The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise were established in 1965 and are the highest official recognition for British businesses. The highly-respected honours are given to companies that excel within areas such as International Trade, Innovation and Sustainable Development. Promoting Opportunity through Social Mobility is a new category for 2017 and recognises organisations that are providing high quality initiatives and programmes that specifically reach out to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Procure Plus Holdings specialises in the procurement of goods and services for the social housing sector, and generates a surplus that it uses to fund training and development programmes within the communities where its clients live.

In the last eight years, it has helped more than 1,320 people into sustainable employment by providing these opportunities. People selected for its range of programmes are those most requiring support and are often regarded as the furthest from the job market, including ex-offenders.

Explaining why Procure Plus Holdings was chosen as a recipient of a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, organisers highlighted the long-term support that it offers, with 83% of its candidates completing a level 2 qualification or apprenticeship or remaining in employment beyond six months.