read our FAQs

A. More than 25% of our workforce is over 50, and our oldest employee is 96.

A. All car parks have designated disabled parking bays, near the main store entrance. We provide a range of manual and/or electric wheelchairs and induction loops in all stores. Guide dogs and assistance dogs are welcome in all of our stores. To check what services are available in specific stores please visit our store locator .

A. Since 2009, we have worked closely with City & Guilds in order to launch five nationally recognised qualifications:

• - The Level 2 Certificate in Retail Skills
• - The Level 2 Diploma in Retail Skills (Selling Specialised Eco Products)
• - The Level 3 Diploma in Retail Management
• - The Home Improvement Knowledge Qualification
• - The Apprenticeship in Retailing Qualification

All our qualifications are mapped to in-house learning and performance solutions to enable our people to achieve their qualifications whilst 'on the job'. More than 15,000 members of staff have gained a nationally recognised qualification since 2009.

A. We offer support through a range of community initiatives. Visit our community section for more information.

A. Our charity partnerships are reviewed and evaluated on an annual basis. B&Q's charity partnership programme is currently full, and the next review will be in autumn 2013. Unfortunately we are unable to deal with any enquiries about future programmes until this time.

A. We only permit our current charity partners to undertake fundraising in our stores and regret that we are unable to consider additional requests.

A. As a responsible company we have adopted strict buying agreements and rigorous quality management processes to oversee our suppliers and help them to achieve the highest ethical standards.

We work closely with nearly 500 suppliers from around the world to ensure that guidelines addressing employment practices, health and safety, quality of product and environmental performance are properly adhered to.

We have a social and environmental programme called QUEST (Quality, Ethics and Safety), which work alongside our quality assurance systems and specialists. We require our suppliers to adhere to the codes of conduct set out in QUEST and report on them, which provides us with information on their environmental management systems and ethical management processes. We also request a life cycle assessment of products supplied to us along with data relating to their environmental track record and targets.

As part of this programme, and in recognition of the fact we have a large, complex supply chain, we have joined SEDEX - a web-based system that provides a membership based data exchange. The system enables members to input information, (for example a factory can input when it was last audited) and members of SEDEX are able to extract this information). Our membership to SEDEX provides us with greater visibility at all levels of our supply chain. It also leads to a reduction in the number of audits a production site may face as SEDEX acts by sharing this information.