Section 172 Statement

The Section 172 Statement for the year ended 31 December 2022 is below:

 Section 172 Compliance Statement

The below sets out how the directors have met the requirements of s172 of the Companies Act 2006 and it serves as the Company’s Section 172 statement. As set out in section 172(1)(a) to (f) of the Companies Act 2006 the directors have a duty to promote the success of the company and section 172 states:

A director of a company must act in the way he considers, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole, and in doing so have regard (amongst other matters) to:

1. the likely consequences of any decision in the long term;

2. the interests of the company’s employees;

3. the need to foster the company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others;

4. the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment;

5. the desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct; and

6. the need to act fairly as between members of the company.

Shareholders

The Executive Directors of Landmark work very closely with the Board to develop the strategy of the Company which is to be a leading professional workspace provider in the UK and to operate in line with the Landmark Shared Purpose which can be summarised as:

• Generate consistent, sustainable returns in line with industry peers. These returns will come from both income and capital growth, with consistent income generation of primary importance.
• Manage the business within an agreed level of funding and risk, thereby ensuring its safe passage to future family generations.
• Operate with sustainable core values that will deliver the desired future. These values to be based on sound ethical principles and recognising our responsibilities for colleagues, the communities in which we operate and the environment.

The Directors support the above principles and operate in line with the current corporate governance arrangements which the Board have adopted under a scheme of delegated authority. The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer submit and present a monthly operating report to the Board highlighting both financial and non-financial matters which ensures an open and transparent dialogue.

Core Values

Landmark has always been a group driven by its values. As part of the development of Landmark, we are engaging with our customers, colleagues and other stakeholders to understand their views on what is important to them and how they expect us to operate and behave. This consultation will allow us to refresh how we express our values.

Colleagues

The success of the Group is dependent upon our colleagues delivering outstanding service day in and day out but their safety and that of others is paramount in everything we do. We operate on the principle that every colleague, client and visitor deserves to be safe. We are committed to visible leadership from the Board downwards instilling safe behaviours and creating a strong safety culture. This is undertaken by providing colleagues with the correct training and tools to enable them to do their job safely, adopting best practice in our work procedures, empowering colleagues to make the right decisions about their safety and others, reporting health and safety incidents promptly including ‘near misses’, monitoring, reviewing and reporting our health and safety performance accurately and thereby continually improving our health and safety procedures.

The wellbeing of our colleagues is important: we have trained Mental Health First Aiders across our business.  Our colleague assistance programme provides a 24/7 helpline available to all colleagues and their families, providing support and advice for personal issues, helping to identify and resolve personal concerns that may affect job performance. The service is entirely confidential and helps us to retain a happier, healthier workforce. Our flexible benefits platform allows colleagues to choose benefits that suit them, as well as access discounts on gym membership, free online workouts or healthy eating programmes to support their wellbeing.

In March 2022, we held our annual Landmark conference for our colleagues to celebrate achievements and to explain the Group strategy. As part of our overall approach, we engage with our colleagues in many ways to understand their views and encourage participation. The engagement process begins with induction programmes for new colleagues, training, a buddy scheme, e-learning modules, on the job chats, performance and development reviews and colleague surveys along different points of the colleague lifecycle (e.g., at onboarding, exit and regularly through our monthly colleague huddles). This continues with regular communication through the Company intranet which allows two-way feedback, regular management business updates and meetings.

Our colleagues are integral to delivering on the promises we make to our clients. For this reason, we recognise and reward colleagues through our formal Colleague of The Month Recognition Scheme. Our colleagues share in the success of the business through an annual profit performance bonus scheme.

We are a proud supporter of Apprenticeship Programmes and have increased the number of colleagues undertaking qualifications from 1 to 6 in the past 12 months.

Landmark is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce, representative of society and our client base.  Over 93% of our colleagues believe they are treated fairly, irrespective of their race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Customers

We serve a range of clients, from fast-growing companies to established SMEs and start-ups. Because we represent our clients’ businesses, our standards of service must be exceptional every time. In 2022, we conducted a client survey, to which we received over 1,300 responses and Landmark scored an overall Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +51. This puts Landmark amongst the highest scores for any service business.

“Helpfulness of staff” scored 9.0 out of 10 and “Competence of staff” scored 8.9 out of 10. “Ease of doing business with Landmark” scored 8.7 out of 10.

In addition, we created and rolled out a Client Experience Strategy.  Our people are trained across all areas in delivering the strategy at every touchpoint. We hold networking events for our clients at our buildings which assist in fostering good relationships and understanding how we can continuously improve our customer experience. We engage with our clients and their guests on a daily basis and this allows us to understand their needs and how we can help their businesses succeed and feel supported.

Landlords

We operate from 42 centres and have relationships with over 35 landlords and look to foster a positive, proactive and collaborative working relationship to ensure that they are fully aware of our strategy and the development of our business. Our dealings are both direct and through managing agents where we meet as appropriate to discuss any relevant issues under the terms of the leases. Under the terms of our leases we are required to pay service charges which represent a significant cost to the Group. The Group has no direct contractual relationship with the various suppliers of the services covered by service charges, but the Group works with the landlords and managing agents to ensure that the services meet the standards required by the Group and represent value for money.

Suppliers

We actively engage with our suppliers and have open conversations about how they can help us develop. We believe in the value of true collaboration within the supply chain and feel it is vital for success. As each of our clients use part of our supply chain, whether it be the IT infrastructure or the coffee machines we deploy at our centres, the relationship with our suppliers is key to our ability to provide excellent services to our clients. This is particularly relevant when working with design teams and fit-out contractors to ensure the working environments we create meet the needs of our clients. We therefore require a high performing, sustainable supply chain that operates to a consistent set of operating standards. We require our suppliers to adhere to our Core Values and follow our various policies including Healthy and Safety, Modern Slavery and Anti-Bribery. This process builds on the strong preferred supplier contractual arrangements we have built up over many years which fosters an effective relationship. We recognise the importance of payment terms with our suppliers, and agree sustainable terms at the commencement of the trading relationship.

Regulator

Our business is subject to the Money Laundering Regulations and the Group is supervised by HM Revenue and Customs (“HMRC”) under registration number 12808232. The Group pro-actively undertakes training of colleagues in understanding their responsibilities under the Money Laundering Regulations and ensures that the system and processes are in place to ensure compliance.

The Community and the Environment

The Group actively promotes volunteering in the communities within which the business operates. All colleagues are entitled to two paid volunteer days per annum. These activities range from volunteering at homeless shelters to running marathons and undertaking team building events with charitable organisations across the UK.

In February 2023, Landmark entered into its first Corporate Charity Partnership with Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), a suicide prevention, mental health organisation.  The partnership is for an initial period of 12 months with a focus on raising funds and awareness amongst Landmark colleagues and clients to improve mental health and wellbeing to reduce suicide rates in the UK. An annual engagement plan has been developed to encourage maximum participation opportunities for colleagues as we become more intentional about our social impact as an organisation.

Additionally, in support of the climate change commitment, our business is managing its energy consumption and associated costs through the adoption of robust energy management strategies. These include periodically upgrading plant and equipment to improve its reliability and overall efficiency. A number of our centres are now fitted with efficient LED lighting with automatic presence detection. We ensure best value is obtained on all our energy contracts and monitor our consumption and costs every month against specific energy benchmarks. We continue to conduct energy audits and have been able to reduce consumption and identify potential energy saving opportunities. We continue to look at ways to improve our energy performance. Finally, we are continually working in partnership with our landlords, staff and clients to raise awareness on the mutual benefits of better energy efficiency and a lower carbon footprint.