Babcock International has appointed Royal British Veterans Enterprise as an approved signage supplier, giving teams across the defence company a route to buy standard and bespoke signage from a manufacturer whose workforce is largely made up of veterans and people with disabilities, according to the organisation.
Signage can now be ordered through the Babcock procurement portal and is manufactured at the enterprise’s social enterprise sites in Kent and Glasgow, which between them cover safety, compliance, wayfinding and project-specific requirements. The arrangement gives Babcock a single UK-wide service while putting measurable social value into its supply chain.
More than seventy per cent of the manufacturing workforce are veterans, people with disabilities, or both, so procurement spend feeds directly into sustainable employment, skills development and workforce inclusion.
Colin Harsant, managing director of social enterprise at Royal British Veterans Enterprise, said: “This agreement represents the best of purpose-led procurement. By choosing RBVE, Babcock is strengthening resilient UK supply chains, supporting sovereign manufacturing capability and helping to create sustainable employment opportunities for those who have served our country. We look forward to building a long-term partnership that delivers operational excellence alongside meaningful social value.”
Ewan Sime, global director of procurement and supply chain at Babcock, said: “At Babcock, we want our procurement decisions to deliver value well beyond the products and services we buy. Our new agreement with Royal British Veterans Enterprise gives our teams access to a high-quality, UK-wide signage service while helping to create sustainable employment and skills opportunities for veterans and people with disabilities. It is a great example of how we can work with our suppliers to strengthen our supply chain, support the Armed Forces community and deliver meaningful social value through the way we do business.”
Babcock’s involvement goes beyond the supplier agreement, and its colleagues raised £26,668 for this year’s Great Tommy Sleep Out, the campaign that funds housing, support services and routes back into employment for homeless veterans.
The organisation has supplied customers in the construction, infrastructure and defence sectors, and its manufacturing arms trade as Britain’s Bravest Manufacturing Company and Scotland’s Bravest Manufacturing Company.
Social value now carries weight in the scoring of British public contracts, and prime contractors have to show what their spending delivers beyond the goods themselves.
