Social
We do more than build high quality homes across multiple tenures in Scotland. From our employees and subcontractors to our suppliers to our customers and those in the wider communities in which we are building – looking after people is a key part of our ethos within the Springfield Group.
Looking after our employees
As a major employer across Scotland, we are proud to create a culture where everyone can thrive. We published our first Equality Diversity and Inclusion Policy in 2022. In addition to undertaking ongoing reviews, a formal review of our EDI policy will take place every three years. The first review is currently underway and due to be published in September 2025. We recruit based on the best person for the job, have an excellent Gender Pay Gap performance and are members of a number of charities who offer our staff, subcontractors and their families a wide range of support.
Investment in skills
Our extensive expertise in the sector gives us a responsibility to support the next generation to develop skills and forge their career paths. To achieve this aim, we dedicate significant resource to upskilling our staff to ensure they have the knowledge, skills and expertise to successfully progress.
Apprenticeships are an integral part of our company’s ethos and something that will continue to play a vital role in our success. Welcoming our first apprentices in 2002, we have always sought to create a workplace where everyone can thrive. We’ve maintained this ethos as we’ve grown in size from less than 50 employees 20 years ago to over 600 today and our commitment to apprenticeships and other formal training has been consistent and exemplary.
Over the years, we have supported hundreds of people to achieve their qualifications and we operate one of the largest apprenticeship programmes in Scotland. 21.7% of our site workers are undertaking apprenticeships, including craft, modern and technical disciplines. Meanwhile, 6.2% of our office employees are undertaking formal learning and development qualifications.
Andrew Carr is a first-year apprentice bricklayer has been doing especially well during his studies and on site. He was selected to take part in the CITB SkillBuild competition in 2023 and has been an advocate of apprenticeships, going above and beyond by speaking at his former high school to highlight the benefits an apprenticeship can offer. You can hear Andrew's story here:
Whilst apprenticeships are fantastic for the individual, they are also great for the business too. Across The Springfield Group, through our work with apprenticeships, we’ve secured local supply of labour, something that can often be a challenge in more remote locations, while creating staff loyalty and good staff retention.
Wellbeing
With suicide rates within the construction industry above the national average, we are keen to change the perception of mental health within the business and get people talking about mental wellbeing, a notion very much supported by our Board.
Many of our employees across the Group have carried out some form of Mental Health training, from Mental Health awareness courses to Mental Health First Aid training and suicide prevention. Contact information for staff who are qualified is readily available and published on the staff on our intranet, inSite, for those who may need support.
In addition, we support The Lighthouse Club – a mental health support charity exclusively for those within the construction sector and their families. The partnership, focusing specifically on the ‘Help Inside the Hard Hat’ campaign, provides resources to display across construction sites with contact information for the construction industry helpline to help normalise speaking about mental wellbeing.
Our initiatives in mental health and wellbeing are offered to sub-contractors working on our construction sites, as well as our direct employees and we have written out to contractors to ensure they are aware of this benefit.
All of our employees have access to an assistance scheme which provides independent and confidential support on a wide variety of issues, helping employees to work towards realistic, achievable solutions.
It is widely documented that leading an active lifestyle has many physical and mental health benefits and we are pleased to also support our employees with free gym memberships, private health care and comprehensive occupational health service as part of our wider commitment to the wellbeing of our people.
Customer Satisfaction
The customer is at the heart of everything we do. We pride ourselves in the care we offer to our customers through the home buying journey and long after they have moved in.
We monitor customer satisfaction through regular surveys, carried out independently by a specialist company ‘In-House’ to ensure the accuracy and validity of our results. In financial year 2023/24, we achieved an overall customer satisfaction rating of over 96%.
In addition to the rating the feedback our customers provide, we also carefully consider the qualitative feedback that they offer us through the surveys and consider what improvements we could make to our operations in response. Examples have included the provision of instruction videos for the use of air source heating systems and also an online platform for customers to access information about their home as and when they require it to cut-down on email communications.
In fact, these videos are one of the ways we go further for our customers and help them to live sustainably in their home. To ensure our customers were benefitting from the cost and environmental benefits of air source, we created an online guide for them to refer to as much as required.
We also provided training materials to our sales consultants outlining the environmental benefits of our new build homes, and an accompanying resource for customers.
Community Engagement
We know it takes more than houses to create a home. Alongside creating quality, energy efficient homes and looking after our people, we are committed to doing all we can to create sustainable communities for families to enjoy for years to come.
Springfield has a unique approach to community engagement. Working with communities from pre-planning stages, throughout construction and after residents have moved in, it’s important to us our residents, regardless of tenure, feel part of their neighbourhood. We engage with residents on matters that are not captured in the realm of After Sales and those in the wider community in areas we are building to ensure the benefits of housebuilding are enjoyed across the community.
