Chief Executive's review

Corporate responsibility

2008/09 has been a significant year for Whitbread in terms of our approach to corporate responsibility. We consulted our people and our customers and received a clear mandate to review the existing programme of activities and develop it further into a new business-wide strategy, which I am pleased to be leading personally. We will continue our long history of community engagement through charitable programmes such as the Costa Foundation and our new strategic focus covers the key areas of:

• environment and property management;
• people, culture and values;
• responsible sourcing and supply chain;
• governance, international and brand standards; and
• health and well-being.

I will be supported by a steering group and we are already on the road to embedding corporate responsibility into the heart of our business. We are clear about the opportunity that the new strategy brings for the Company. We will deliver long-term shareholder value and meet the expectations of our customers and people.

Our people

I was delighted when Patrick Dempsey was appointed to the Board at the beginning of 2009. Over the past few years Patrick has led Premier Inn through a period of significant growth and, more recently, successfully integrated the management of Premier Inn with that of our branded restaurants.

We employ 33,000 people at Whitbread and I'd like to thank them all for their hard work and commitment over the last year. It isn't only companies that are affected by these tougher economic times, but many of our people as well. Sometimes, tough decisions have to be made for the good of the Company and I greatly admire the way in which our people are pulling together to deliver the cost savings I mentioned earlier in this review.

At Whitbread we consider recruiting and training the best hospitality people to be a key priority. In these challenging times, the opening of new outlets will create over 1,000 new jobs during 2009/10. Both new and existing team members at Whitbread are now able to participate in our innovative apprenticeship programme, the first and largest employer-led programme of its kind in the hospitality industry. By halving the time that it takes to achieve qualifications and combining NVQ study with Whitbread's induction programme, we anticipate that 20% of our workforce will have a nationally recognised qualification by 2010.

All employees across our UK hotel and restaurants operations are eligible to take part and, by the end of 2009, we expect over 3,000 of our people to have achieved NVQs or certificates in adult numeracy and literacy.

In June 2008, I was very honoured to be awarded a CBE. I see the award as recognition of the performance of Whitbread over the last few years, a performance that wouldn't have been achieved without the people who work here.

Alan Parker, CBE
Chief Executive

27 April 2009