Leveraging our expertise to drive disability equality
Shaping Scope’s leadership and retail strategy to create a more equal future
Imagine a world that serves everyone
With 16 million disabled individuals in the UK, who are nearly twice as likely to face unemployment, it's vital that firms like ours play a role in advancing the inclusion agenda.
As a part of our societal impact programme, 5 Million Futures, Scope
was selected as one of our national charity partnerships. Over the last six years, our colleagues have supported Scope in various ways, including using their professional skills to deliver eight transformational pro bono projects.
Scope places great value in our pro bono support as evidenced by them frequently opting for our pro bono support over conventional donations.
Here, we highlight three examples of our pro bono work, each playing a vital role in helping Scope create a more accessible society.
"Nobody teaches you about leadership"
Watch this interview of Mark Hodgkinson, CEO of disability charity Scope and Tom Holton, Leadership Specialist at Deloitte, as they discuss a journey of change which is transforming senior leaders at Scope.
A journey of leadership, development and change
Mark Hodgkinson, Scope’s CEO, reached out to Deloitte for support in developing a new strategy to drive essential transformative change for the organisation. In response, we collaborated with Deloitte’s Executive Board Programmes to create a bespoke Transition Lab for Mark. Transition Labs are workshops designed to help executives hit the ground running, developing a plan for success.
The immersive day-long workshop used proven facilitation techniques. It helped Mark frame his priorities for the next 12 months, understand team and talent issues, and strategies for maximising success. Mark emerged from the workshop with a clear action plan. This approach allowed him to establish a roadmap, metrics, and an operating model for the new strategy whilst empowering his teams to take accountability.
In addition, Anna Burman, Scope’s Executive Director of Finance and Technology, attended Deloitte’s Next Generation CFO Academy. The workshop provided her with access to training and a network of peers, offering valuable opportunities for growth and collaboration.
To further strengthen Scope’s leadership, bespoke coaching was also provided to their Executive Team by one of Deloitte’s leadership specialists, Tom Holton. The coaching focused on building trust, coherence, and improving the team's
ability to navigate change.
Finally, to understand more fully Scope’s use of data and analytics, a specialised team in Deloitte worked with them to understand where analytics would add value to their operations and growth. This intensive exercise offered Scope insights on their data maturity and helped them determine how to improve their effectiveness. This has enabled Scope to begin the journey of transforming into a confident insight driven organisation.
Ultimately, the main measure of success has been the positive feedback from the Scope leadership teams.
“The transformation across the Leadership Team has been huge. Our Executive Leadership Team has become approachable, honest and open, and they empower the wider leadership group. Heads are more unified and committed to Scope's new strategy. Unlike before, we all understand that we need to work differently and collaboratively to achieve our goals.”
Krissie Barrick, Head of Business Influencing, Scope
Charting Scope’s retail strategy to create a roadmap for funding and community support
Scope's 160 retail outlets across England and Wales play a crucial role in helping them fulfil their mission of achieving an equal society. Recognising this, we undertook a data-driven pro bono project on their retail estate strategy.
We helped Scope identify their existing assets, whilst exploring their potential to grow community outreach. This also included understanding the specific needs of disabled and vulnerable people in their communities.
Our work helped Scope improve their store network to make sure they benefit Scope financially, aiding the local neighbourhood. We enabled them to measure how valuable their store network is for reaching out to people in the locality. Finally, we explored tailored ways to increase the impact of individual stores by championing existing local outreach providers.
Post the pandemic, as people spend more time online, there has been a rise in individuals feeling isolated and vulnerable, making community outreach and volunteering more important than ever.
The stores that Scope own and operate can play a significant role in furthering disability equality within communities. This project set the roadmap to transform Scope stores into hubs of support and funding, bringing together volunteers and partnerships.
“Our Deloitte partners have unlocked some incredible insights for us through in-depth analysis of our store estate data. This will help us bring to life our community strategy. The profiling of our existing volunteer resource will enable us to understand more about our supporter base and how we can continue to grow this.”
Emma Morgan, Head of Transformation, Retail, Scope
AI for all
Digital inclusion is one of the pillars of our 5 Million Futures programme. As a part of this commitment, we gave Scope free access and training to PairD, our internal Generative AI platform. This will not only help Scope explore the potential of AI, it will also help us identify the barriers disabled people face when using it, enabling us to customise PairD to be a more inclusive and responsible tool for business.
A collaborative partnership
Through our work with Scope’s disability inclusion experts on our projects, we have progressed on our own journey towards being a more accessible and inclusive organisation. What initially began as a conventional charitable partnership has now evolved into something that will influence both organisations, benefit countless disabled peoples’ lives and help create meaningful change in society.
Get in touch
Ben Leitch
Employability Lead, Responsible Business
Tel: +44 1727 88 4343
Email: baleitch@deloitte.co.uk
