Pictons Staff Support Milton Keynes Food Bank

An exercise in testing the company’s business back up plans has led to the staff at Pictons, a leading Milton Keynes law firm, making a generous contribution to the Milton Keynes Food Bank.

Pictons is Lexcel accredited, the highest accolade any law firm can receive from the Law Society in the UK. In order to retain this prestigious accreditation it is essential for the company to ensure that it has a Business Continuity Plan in the event of a power failure or similar disaster, so that the company can respond quickly and any interruption of work on behalf of its clients will be kept to a minimum.

Anil Virji, a Partner at Pictons who is based at the company’s Milton Keynes office explains “Business continuity is vital not only for us as a firm but also for our clients. We need to check our business continuity plan periodically as part of achieving Lexcel accreditation so I put this to the test.

“One of the key tests involved our ability to communicate with all of our staff and I came up with an idea which would also benefit the local community. I sent everyone a text message early one morning asking them to bring in a tin of food to their office on that day and leave them with reception. I knew that if they all brought in what we had requested it meant that we could communicate with staff at all times.

“The activity was extremely successful with 93% of staff responding and we received lots of tins of food from across all four of our offices. I then collected all the tins with the intention of giving them to the Milton Keynes Food Bank.”

Anil has now delivered the food to the Food Bank and he says “I was so moved by the essential work they do at the Food Bank that I picked up another box so that we can continue to collect donations of tins and other foodstuffs from our generous staff and make regular drops to the Food Bank. It’s not a big deal for most people to add a tin or two to their weekly shop yet I’ve seen what a big difference it can make to people who really need our support.”

Rebecca Savage, the Business Development Manager at the Milton Keynes Food Bank says “Support from companies like Pictons is essential to us ensuring no child or adult goes to bed hungry in our city. We are so grateful and loved the novel idea of Pictons using a server-test message to encourage staff to donate. We want to say a big thank you to all the staff who brought in a food donation and made a big difference to the needy in our city. We are grateful for their generosity and would like to encourage other companies to come up with similar schemes to get their staff involved in donating to us.

“Although Milton Keynes is a fairly prosperous place there are sadly many families who, from time to time, need to rely on The Food Bank. We are seeing a 68% increase in the number of food parcels we are giving out compared to this time last year. Welfare reforms as well as the rising cost of food and fuel are driving more families to The Food Bank. As a local charity we provide food parcels that last a family or individual three to four days and clients can access the service up to 5 times in a 12 month period to ensure they do not go hungry during a crisis. We really appreciate the companies and people who help us with supplies and resources.”