In our more engaged communities, like our village developments, we regularly engage with community councils to address topics that matter most to them.
Springfield Villages
Our Village developments offer an excellent example of how our approach to delivery goes far beyond the houses we are building. We currently have active Village developments in Dundee and Perth and we work closely with the community to promote community spirit through seasonal events such as Community Christmas trees, with Santa visits to Summer fetes with ice cream and to address community needs. In autumn 2024, the Bertha Park community expressed interest in hosting a Christmas market with a Santa’s Grotto, showcasing local businesses within the village and bringing residents together. Rather than hosting our own Santa’s grotto, we financially supported the community led event.
The Dykes of Gray community has been proactive, utilising local schemes and funding, to create an accessible walking and wheel route to the nearby supermarket. We have supported them on this venture and in May 2025, the path was open for public use. The community were keen to mark the occasion with a family fun day, which Springfield supported with bouncy castle hire and catering.
We regularly support local groups, charities, schools and organisations with various donations throughout the year. Keen to engage the residents within our villages in this process, we launched a Christmas Cheer initiative in 2025. We wrote to the communities in each of our villages encouraging them to nominate causes close to their heart that operate in the area. Three nominated charities from each development received a £500 donation from Springfield, on behalf of the community, for Christmas.
Learn more about our engagement with the village communities, in this short video:
Work with schools
Community engagement has underpinned the success of our business for generations, and we have a number of initiatives in place to create opportunities in the areas where we develop. It is also a central component of our early year careers strategy, and allows us to engage with young people at an early stage, and open their eyes to the opportunities available within the industry.
Some recent examples of our works with schools include class talks, a litter picking campaign, and a competition to design hedgehog highways.
Affordable housing
Founded on the principle that everyone in Scotland deserves a good home, Springfield is proud to deliver housing across tenures. Springfield Partnerships was established in 2002 and has delivered over 4,300 homes. In financial year 2023/24, 33% of homes delivered by Springfield were affordable built for Housing Association and Local Authority Partners. 75% of the affordable homes delivered that year were for Social Rent and 25% for Mid Market Rent. Further information on Springfield Partnerships can be found here.
Planning
Expanding on the work we already do with community engagement, we have introduced our own good practice standards for community engagement within the planning and design process, going beyond the minimum requirements. For planning applications that are classed as ‘major’, which usually involve the delivery of over 50 homes, as well as hosting two public consultation events to increase accessibility and encourage more people to engage we will host an on-line Q&A session and offer our engagement through the local primary school. This ensures the local community feels more engaged with the opportunity to help shape the new development.
On top of this, in areas where there is already an active community group or council, we are on hand to field any enquiries they may have and provide regular updates about the progress of our development to ensure transparency.
In Newtonmore, ahead of site launch, we held two public events. One for residents to attend to learn more about the specifics of the development, timescales for delivery and about sponsorship opportunities and a second for local trades, suppliers and contractors to identify opportunities where we can work together on the project. We found this approach to be very rewarding for both us, giving us an opportunity to better understand the wider community and engage with local businesses, and for the community.
Supporting the wider community
Across the Springfield Group we’re keen to support local groups, charities and organisations in communities where we are working. We believe that donations to small, local charities proportionally make a bigger difference than those given to a large, national charity. We also believe that smaller local charities or groups benefit from powerful local reach, giving them a strong understanding of a community’s needs.
That’s why we look to support smaller causes with a focus on mental wellbeing, young people, the elderly or those who are disadvantaged in some way. In the last financial year alone, we supported 75 local charities, groups and organisations across Scotland.
Health and Safety
The Springfield Group is committed to ensuring that all aspects of Health and Safety is a priority across its operations. We promote a positive culture to ensure safe working at Springfield for all employees, subcontractors and visitors within our sites, our sales centres, our kit factories and within each of our offices.
Springfield has a comprehensive health & safety management system across all parts of the Group and is supported by an independent SHEQ team, headed up by our Group SHEQ Director. We secured ISO 45001 certification in November 2024. We have a site inspection strategy that includes visits from our Group SHEQ Director. We have an established training matrix by role which we deliver across the Group.
We closely monitor and report on Health & Safety performance to our Board and to regulatory bodies where required. The Accident Incidence Rate (AIR) is used to benchmark performance within the UK housebuilding industry. It is calculated by the number of incidents divided by the average number of people in employment in the 12-month reference period. In the financial year 2023/24 we calculate that we had an AIR rate of 703, down from 763 in 2022/23. We are pleased with the direction of travel of our AIR which reflects the focus on Health & Safety, which is no measured consistently across the Group.