to, about what matters to them and understand the role they play in achieving the business strategy.  The working environment, health and safety, reward, training, progression, and inclusion are all areas of interest to employees, that are consistently considered and reviewed by the Board.

Quarterly work forums take place within the business, between employee representatives and the CEO.  The purpose of these meetings is to provide information and consultation on a range of topics including company performance, business updates, recruitment, headcount, policies, health and wellbeing and employee morale. 

In addition, the business undertakes employees pulse surveys, employee engagement surveys, Town Hall meetings and board members travel consistently to overseas locations to ensure engagement with global employees.

Customers

Customer satisfaction is a priority focus for the business and is a key tenet of the PEAK global brand strength.  Over the past 2 years, the business has invested in dedicated resource and time in implementing best practice, process, and performance measurement to ensure specific customer feedback and issues are dealt with as they arise.

The business monitors customer satisfaction through a number of KPIs, including Net Promoter Score (NPS), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) monitoring, complaints tracking (logging, time to resolution) and average first response time to all customer contact queries received online.

PEAK's approach to customer feedback ensures a continuous loop between customer and all areas of the business, with scrutiny by the Directors to ensure continual improvement and adherence to Peak’s high standards of customer experience.

Suppliers

PEAK work in partnership with its key suppliers with a commitment to integrity and honesty and conducting business in a socially responsible and sustainable way. 

PEAK's suppliers form part of an approved audit programme supplemented with BSI Supply Chain Services and Solutions support, and compliance with ISO14001, the international standard for environmental management systems.  The Directors monitor suppliers conduct and can terminate a relationship in the event the supplier falls short of the standards expected.

The business has a dedicated global procurement team who focuses on developing and managing relationships with suppliers.  This enables the business to improve product quality, introduce regular account review meetings and generate cost savings across the Group.

Local Communities

Contributing to local communities, providing opportunities for local employment, and partnering with local charities is of extreme importance to Peak. 

During the year PEAK signed the Armed Forces Covenant, recognising the value service personnel, reservists and military families bring to our business. Through this covenant, PEAK agreed to seek to support veterans providing an employment pathway for service leavers, offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for service spouses and partners in connection with deployment, support employees who choose to be part of the Reserve forces by accommodating their training and deployment where possible, offer support to local cadet units and actively participate in Armed forces day.

The business also partakes in Graduate and modern apprenticeship programmes.  These schemes effectively allow the business to ‘grow’ its own engineers as there is a marriage between academic learning and doing the work at the same time.

Principal Decisions

The Directors consider principal decisions to be those that are strategic, commercially material and impact the Group’s stakeholders.

Set out below are the principal decisions made on behalf of the Group during the last reporting period:

Approval of dividends

• The Board approved dividends throughout the year totalling £15.2m.
• In reaching its decision to declare the dividends the Board confirmed it considered the impact on the company’s cash position.

 

Appointment of new COO and senior leadership role

• During the year, the Sales Director left the business to pursue other opportunities.
• The Board took this opportunity to review both the Board and global senior management structures required to successfully deliver the strategic aims of the business in the years ahead.
• This resulted in the creation of a COO role and a General Manager for the North America business.
• The new structure was briefed to all members of the senior management team and its success will be monitored against a range of metrics including divisional sales, operational efficiency and profit performance and staff turnover.
• The new structure was communicated to all employees through a Global Announcement with any questions being fed back to the Board.

 

Extending warehouse facilities in Inchinnian

• The PEAK site in Inchinnian has operated as both the Group Head Office and manufacturing site for several years. The site has limited capacity and as such it was deemed necessary to consider options to ensure operational efficiency and growth could continue to be sustained.
• The Board considered several different options regarding capacity and expansion, concluding that a new warehousing facility, close to the main site was in line with strategy and was the most suitable solution.
• The Board have also considered the environmental and wider community impact of the new site and will work with its partners to ensure the project is delivered with attention to these areas.

 

China office expansion

• The PEAK office in China has operated as the PEAK China headquarters for many years.
• With the continued growth of the PEAK China business it was deemed necessary to consider expansion options to support this growth.
• The Board considered the benefit to customers and the local community of expansion in China.
• Several different options regarding capacity and expansion were considered by the Board, concluding that taking on a new lease for a floor in the existing office building was in line with strategy and was the most suitable solution.

Throughout 20/2021, the Board will continue to review and challenge how the company can improve engagement with its employees and stakeholders.

Signed on behalf of the board of Directors.

 

R W H MacGeachy

Chairman